Mah, non ho capito cosa volesse dirmi Don con questo libro. It seems to be a rather complex and perhaps overly abstract work. This grand reflection on loss and the ghosts that inhabit our lives is quite profound. I struggle to fully grasp the intended message. The concepts presented are not easily accessible and require deeper thought and analysis. Maybe with more time and a closer reading, I will be able to understand the true essence of what Don was trying to convey.

Rey and Laura, husband and wife, rented a large, sprawling, and isolated house near the sea. Laura was Rey's third wife.

One fateful day, Rey went to his first wife's house. There, alone, he sat on a chair and took his own life by blowing his brains out with a gun.

Now by herself, Laura chose to remain in the rented seaside house until the lease expired. One day, she discovered a retarded man in one of the rooms of the big house. He couldn't communicate properly but had apparently observed Laura and Rey secretly before Rey's suicide. He remembered what they said alone and to each other and could speak as "Rey" [repeating what he had heard Rey say:] and sometimes as "Laura". Sometimes he would alternate, as if Laura and Rey were having a conversation, repeating exchanges they had when Rey was still alive.

Later, it was revealed that the man was a relative of the house owner who had been sent to a mental institution before Rey and Laura rented the house. But he had escaped and managed to return to the house on his own. Laura felt a strange bond with this retard who sometimes sounded like Rey, but he was later taken back to the mental institution.

Laura was a body artist, using the body to express her art, both her own and others'. After the lease expired, she left. But feeling lonely, she returned to the house, alone and still lonely.

The end.

This simple story might seem unremarkable at first. But it's included in the "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" because of what Don DeLillo did with it. He added depth and detail to the chain of events.

Have you ever dropped a paperclip on the floor? It's such a mundane event. But Don DeLillo's description of Laura dropping a paperclip on the floor is truly masterful. He writes: "You stand at the table shuffling papers and you drop something. Only you don't know it. It takes a second or two before you know it and even then you know it only as a formless distortion of the teeming space around your body. But once you know you've dropped something, you hear it hit the floor, belatedly. The sound makes its way through an immense web of distances. You hear the thing fall and know what it is at the same time, more or less, and it's a paperclip. You know this from the sound it makes when it hits the floor and from the retrieved memory of the drop itself, the thing falling from your hand or slipping off the edge of the page to which it was clipped. It slipped off the edge of the page. Now that you know you dropped it, you remember how it happened, or half remember, or sort of see it maybe, or something else. The paperclip hits the floor with an end-to-end bounce, faint and weightless, a sound for which there is no imitative word, the sound of a paperclip falling, but when you bend to pick it up, it isn't there."

This shows the power of great writing to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.

A good noncommittal approach to exploring a new author is through reading their shorter works. However, the thing about that is that it isn't always feasible to determine if it is an appropriate representation of the author's abilities. In this instance, "Body Artist" is actually a novella, although the edition labels it as a novel. But, based on this, would I be willing to commit to a larger work by an author such as the highly acclaimed "White Noise" or the massive "Underworld"? Probably not. "Body Artist" does exhibit a certain penchant for language and has some delightful turns of phrase. Nevertheless, it is too peculiar and abstract to truly engage the reader. It is a story of a woman artist grappling with becoming a widow, and much like the body artistry itself, it comes across as more of an avant-garde experiment than a straightforward narrative. It was a quick read, but far too strange to be loved.

I found myself somewhat intrigued by the concept and the language used, but ultimately, the overall strangeness and lack of a more traditional narrative structure left me feeling a bit disconnected. I can appreciate the author's attempt to be different and push the boundaries, but for me, it just didn't quite hit the mark. Maybe others will find more to love in this unique work, but for now, I think I'll pass on diving into the author's longer and more renowned works.