This book is very good. My favorite DeLillo novel. In the final paragraph of the penultimate chapter, there's the sentence: Everyone is talking. That's the novel summed up. That's life summed up. What DeLillo's very good at is observing people talking. And as I've been reading the novel and noticing how smart it is about talking and narrative, I'm seeing more and more examples of how much of life (and how big a part of our interest in narrative) is our love of being told stories.

I'm now more than halfway through my nine-book Delillo 2014 marathon, crossing the international dateline with this, the book considered by many to be the book where "Delillo becomes Delillo." Of course, I've heard that several times already. Delillo became Delillo with the wise-cracking anti-hero of "End Zone," but also he became Delillo again with the more complex, isolated, absurdist take on rock stardom in "Great Jones Street." And again, with his nuanced depiction of terrorism in "Players." But this...THIS...for sure this time! THIS is the modern Delillo, apparently. And I can see it this time.

With each new book, a new tool or two is added to the arsenel. Even the underwhelming "Running Dog" had some interesting tricks thrown into it. But whether it's the (uncredited) 1980 novel "Amazons" and its attendant silliness, or the monetary comfort of the MacArthur grant and the time spent in Greece, this book is more serious in every way. There's very little silliness here. It's more of a strangeness, an unsettlement, but there's no nude storytelling, no upstairs neighbor writing child pornography FOR children. The late-period elements -- espionage, collusion, alienation, events played out on a global scale, but reflected in micro -- all come to the fore here.

And again, the writing takes a quantum jump forward. If I occasionally miss the long, florid prose of "Americana" or the funny, blurting non-sequiturs of "Great Jones Street," then this replacement -- shiny, polished to the point of intense glare -- is a suitable one. It's the language of an older person wishing to convey more in less time. It was a harder go, at times, and not every page was a consistent delight, but the end result was worth the effort.

As I was nearing the 30 pages left mark, I thought this was going to be another four-star book, a book not quite deserving of its hype as an upper-echelon title. But Delillo really pulls out all the stops at the end, with satisfying resolutions in both narrative and emotion.

So what's it about? It concerns a risk analyst name James, his estranged wife Kathryn, and their 6-year old novelist son Tap. And their friends and colleagues. Kathryn is a junior archaeologist, more driven than her superiors but fated to be stuck with the grunt work, washing clay shards and cataloging fragments. Their son writes constantly and speaks in an invented pig-Latinish dialect called Ob. While stationed on Greece, James is paired with several other couples -- the Maitlands, the Kellers, the Tennants -- and a few fringe figures. Risk analysis, a term that may have seemed surprising in '82 seems as common as rain now. James is tasked with sifting mass quantities of data about emerging countries and their relative stability for the use of corporations. Are lines for food increasing? Are groups of unemployed men standing around on corners? Has increased military presence been spotted on the streets? It's a language unto itself, and James does it thoughtlessly, engaged only in the process. He meets people more aware, like the mysterious Greek man Eliades, who is more than eager to tell him about the sins of Americans. He spends his nights drinking and talking with Kathyn's boss, Owen Brademas, who talks in pseudo-profundities into the night, while demurring almost immediately when any rejoinder or request for clarification is broached. Everyone talks here, all the time. Talk to fill the room. Talk as dance. Not as much talk as meaning.

In their nightly discussions, Owen tells James he has met with a cult living up in the hills, a group obsessed with languages, alphabets. They might be connected to several bizarre and gristly murders in nearby towns, and even in other countries. They could be a small group, ready to travel, or a multitude, stationed in every town. James, cast as reluctant writer, tries to meet them, as does his friend Jeff Volterra, a very reluctant filmmaker (two films completed, three more abandoned on-set), both with the intention of documenting their process, their obsessions. But like all obsessions in Delillo books, there's a very good possibility that their deadly earnest goals will melt into the air, forgotten like so much idle speech.

James gets a meeting with a member of the cult, as does Volterra. He sees their inner workings, and later, he reconnects with Owen Brademas, who is winding himself down (not his career, his very existence) into one last bid for understanding, for a connection to the primal language, the final remnants of old speech. These sections are especially powerful and spring more naturally from the narrative than in any of the previous books I've read. Rather than use a Cassavetes-like system of forced insanities to drive his characters to the edge of madness, and, therefore, epiphany, Delillo leads the characters toward their own destinies without throwing one-armed sodomites or apocalyptic dust storms at them.

