A reclusive writer named Bill (possibly modelled on Thomas Pynchon), is struggling to finish a novel, mostly through self-sabotage and lives in a sort of limbo. Much to the surprise of his assistant and devoted friend, Scott, he agrees to have his photograph taken, and may or may not step back into the public domain.

The novel features a number of DeLillo’s usual themes including TV, advertising, and manipulation of the masses. The book is typically funny although it takes a darker turn as the story progresses.

This is my fifth DeLillo story and they have all been highly entertaining. The author is known for his brilliant dialogue and it’s no different here. Bill is a great character. I don’t know why but I imagine him as a young Brendan Gleeson. His bleak outlook on life is, at least for me, deeply relatable. The other characters are fine but they aren’t particularly memorable. Nevertheless, they serve a purpose. I like the way the story takes an unexpected shift. It kept me guessing until the end.

I understand some believe DeLillo to be ostentatious, and I’m inclined to agree but what makes me enjoy his books so much is that they are so funny. I mean, no book makes me cry with laughter but I find myself regularly chuckling at his snappy humour.

Finally, Mao II rouses plenty of reflection on the state of the current world, in particular with the relationship between reader and author, viewer and broadcaster, civilian and terrorist.

3.8/5

DeLillo Ranked:

1. White Noise
2. Mao II
3. The Silence
4. The Names
5. The Body Artist

Next To Read: Libra

All right, I think I gave DeLillo enough chances. The funny thing is that when I started this book, I was enjoying it a lot and even started to think this might be my favorite of his. And then it was all downhill for me. And the book ended up being weak (I think it's the weakest one I've read from him) and a bit ridiculous. For me of course, all those spouting about fiction and terror. The hallmarks of DeLillo's writing are all present here - everyone sounds exactly the same, I assume as DeLillo himself. Wistfulness for the America of yore, of DeLillo's youth maybe? But there's nothing here that is not done and done better in something like Underworld. You'll get all the wistfulness and regrets of the old guy dreaming of the past. Of greatness. Of failure. Before the Vietnam war, homelessness, drug addiction, cults, terrorists. Before getting tired of living I suppose? I don't know, something vague about all of this, but I just feel this incredible gulf between Delillo and myself, I can't help but get annoyed a bit over this nostalgia I have no connection to. Maybe. But better read Underworld if this sounds intriguing.

The final sequence of Mao II’s prologue explicitly states one of the major themes of this dense and klaedioscopic novel, “The future belongs to crowds”. The prologue, probably the most engaging section of the novel, describes a Unification church mass wedding at Yankee Stadium through the eyes of dislocated parents searching for their daughter in amongst the mass of Moonies. It is a thematic firework that echoes throughout the rest of the novel. Mao II is a book filled with crowds, from the walk through a teeming park in New York to the mourners at the Ayatollah Khomeini’s funeral, if this had been a sociological paper then it would have been an investigation on collective identity at its most obscure. The imagery and description of the crowds that De Lillo employs is quite amazing at times, he brings a chaotic and breathless tone to the real historic events that he crafts into the narrative, the funeral of Khomeini, in particular, is a masterclass of authorial illustration.

Mao II feels like an attempt at a state of the nation novel, written in 1991; however, perhaps the most lasting impression that the narrative left on me was the uncomfortably predictive nature of the novel, the mass hysteria of crowds when faced with historically important events and the move towards the inevitable war on terror. Mao II has perhaps gained importance that it did not have when released, because in a post 9/11 world, the nature of terrorism, as discussed in Mao II becomes something more vital to understand, and De Lillo askance writing offers no solutions.

De Lillo’s customary flat dialogue and humourous eye for a detail is very much part of the mix here, however, the book is slight on characterisation, the main character acts predominantly as a defined counterpoint to crowd behaviour and his solitude seems very much in keeping with the prevalent theme of the novel. However, he never convinces as real, nor does he ever become particularly interesting. It is flaw, for me, in what is otherwise a startling novel.

An ice-breaker in a class discussion today on this: “Did anyone read the first one?” Sorry to report the ice held.

But onto the book, which I harbor many different feelings for—from awe to irritation, near-reverence to doubt. Some pages downright astonish with insights, masterfully articulated, into that postmodern condition of the threatened self versus collective/crowd, representation via words versus images, and the status and relevance of the writer-artist versus the terrorist, who harbinges their “decline as shapers of sensibility and thought.” Loving books as we do here, Scott’s introduction (browsing in a bookstore, feeling that familiar “fine excitement,” hearing the books “shrieking Buy me”) should stir us towards some delighted identification: haven’t we heard the same siren call?

