The back cover blurb describes this as an 'exotic thriller' and it would be interesting to know what usual readers of 'exotic thrillers' would think of this novel because it certainly - thankfully - isn't that. What we have here are deliberations on language, culture, identity, relationships, isolation and good old white middle-aged male angst and existentialism. Everything is exquisitely rendered with some of the best prose I've encountered for a long while. The pacing is slow, a little scattershot, but somehow works. The 'thriller' aspect is glacial, muted, incidental. I love books which run around the outside of things without needing to speak specifics and I loved this.

I came back to this book for a couple of reasons; first, because I am about the lose my "Staff Favorite" pick at work (feckless customers who don't realize what a wonderful book Kurosawa's SOMETHING LIKE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY truly is!) and am thinking about using this as a replacement, and secondly, because I recently read YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH, which, however flawed it is as a novel, shares some of the linguistic concerns that inform DeLillo's novel.
Set in the period just before and during the 1979 revolution in Iran, THE NAMES is told almost entirely from the point of view of James Axton, an American who secures a post in Athens as a risk assessor in order to be near his estranged wife, Kathryn, and nine-year-old son, Tap, who are living on a remote Cycladic Island. In Athens, he becomes part of a deracinated community of Anglo-American bank officials and diplomats, who greet each other with the semi-facetious question "Are they killing Americans?" when any of them return from business in the Mediterranean and Middle East. On the Island, Axton catches wind of an ascetic cult of assassins who murder in quest of meaning, and who form an unwitting parody of the terrorism that is gripping the region. Kathryn, who represents stability, and the cult, who represent a nihilistic search for meaning, become the magnetic poles which influence Axton's life.

"...he wondered about the uses of ecstasy, see the Greek, a displacing, a coming out of stasis. That's all it was. A freedom, an escape from the condition of ideal balance. Normal understanding is surpassed, the self and its machinery obliterated."

The true genius of this novel, which earned this book the fifth star in my rating, occurs in the last 5 pages, which are a segment of a "non-fiction" novel that Tap is writing, and which brilliantly encapsulate the main body of the novel.

't Blijft een raadsel waarom er van Don DeLillo slechts mondjesmaat vertalingen verschijnen: sinds het fantastische trio 'Witte ruis' - 'Libra' - 'Mao II' geldt de Don namelijk als één van de topchroniqueurs van de American Dream en zijn uitwassen, en toch is alleen zijn magnum opus 'Onderwereld' uit 1997 nog in druk. Enfin: verwacht van ons geen waterdichte samenzweringstheorie, wij melden u liever het verschijnen van 'De namen' (Manteau), een meer dan geslaagde opstap naar 'Witte ruis' uit 1982.

Verteller James Axton werkt overdag als risicoanalist voor een schimmig bedrijf, na de werkuren drinkt en filosofeert hij over politiek met andere expats ? bankiers, industriëlen en kaderpersoneel van multinationals die heen en weer pendelen tussen Karachi, Tripoli, Caïro, Beiroet of Amman, steden die volgens een van Axtons vrienden 'terroristische babyboxen (zijn) of anti-Amerikaans of het zijn gigantische lappen economische en sociale en politieke ravage.' Toch zijn ze zich hyperbewust van hun eigen rol in het kruitvat van het Midden-Oosten: 'Al dat bankieren, die technologieën en dat oliegeld veroorzaken een onbehaaglijke stroom door de regio, een ingewikkeld stel afhankelijkheden en angsten.'

Terwijl Axtons huwelijk verkruimelt en zijn hoogbegaafde zoon van 'm vervreemdt, komen hij en archeoloog Owen Brademas in Athene een sekte op het spoor die zo nu en dan een oude of zieke bewoner van een afgelegen dorp vermoordt. Een motief lijkt te ontbreken, en dat confronteert Axton en Brademas met hun angsten, waaronder de diepgewortelde (en volgens DeLillo op en top Amerikaanse) angst om anoniem te sterven: 'Het vooruitzicht verontrustte hem dat de media niet zouden berichten over de opstand of terreurdaad waarbij hij zou omkomen.' Het duo raakt geobsedeerd door de sekte en reist de leden achterna, in de hoop hun code te kraken. Die ziekelijke neiging van mensen om patronen te ontdekken in de chaos van alledag is trouwens een rode draad in het oeuvre van DeLillo (én in 'Zwerm' van Peter Verhelst). Voor Owen is het zelfs een manier van overleven: 'Ik heb het gevoel dat ik tegen mezelf beschermd ben zolang er in de tastbare wereld een toevallig patroon valt waar te nemen.'

Flitsende actiescènes hoeft de lezer in 'De namen' niet te verwachten, de kracht van de roman zit 'm eerder in de gesprekken tussen Axton en zijn ex, zijn kennissen en minnaressen, en in de rake typeringen over de samenleving. Zo verpulvert DeLillo het idee dat de globalisering van de wereld een dorp maakt: 'Wat is de wereld toch groot. (?) Met elk feit dat we erover te weten komen, wordt hij groter. (?) Het is één en al verwikkeling. Het is één gigantische kluwen.' In dat opzicht is 'De namen' ook een roman over onbehagen - het onbehagen van de late seventies en de vroege eighties, toen de world as they knew it op losse schroeven kwam te staan, getuige de vele naamsveranderingen: Perzië werd Iran, Rhodesië werd Zimbabwe, Congo werd Zaïre. En de roman is na twintig jaar nog niks verouderd, want sinds nine eleven en de war on terror is er alweer een waslijst aan zekerheden onderuitgehaald ? om er één bij naam te noemen: wat vroeger 'vrijheidsstrijder' heette, heet tegenwoordig steevast 'terrorist'.

