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Set against the backdrop of a lush and exotic Greece, The Names is considered the book which began to drive "sharply upward the size of his readership" (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Among the cast of DeLillo's bizarre yet fully realized characters in The Names are Kathryn, the narrator's estranged wife; their son, the six-year-old novelist; Owen, the scientist; and the neurotic narrator obsessed with his own neuroses. A thriller, a mystery, and still a moving examination of family, loss, and the amorphous and magical potential of language itself, The Names stands with any of DeLillo's more recent and highly acclaimed works.
"The Names not only accurately reflects a portion of our contemporary world but, more importantly, creates an original world of its own."--Chicago Sun-Times
"DeLillo sifts experience through simultaneous grids of science and poetry, analysis and clear sight, to make a high-wire prose that is voluptuously stark."--Village Voice Literary Supplement
"DeLillo verbally examines every state of consciousness from eroticism to tourism, from the idea of America as conceived by the rest of the world to the idea of the rest of the world as conceived by America, from mysticism to fanaticism."--New York Times
"The Names not only accurately reflects a portion of our contemporary world but, more importantly, creates an original world of its own."--Chicago Sun-Times
"DeLillo sifts experience through simultaneous grids of science and poetry, analysis and clear sight, to make a high-wire prose that is voluptuously stark."--Village Voice Literary Supplement
"DeLillo verbally examines every state of consciousness from eroticism to tourism, from the idea of America as conceived by the rest of the world to the idea of the rest of the world as conceived by America, from mysticism to fanaticism."--New York Times
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3.0 out of 5 stars
A miss for me,
By Dave Brooks "the digital buffalo" (Brooklyn) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Names (Paperback)
I eagerly began reading The Names, my first Delillo novel, assuming I would be adding him to my rotation of can't-miss authors. I agree with other posters, Delillo's characters are very well developed, complicated and believable, and Delillo demonstrates true skill as a writer. Unfortunately, as a coherent story, this book was a miss for me. I consider myself a sophisticated enough reader to handle most fiction but this novel was confusing - perhaps esoteric? It was hard at times to figure out who was speaking to whom and to remember characters that were introduced earlier in the novel. I plodded through hoping to find links that would pull the story together but they eluded me. I won't rule out giving Delillo another try, however, based on my experience with The Names, I'm in no rush.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good primer for the later stuff,
By
This review is from: The Names (Paperback)
Delillo would get better, but those later novels prove that these early novels weren't some kind of weird writing fluke, while the novels from this period prove that he didn't exactly come out of nowhere. All of the classic elements of Delillo are already in place, the razor sharp prose that forms intricate and effortless rhythms where you think the words were always supposed to fall together that way, while the dialogue snaps back and forth like a live wire, even when the characters are talking languidly, and the characters themselves, both sharply defined and vaguely drawn, studies in contrasts. The plot here has something to do with language and a cult that is killing people for reasons that might have to do with language, while "risk analyist" James Axton ponders being separated from his wife and what all this travelling really means. What does it mean? It means the reader get a very meditative novel, carried along mostly by shifting from character study to character study, from observation to observation. For the most part it's a joy just watching everyone interact, the cult plot for the most part never becomes more than secondary and in fact most of the plot is secondary, you get more of a sense that you're peeking in on the lives of real (and very flawed) people. If Delillo wasn't such a master at crafting prose then all of this would come across as highly boring but he can make the descriptions of even the most static scenes and the most mundane thoughts crackle with a strange kind of energy, where behind the flat events sparks a vital sort of life. Probably more experienced than actually read, and not something for people who are expecting an exotic suspense thriller along the lines of what's currently in the movies (though it is exotic and you do get a good feel for the countries that are visited) it's for those who admire charactization and insightful prose over deft plotting . . . Delillo would sharpen all of these traits even further later on but if you want to see where it all came from and how it all started, this novel is one of the places to begin to look.
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Heights?,
This review is from: The Names (Paperback)
Though White Noise--the academic novel meets family sitcom meets apocalyptic event--is more directly humorous and linearly plotted and Mao II--the author and the terrorist--has more immediate relevance to September 11 and Underworld--individuals in the shadow of the Cold War--operates on a grander scale, The Names may be the most successful DeLillo novel. As with the other books I've listed, don't approach The Names with the hopes that it will reach a clean resolution. But, even if somewhat infuriating, the experience will nonetheless be rewarding. DeLillo's skill at crafting sentences that stay with you, that make you laugh, that strike you as impossibly true has never been greater than in The Names. The book's "failure" may be that the individual sentences, the exchanges between the various couples are more satisfying, certainly less flat than the larger plot--the cult with their patterns. But the latter provides an element of suspense, of genuine scariness that gives the former a great immediacy. This book will stay with you if you give it a chance.
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