Delillo’s style – sparse, precise, analytical, understated – flourishes in the short form.
pp.211
Published: Picador, 2011
There are a few novelists I would place in the exclusive
category of ‘genius’. Beckett, Joyce and Dickens jump instantly to mind. I
think an important aspect of the criteria for this group is an obsession with
one facet of existence: for Joyce this is language; for Beckett it is the lack
of language, creating silence out of words; for Dickens it is an obsession with
the class divide, with physical and emotional suffering, often perpetuated by
financial difficulties. These are themes that each writer has pursued
ceaselessly throughout their lives. While these are immensely simplified
summaries of the authors’ bodies of work, it is clear to see that when they
were writing they were intensely preoccupied by certain ideas and that they
explored them trenchantly.
Don Delillo works in a similar way to these authors,
hammering incessantly at his own preoccupation – the divide between the real
and the imagined. And I feel that he works best in the short story format, as
this collection clearly demonstrates.
The author often places us in an extreme setting in order to
heighten the psychological issues that surround us from day to day. This is
most noticeable in the second story, ‘Human Moments in World War III’. Set in
space, it follows the musings of two astronauts confined on an orbital mission
above the earth, alone. Though the narrator wishes to limit their discussions
to what he calls ‘human moments’ (the small, prosaic details that bring them
down to earth, so to speak, like a photograph of a family member), the
‘engineering genius’ Vollmer is determined to talk about the impending war,
mass consciousness, and the flickering, fickle nature of health and happiness.
The narrator is mostly reduced to thinking his replies, rather than saying them
out loud, and is very much a victim of thoughts that are too desolate and
intense for him to contemplate.
Perhaps the most significant story of the collection is not in
fact the title piece, but a story from the final of three sets, ‘Midnight in
Dostoevsky’. Here we have the most intensified, internally-directed story of
the bunch. Two students walk the streets, talking, arguing, when they begin to
wonder about the life of an old man they continually see wandering in the cold
fog. As they create an imagined existence around this vague and mysterious
figure, from his nationality (‘Middle Europe … Eastern Europe’) down to the
finest detail, such as the fact that ‘he has very little feeling in his
extremities’, the narrator’s, Robby’s, strange professor becomes vital to their
creative process. By the end, Delillo leaves a shadow of uncertainty as we
wonder whether an imagined version of a person is as real as the real version.
The final story explores very similar concepts, though it
captures with greater impact the disparity and the odd kind of conflict between
the real and the imagined. A cinema-obsessed man begins stalking a woman who
similarly frequently attends movie showings. He creates a life for her in his
head as he follows her between cinemas and home. Their confrontation in the
bathrooms at one of the theatres is mystifying and frightening.
If these stories come across here as overly intellectual, or
abstract even, then I can assure you that they aren’t. They are oddly grounded and
relevant to our times. They contain compelling plotlines and use these to look
deeper into the everyday. Delillo’s style – sparse, precise, analytical,
understated – flourishes in the short form. These stories are quick yet
finely-tuned surgical incisions into the psychological complexities that
surround us. I cannot recommend this collection highly enough. It is a perfect
panoramic view of the author’s career from the first story, written in 1979, to
the last, 2011. And yet they each develop further Delillo’s obsessions as a
writer.
Read the bewildering 'Midnight in Doestoevsky' here - http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/11/30/midnight-in-dostoevsky