Mogen wij tot slot DeLillo's Nederlandse uitgever vriendelijk verzoeken om ál zijn boeken in druk te houden, zodat wij ons zendelingenwerk bij jongere vrienden en kennissen jaar in jaar uit onverstoord kunnen voortzetten? Dank!

3.5 stars. An interesting, in places, sharply written novel about an ex pat American, James, living in Greece. He is separated from his wife but makes time to visit his ex wife and their young son, Tap. It's a tough read as there is no engaging plot. The first 100 or so pages beautifully describe life in Athens and on a Greek island. We learn about the relationship between James and his ex wife, Kathryn. The dialogue between James and Kathryn is very entertaining. There are mysterious murders and associates visit, discussing world events and political upheavals. James is a political risk analyst for an Insurance company. He writes reports on political situations in Greece and other countries in the region. He visits Turkey, Egypt and India.

The writing is captivating in parts. DeLillo creates a sense of unease. DeLillo fans should find this a satisfying and rewarding read.

Here are a couple of examples of the author's writing style:
'To be a tourist is to escape accountability. Errors and failings don't cling to you the way they do back home. You're able to drift across continents and languages, suspending the operation of sound thought...'
'I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.'

a precise distillation of 1979 for an american involved in shady international work based in athens.

Second time I've read this (first time 2013) and I still give it three stars. It's very ambitious, some beautiful prose, but it's still either impenetrable (my fault for not understanding it) or DD failed to make clear what exactly he means by dwelling on the significance of alphabets, letters, calligraphy, etc. As if letters, characters, contain the secret to decoding human existence. I dunno. But, as usual in his early books, he's freakishly prescient about the growing role of terrorism, esp. terrorism directed against the West.

This is one of those novels it took me ages to get into – I was put in mind of John Fowles' Daniel Martin, or Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge, both of which failed to grab my attention at first, but left me spellbound at the end when their characters had gone on their long, strange journeys into ancient lands. I was less gobsmacked by The Names, although it did turn on for me eventually, especially in those long strange journey bits. It helps that the whole novel is written in that gorgeous DeLillo prose that keeps me coming back even when – as is unfortunately often the case with Donny D – the plot and characters are kind of duds. And he is at the peak of his prose craftsmanship here.

No plot just vibes

Έχουν περάσει 3-4 χρόνια από τότε που το διάβασα, αλλά δεν με είχε ενθουσιάσει, όπως ο ο αγαπημένος "Υπόγειος κόσμος".

Умиротворяющая~
Здесь вообще нет цепляющего сторителлинга, секта -- почти не действо, чем меня напрягла аннотация, что вывернут грязное белье и травмы, даже не близко.

А вот диалоги цепляют, монологи цепляют, всё происходит как в роад муви, как в фильме про природу с закадровым и редкими меткими диалогами не с начала и не до конца.
Вечерние разговоры, утренние разговоры, разговоры, которые случились, и те, которые только могли бы, разговоры, которых хочется. Под солнцем, в пустыне, в тени, в дороге, в кафе.

Её плюс, он же и минус, что пытается говорить слишком о многом.
Самодостаточна и self-explanatory, как мне показалось, когда она говорит о других вещах, она говорит о себе: “Это был странный разговор, полный уклончивых реплик и подводных течений, совершенный в своем роде." (и такого полно)

I tried with this one, I really did. I think I dove into DeLillo with the wrong book.

The premise is intriguing. An estranged American/Canadian couple raising their son in Greece. There's mysterious murders. There's "cultured world travelling" friends who pop in and out to have wine fuelled discussions about world events and political upheaval. The protagonist is removed, detached, sad, always thinking, thinking... The descriptions of Athens and the Greek Islands are spot on, it really captures the feeling of those places. Any book set in Greece automatically draws me in. The way it smells there, the way the sky looks on the islands, the people.

All the elements were there for me to like this book. But it just didn't work. I found the characters pretentious and preachy. And tiresome. I couldn't connect with the story at all. I kept waiting to start enjoying the book but it never came. Lovely writing in parts and DeLillo manages to create an impending sense of doom, a creepy undertone of unease, which I loved. But then....nothing.

This stands out as one of my favorites among the seven or eight DeLillo novels I've read, probably because it's about a group of aimless expatriates in a foreign country (my favorite genre), namely Greece; additionally, DeLillo makes an attempt to render Greece somewhat realistically, and chooses to allow his characters to speak somewhat like real people (which for DeLillo is extremely unusual), both elements that counterbalance his tendency towards abstraction.

There are still two or three chapters here about the mysterious language cult that are composed of the labored, portentous prose that DeLillo is often praised for, and for all I know really does mean something. I guess that's why I've read so many of DeLillo's novels- I'm trying to figure out if he really has something to say, and I'm still not sure.

And yet I couldn't help but notice that if you jettisoned the chapters about the language cult, the rest of the novel wouldn't suffer at all, except for the fact that there wouldn't have been any discernible plot. And I guess what I'm trying to say is that I wouldn't have minded that at all.