Mao II (2) - Don DeLillo - Book Review

A writer who is preparing his new novel in decades, not leave home and live more normal lives. A poet but was kidnapped by terrorists in Beirut, it is now hostage. A photographer portrays his car only writers, while all around the world seems to be a vortex of senseless masses, fears, anxieties subways.
Some passages are cited in which the Twin Towers and the WTC, they come the goosebumps.
And then the initial description of Yankee Stadium and mass weddings is fantastic.

A child's book bibliography of Don DeLillo, who also shows his incredible ability to combine a tight narrative, intriguing, exciting, a storyline that incorporates ideas from thriller to romance noir, news and topical tale of metafiction.
Bill Gray is a writer. In the past, wrote novels that have made the history of American literature, but has never bent the rules of literary stardom. He lives hidden in the company of alcohol and his agent Scott - and the companion of the latter sex, Karen - that made him invisible to the masses, gradually hiding and creating a great case of "mystery writer" and disappeared from the shelves . Meanwhile, the photographer Brita Nilsson - who works as a photographer writers - will dedicate its next needle him. And in Beirut, a young Swiss official (and poet) is held captive by a group of terrorists.

Bill Gray, however, wants to return to play with the world and with life. His book is perhaps ready to be printed, but he wants to do more, wants to act in a society that is mainly mediated and media representation, in which if you're not appearing in videos, in which terrorist groups rise to headlines newscasts and through gestures and gory details.
The lives of these characters intertwine in Mao II, which is the ninth novel by a major American writers and portrays modern society with all its anxieties, fears for the near future. A novel about literature and the role of the writer in this society, but also reports, terrorism and failures made by the mass society and mass media (that make us poorer, alone, atomized).

Ideas for the story, of course - of course the title - the paintings of Andy Warhol symbol of pop culture, and the idea of the writer and hidden away from the media system (Pynchon, Salinger), who fights only through literature, but often unnecessary as well as his struggle is also impossible (Gray's new novel has an infinite gestation).
Many insights scattered throughout the novel, and if we think the book is the 1992 you can see above the capacity of the prophetic text - we talk about terrorism and use of mass media by these groups - and the strong link text has with the United States today: a great nation in crisis, a great nation that is afraid of the neighbor, who is at war with an invisible enemy and fierce (as throughout the West, on the other hand).

The whole book is pervaded by a sense of dread and unease permanent, as if something should suddenly happen irreparable disaster unexpected and devastating. To increase this sense of unease contribute dialogues - disillusioned, cynical, low bone, apparently unnecessary - and a sense of inadequacy in the company of the writer Gray, who for too long segregated and hidden in the house, no longer recognizes the world to which it belongs. That perhaps does not deserve it.

DeLillo's writing penetrates deep, thanks to an excellent translation of Delphine Vezzosi, and leaves an aftertaste and a vaguely anguished lynchiano still terribly current