The real transitional elements in "The Names" over his previous work is the strength of the characters, the investment in their emotional lives, and the ability to resolve them without bizarre deus ex machinas designed to throw the entire narrative into confusion. As I said, I trudged toward the final 30 pages like a person guarding for a possible sucker punch, stomach uncomfortably pulled in, flexing defensive muscles seldom used. Instead, we get one of Delillo's most heartfelt resolutions yet, with a final six pages that must be read to be believed. From page one to page last, every word is connected with every other. If the intrigue sags a bit in the middle (and oh, how it does), the weight of it fuels the upward ascent of the final pages, achieving escape velocity. I'm not going to pretend that I didn't occasionally stumble through certain elements of the text, lose track of the large cast of characters, or miss the plot twists that were understood by everyone in the scenario except the reader. But even as I went back and skimmed through earlier sections of the book, pages that seemed monolithic and difficult now were much clearer to me the second time. It's a book that would probably be very rewarding to re-read immediately upon finishing, allowing you to more closely monitor the action happening behind the scenes. (To once again quote my friend Scott Foust: "Very likely, but there is no time.")

But, of course, this is no time for that, because now it's time to move on to everyone's favorite, WHITE NOISE. See you in September!

The novel depicts a conspiracy, but it comments as well on adultery, religious tension, and American foreign policy.

Jun 17, 2003
Powell's City of Books, Portland, OR

A refreshingly different approach to fiction.

I guess there is a storyline and it matters when we read any book. But in this case it pales into insignificance. It’s a travelogue plus a character analysis plus a day in the life plus…. many more.

The book covers diverse topics like political risk insurance CIA and many others.

Of real significance is how Delillo creates each conversation - makes it sound so real and relaxed in the context of the characters. The 27 depravities - look for it - a statement of contradictions.

Really enjoyed the ride. Look forward to reading more of his works.

This man's got all sorts of work to celebrate. Start w/ GREAT JONES STREET, DeLillo's vision of the banality that suffocates the famous, more pertinently American rock royalty, & continue right through to FALLING MAN, his fable of 9/11 & an America in which every tower is a deck of cards. Too long, my Goodreads space has languished w/out him, & I've got to go w/ this early-80s novel, a well-night flawless performance, the initial breakthrough to his creative peak. THE NAMES astounds & scarifies even w/out the crowd scenes that tend to define DeLillo at his most breathtaking. This one's a divorce story, to begin w/, & the writer fires up hurting-love dialog of scorching rarity. There's an illicit seduction scene, on the downtown sidewalks of midnight Athens. More moving, though wildly different, is the phone conversation between the protagonist James, committed to Athens because of his cutting-edge work in "corporate risk-assessment," & his former wife, the evening she commits to divorce & to taking their preteen son to live with her in Seattle. DeLillo weeps! He pleads for love! Yet elsewhere we've got busy & cold-eyed passages, in a alacritous poetry bordered w/ concrete & ranking w/ his very best, full-throat oratorios of overwhelming humanity, of threat & its hair's-breadth escape. James becomes an homicide investigator malgré lui, drawn into making sense of a series of cult murders, & so this Italian-American's version of the return to the Old Country (most immigrant cultures have such stories, but this ethnic group especially) -- anyway, DeLillo's version avoids all sentiment as it excavates the axial lines of one family's collapse & what it has to do w/ the larger cultural moment. It swims the Greek Aegean rather than the Neapolitan Tyrhennian, & more significantly, it never fails to suss out the close allegiances between affection & murder, love & madness, transcendence & depravity. THE NAMES reminds us that, for the most honest "risk-assessment," we need to go into the wilderness & ask the howler in his cave.

Another Don DeLillo excursion into existential inscrutability, The Names follows an insurance underwriter during a long, meandering trip through Greece, Turkey and India. During that time he rubs shoulders with bored Americans, condescending archaeologists, hostile locals, political extremists and a murderous cult whose motivations he can't begin to understand. This book frames DeLillo's usual obsessions in an international context: he casts Americans, and Westerners generally, as unable, or unwilling, to engage other nationalities at any levels beyond quaint foreigners or menacing terrorists, or pawns in economic and geopolitical strategy...and naturally, the resentment bred through such actions. While DeLillo is rarely strong on characterization, this book especially strains to make the quieter parts interesting, with a protagonist who's a moody cipher and supporting players who are, at best, mouthpieces for the author's message. The scenes of human interaction ring utterly false, especially a scene where the hero essentially harasses and badgers a woman into sleeping with him which reads uncomfortably. A mixed bag, but definitely leaning towards the positive side of the literary ledger.