But other pages kinda annoy with some overlong descriptions of this one park and over-philosophisation, with certain stiff dialogue by even stiffer characters, admittedly with this latter probably being consistent with the loss-of-self theme featured throughout. The obviousness of this becomes inescapable every time a crowd appears, which is to say: almost all the time (at stadiums, on TV, in paintings, and even in actual photos preceding parts of the book), and their descriptions invariably gave my goosebumps goosebumps.

We have Bill, a self-tortured and -exiled genius, exemplifying the quintessential writer of yore, a modernist figure amid postmodern shenanigans. He also hallucinates his book as this stalking thing, “a naked humped creature with filed-down genitals”—lovely image, as I cross my legs. Although there are three other semi-main characters (Brita the photographer, Scott the super-fan, Karen the believer), they largely exist as extensions of Bill’s character, whose downward spiral we trace throughout the book as he emerges from self-exile to save another writer, a poet held hostage by a terrorist group.

Along the way, DeLillo waxes electric poetry on crowds, cults, images, words, myths, etc., fixated throughout on the increasingly unstable nature of language that’s become unwieldy (”There’s too much everything, more things and messages and meanings that we can use in ten thousand lifetimes”). Yet Bill as this archetypal Modernist Writer still abides old-fashionedly by language’s ontological power, that “code of being,” and it’s morbidly fun to watch this belief system unravel. Pretty good book, though hesitantly recommended.

Bill Gray lleva quince años escribiendo su tercera novela. Reescribiéndola, corrigiéndola una y otra vez y convenciéndose en cada oportunidad de que no está lista para publicarse, a pesar de que ya está terminada. Es un escritor de culto, enfermo, alcoholizado, con predilección por ciertas drogas, conocido por el aura de misterio que envuelve su figura —hace décadas que no se publica una fotografía suya— y por el poder de una obra breve, pero contundente. Vive en una cabaña a la que sólo se puede acceder con su autorización y la ayuda de su asistente Scott que junto a Karen (una muchacha con un traumático pasado), son los únicos acompañantes de este recluido escritor.

Brita Nilsson, una fotógrafa que ha escogido como objetivo único de su lente a escritores —parte de un proyecto inacabable—, se dirige a fotografiar al más ansiado de sus especímenes. Bill Gray sostiene con ella una profunda charla sobre la naturaleza del retrato y sus connotaciones, mientras ella agota varios carretes intentando capturar la imagen que busca.

A Bill le piden que colabore en la liberación de un rehén suizo que se encuentra en manos de un grupo maoísta en Beirut. Al principio la ayuda es simbólica (dar unas lecturas en solidaridad al rehén), sin embargo Bill es convencido de que para salvarlo debe comprometerse por completo. Es entonces cuando se inicia un viaje que lo llevará a cruzar las fronteras de la seguridad occidental, un camino suicida en el que no tendrá ninguna garantía.

Asistimos a varias historias paralelas, Scott y Karen viven, cada uno a su particular y obsesiva manera, la ausencia de Bill. Scott se embarca en la clasificación pormenorizada de los archivos de Bill en la cabaña que bulle de papeles acumulados en toda una vida de trabajo compulsivo y descubre un secreto de la juventud del escritor. Karen se interna en los rincones más sórdidos de la Gran Ciudad y se rodea de un grupo de marginales que le permitirán ver un cuadro más amplio de la naturaleza humana.

Las multitudes juegan un papel importante desde el inicio de la novela. Las observamos reunidas en distintos lugares del planeta y a través de la televisión, —“el futuro pertenece a las masas”, dice el final del prólogo— como una metáfora constante de la pérdida de identidad, el individuo desintegrado en una masa irracional, que se conduce por los impulsos de la emoción y desconoce los principios de la razón. Una dura crítica a los regímenes totalitarios que buscan desaparecer las ideas del individuo y reemplazarlas por el dogma del líder, que impone su imagen, su efigie a todo lo que lo rodea y se vuelve más poderoso que cualquier concepto o idea.

La analogía que hace el autor entre los escritores y terroristas es también muy interesante, la influencia que tienen ahora los últimos comparada con la que alguna vez tuvieron los primeros (o todavía la tienen, como fue el caso de la fatwa que el ayatolá Jomeini promulgó contra Salman Rushdie por Los versos satánicos dos años antes de que se publicara Mao II). DeLillo nos entrega en esta novela una profunda reflexión sobre la naturaleza del individuo y su autonomía y sobre las masas y la alienación que representan, con una precisión estilística que hace pensar en cada uno de sus párrafos como en una obra de relojería.

