Point Omega, Don DeLillo’s latest book, is an experiment in minimalism. In under 120 pages, DeLillo tells the story of a filmmaker who travels to the desert of the American Southwest. He’s working on a project about an academic who worked with the United States government to plan the Iraq War. They stay in his house for a while, eating omelettes and occasionally talking. Elster’s daughter Jessie comes to stay with them, sent by her mother, who worries that Jessie’s boyfriend may be a stalker, or maybe just vaguely creepy. One day, Jessie just vanishes into thin air.
That’s not all that happens—the main section is bookended by an unnamed character’s trips to the Museum of Modern Art in New York to watch 24-Hour Psycho, a real video project by the Scottish artist Douglas Gordon. It’s Hitchcock’s film, muted and slowed down so it lasts for an entire day, looped continuously whenever the museum is open. It’s clear that this man spends a lot of time watching the video, and these are the moments in this book when DeLillo is most expressive. He lingers over the scenes of killing in the film (it’s impossible not to linger, since it’s happening at less than a twelfth of its actual speed). There’s a moment that seems may or may not connect to the story of the Elsters, but DeLillo leaves it ambiguous.
In this book, DeLillo writes in short, lean sentences, and for the most part, foregoes adjectives. He makes a point of describing Jessie as mysterious and almost otherworldly, but that’s the biggest problem with the book—since she’s barely there in the beginning, it doesn’t seem to matter when she isn’t.
The title refers to a concept that the narrator meditates on, coined by French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Omega point is a point that the universe is evolving toward, the maximum level of complexity and consciousness. Consciousness is a major theme here, along with time and violence, but nothing really comes together.
I like DeLillo, but this doesn’t seem to be a book for liking (or disliking.) It’s one for maybe apprciating, and mulling over for a while. I liked Underworld for the way it crammed so many stories and characters into one sprawling story. DeLillo’s gone in the opposite direction here, and while the book is well-written, it left me feeling empty and apathetic and disoriented. Maybe that was the point.
Pingback: One Day We’d Be Fighting In A Suburban War | Book Plotz