Mao II

Mao II
By Don DeLillo

I think Don DeLillo might have superpowers. Although his ability to write dialog that makes me want to kill myself on the off-chance Heaven exists and is filled with his characters is close, that's not what I'm talking about. I think Don DeLillo is psychic. I don't mean he-picks-up-the-phone-before-it-rings psychic, I mean really psychic. What makes me think that? Mao II is about a lot of things (as all of his books I've read are) but one of the major themes is terrorism and it's relation to art, which isn't that strange since terrorism is a major motif in our current society. The Twin Towers also figure largely in Mao II, hardly a scene goes by in the New York setting without them being referenced. This is only strange because Mao II was published in 1991, 10 years before 9/11. That's why I think Don DeLillo is psychic. I think Don DeLillo predicted 9/11.
Okay, I don't actually think that, but it was fucking eerie. It's strange how something that happened 10 years after the book's publication can permanently change its meaning. I'd read the passages about terrorism and think of how someone would have read them 10 years earlier. At the time, musing on the rivalry between terrorists and novelists must have seemed like an exercise in stilted philosophical musing, while now it cuts to the very core.
Mao II is about the reclusive novelist Bill Gray, his two assistants and a photographer named Brita who takes pictures only of novelists. Bill is her toughest find, as he has secluded himself pretty damn well. But the two immediately hit it off and their dialog is some of the best I've ever read. The discuss death and artistic representation so without small talk that it's made clear they aren't two individual characters, but rather two incarnations of the same god who happened to run into each other. That god is DeLillo.
The book makes points about the nature of crowd behavior contrasting (one of Gray's assistants was a Moonie) with isolation in a fascinating way. Both focus around the central theme of death. When Gray is roped into trying to resolve a terrorist hostage scenario, he runs up against the edge of his isolation as well as his capabilities as a novelist.
Mao II does have a few problems. DeLillo seems uncommitted to the character of Scott, Gray's assistant. He seems out of place in the novel. DeLillo also writes of the sexual relationships like he's bored with them and I couldn't help but react the same way.
But overall Mao II is an incredibly quick and engaging read (I think it took me two days). Someone else should go read it so I have someone to discuss it with, because it's that kind of book.