This is the only book I've ever read that I wanted to start reading again immediately after finishing it. I have read his description of two people watching the funeral of the Ayatollah Khomeini a dozen times. I wish I could have written that. The description of the mass wedding at the start of the book is also remarkable.

Trudna, ale bardzo ważna książka i niezwykle aktualna (mimo że od jej pierwszego wydania minęło 26 lat!) – zwłaszcza ze względu na rozważania dotyczące terroryzmu, władzy tłumu i utraty autorytetu pisarza.

I could feel DeLillo grappling with something important as I read this book, trying to deliver something profound, and that feeling made me want to press on, to see where he was going, even though I found most of his narrative a slog.

There were astounding moments. The funeral of Ayatollah Khomeini was gorgeous prose. The discussion between Bill and George about the power of the terrorist to affect change was tense and convincing. Karen's time in the homeless shantytown was poetic and always shifting. But nothing in Mao II was easy; DeLillo made us work for every piece of wonder he embedded in his text. And along with these moments of genius was the promise of something profound pushing me on.

DeLillo fulfilled his promise to me, but considering the myriad opinions concerning what Mao II was about, I am sure what I found profound is only one possibility.

So here's what Mao II was about for me: insignificance. Not the usual evocation of existential nihilism, but a workable insignificance in the face of our search for impossible significance. It wasn't telling us to give up because there is no meaning, but telling us to simply recognize that whatever meaning we find for ourselves is significant for that and nothing else.

DeLillo engages with issues and artifacts and concepts that our culture endows with the illusion of significance: architecture, the world trade center, terrorism and terror, belief, love, belief in love, religion, home and homelessness, art, the artist, photography, great men, and writing. Yes, even writing. All of it is insignificant beyond ourselves. And the search for significance in these things is equally insignificant.

It's a subtle shift from the nihilist perspective that nothing means anything, but the shift is a profound one (even if DeLillo is only adding to the voices of those who've already spoken about this possibility). It was the pay off I was hoping for. I am only sorry that it wasn't enough to make me love this book.

I wanted to love Mao II. But I'll have to cope with simply admiring it and its author. I've been afraid to engage with DeLillo. His reputation is daunting, and so are the issues he tackles. But now that I've begun I am confident that somewhere in his body of work is a book I will love as much as I admire this one. I hope that book is Libra.

“The cult of Mao was the cult of the book.”

A writer is always said to bring wisdom and knowledge to his readers, to give them guidance, clarity of mind by using stories and instances regardless of truth as exemplars. But can the writer do the opposite and inspire terror, chaos, and bewilderment? It is often said that a writer sacrifices himself for the better fortune of his readers. Writing should be a beloved practice to those who are enamored by words, by language, and sometimes by the ability of playing god and make-believe. That is not always the case. It is easily traceable in literary history that writers have the hardest time concentrating on their works. Indeed it is rather easy to write a few pages when inspiration hits you, but writing and rewriting hundreds even thousands of pages over a grueling stretch isn’t an attractive plight. Writers readily suffer fatigue, languor, creative blocks, and would often put off their work for great lengths of time. But then his suffering is assuaged the minute he publishes his work and people are inspired by what he painfully poured out of himself. But what if instead of inspiration, his horrors take hold of his prose and flow through his readers? What if he instills fear and uneasiness into their minds? And what if the book takes the form of a chimera that terrorizes both creator and receptor? In Christopher Nolan’s Inception he uses dreams to put in ideas into people’s heads. But in Don DeLillo’s Mao II, the obvious truth is revealed, in the real world, writing books take this function.

“What terrorists gain, novelists lose. The degree to which they influence mass consciousness is the extent of our decline as shapers of sensibility and thought. That danger they represent equals our own failure to be dangerous.”

In Mao II, Bill Gray, the world’s most renowned novelist, an aging dinosaur and an illusive sonofabitch firmly believes that he was born too late. He was of the idea that writers used to be the scale of the world’s moral balance and sometimes even the force the drives it off its axis. Books inspired fear, they served as catalysts of change. Most of the visionary books were banned; great writers were often murdered and burned on a stake. People in power didn’t like ideas people were getting from what they read. The Bible inspired great religious frenzy and turned lots of heathens into believers of Jesus Christ. Similar function goes for Islam’s Quran. And these works inspired a great many religious wars. The Greek Philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle’s works inspired an intellectual revolution. The Malleus Maleficarum caused the deaths of thousands of forward thinking women. Mein Kampf was an idea that killed millions of Jews. Marx and Engle’s Manifesto started a movement so hated by the world. Oscar Wilde’s flair caused uproar and probably got him killed. D.H. Lawrence’s vulgarity made him a literary villain. Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables gave the common people the feeling of power. Jose Rizal’s novels inspired the Philippine revolution. Even Nabokov’s Lolita gave rise to such a resounding cry of moral righteousness. But nowadays, definitely post 9-11, terrorists and acts of terror have taken hold over the populace and what was once a mass that was affected by literary ideas now moved to terror’s rhythm of fear and self preservation. The Osama bin Ladens and the Saddam Husseins of the world are now more known than the Garcia-Marquez and the Toni Morrisons. Even modern writers have not escaped the fate of fear. Salman Rusdie’s Satanic Verses shows how terrorism is encroached even to the influencers emeritus. A long time ago people read books and these chiefly inspired how they think, the choices they made. Nowadays people watch and listen to terror-dominated news and their mindset and life-choices are affected by what has happened. Books are now relegated as fantasy and escapism serving as a pastime rather than a critical tool of change, and it is no great wonder the biggest selling books are about vampires and masochistic sex. What was once a public that read and reacted on ideas and concepts now dwelled on reported events. The time of the thinking man is gone; the rule of the fear-addled reactionary homo-sapien is upon us. Is this the post-modern word we live in?

“He is saying terror is the what we use to give our people their place in the world. What used to be achieved through great work, we gain through terror. Terror makes the new future possible. All men, one man. Men live in history as never before. He is saying we make and change the history minute by minute. History is not the book or the human memory. We do history in the morning and change it after lunch.”

“Mao believed in the process of thought reform. It is possible to make by changing the basic nature of the people.”

Mao Zedong, the man who graces the novel’s title was not just a revolutionary leader; he was also a brilliant writer. As a youth he wrote well-regarded poems and several philosophical treatises on the subject of war, democracy and so forth. But what really symbolized Mao, aside from his images, was his Little Red Book that the Chinese people clamored for. Formally called Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, this work was printed and sold by the millions because the populace wanted to learn and adapt the ideas of their leader. I am saying this because although Mao did commit many vile acts of terrorism, what propelled people to notice and revere him was not his actions but the idea he wanted to propagate.

“There is a longing for Mao that will sweep the world… eloquent macho bullshit.”

This novel of set pieces isn’t as coherent as I’d hoped it to be. It combines hazy, fragmented views on terror, on war, of the lone and of the mass, of writing and shaping and out of the disarray comes a piercing cry out of the rubble that should be heard in the shell-shocked world of today: fear me, fear the writer. DeLillo purposely fills the book with scenes that cause unease and he reminds the reader that an idea is still scarier than an act. That the mass can never be compelled by fear and terror unless it takes root in informed viewpoints that the individual must make on his own, and that when traced, everything comes back to literature. Thus when man realizes his errs, he shall see that terror does not come from explosions and bombs, but from letters and words.

What can you say? This is a good collection of situations and ideas. It might be the most digestible dose of DeLillo. (Most people would say White Noise, but this is more serious, however you want to take that.) It's not a great story, but there are interesting moments. The opening, set in a baseball stadium, is excellent, maybe even superior to the baseball stadium opening of Underworld, because it's less labored. Yeah, this might even be my favorite DeLillo. It's good to read him when you're writing, because he takes such care with his sentences, but they're not so showy that a particular style will rub off on you. Towards the end you get that sinking feeling that he hasn't actually been steering this ship at all, that he's going to let it crash rather than put any of the pieces together. In the early 90's, was this thought of as a refreshingly honest approach to narrative?

I finished the book this morning. I’m going to have to read it again. I admit I rushed toward the end. I’m catching a plane this morning and I didn’t want to take an almost completed book to read and no I don’t have or want a Kindle. I followed the plot. I loved the writing: his sentences that slowly trickled into my shower with me this morning. But I missed some connecting lines. Some dots were left isolated - not part of the completed pictures. Plus I keep adding and taking away star rating – like somehow this matters. I’m not going to count it as a “currently reading” selection. I might add a shelf named “can’t stop reading” – kind of like the novel that Bill is working on. So I’ve started from the beginning. “Oh, that’s when Charles first shows up” and “Now I see how the terrorist life parallels that of the writer.” And “how did I miss Mao’s portrait in the beginning?” And I add a star. I almost got it up to 5 stars – but then I couldn’t remember why. So I’m reading it again to see if I can find out.

Extremely well-written, but not all that thoughtful or interesting. The star system fails books like this in that three stars sounds mediocre, but this is a failed effort by an obviously huge talent, so it fails in interesting ways. It has some incredibly strong, beautiful and insightful passages, and generally the writing is excellent. Sadly, over all the book kind of fizzles.