Delillo is one of my favorite novelists, which is why I found this such a frustrating read. Normally his books provide an accurate sense of Americanism, including the tension and anxiety that permeates our culture. Here there is no tension, just a meandering collection of conversations. I felt no investment in the characters or their actions (what little action there was). A few pithy insights here and there weren't enough to keep my interest. Oh well, I still love you, Don.

i Novemila nomi di Dio e il peso della Conoscenza

James è un analista di rischio in Medio Oriente negli anni settanta, non che si stesse meglio di adesso, era solo l'inizio di quel che c'è ora, ha una serie di amici che fanno i banchieri, gli imprenditori e altre cose vaghe, sono tutti insieme al momento in Grecia, con le mogli che fanno vento e polvere per distrarre gli spiati dall'attenzione degli spioni e viceversa...vanno a cena, chiacchierano amabilmente...ecc...la domanda più frequente che si fanno tra loro al momento di un racconto sul posto che si è appena visitato è "uccidono americani, là?"
a un certo punto un cadavere ritrovato risveglia l'attenzione della combriccola, che intanto si arricchisce di un regista leggermente pazzo che si mette in testa di seguire il culto che pratica questi omicidi rituali...le iniziali dei nomi dei morti coincidono casualmente con le iniziali dei luoghi in cui vengono ritrovati e un gruppo o più gruppi di gente strana viene avvistato in Giordania, Turchia e altri posti che James si trova a visitare per lavoro...
thriller postmoderno con finale leggermente delirante, nel complesso interessante, scorre veloce e si fa leggere, anche per via di tutte le deviazioni di pensiero di James che seguiamo con curiosità, nonostante sia un americano che lavora per la Cia...

I struggled with this book. And if anyone loves DeLillo's lesser works, it's me, but this one (of the 10 DeLillo novels I've read) was by far the most abstract, confusing, and for the most part, boring of his works. Kinda empty feeling too. All the reviews and blurbs I've read talk about The Names being the novel that launched his literary career but I'm not seeing it. That being said, DeLillo followed The Names with four stunning works, White Noise (1985), Libra (1988), Mao II (1991), and Underworld (1997). So I can see why The Names is cited as the beginning of DeLillo's finely tuned aesthetic, though I think his debut novel, Americana (1971), a seriously underappreciated work in his oeuvre, was just as telling as what was to come. Anyway, here are a few interesting paragraphs from The Names:

"How big the world is. They keep telling us it's getting smaller all the time. But it's not, is it? Whatever we learn about it makes it bigger. Whatever we do to complicate things make it bigger. It's all a complication. It's one big tangled thing...Modern communications don't shrink the world, they make it bigger. Faster planes make it bigger. They give us more, they connect more things. The world isn't shrinking at all. People who say it's shrinking have never flown Air Zaire in a tropical storm...No wonder people go to school to learn stretching and bending. The world is so big and complicated we don't trust ourselves to figure out anything on our own. No wonder people read books that tell them how to run, walk and sit. We're trying to keep up with the world, the size of it, the complications."

pg. 323

"Travel is a kind of fatalism...at my age, I'm beginning to sense the menace ahead. I'm going to die soon, goes the refrain, so I'd better see the bloody sights. This is why I don't travel except on business."
"You've lived everywhere."
"Living is different. One doesn't gather up sights in quite the same way. There's no compiling of sights. I think it's when people get old they begin to compile. They not only visit pyramids, they try to build a pyramid out of the sights of the world."
"Travel as tomb-building."
"He listens in. The worst kind of dinner companion. Chooses his moments." He made a fist around his cigarette. "Living is different, you see. We were saving the sights for our old age. But now the whole idea of travel begins to reek of death. I have nightmares about busloads of rotting corpses."

pg. 54

This started off so good — I'm obsessed with DeLillo's dialogue (the first half of this especially felt like it was made to be adapted into a film), and the first few chapters dealt with a lot of compelling themes/issues (American imperialism, intelligence agencies, expats, language, etc.) that I was interested in seeing developed further. But then all the cult stuff just became so convoluted, difficult to follow, and dragged out that I completely lost interest. I even considered dropping it altogether 80% of the way through but since I'm incapable of giving up on books I just skimmed the rest. Just disappointing bc I had high hopes for this one but DeLillo is always hit or miss for me it seems

Initials cult. Greece. Frank Volterra.

A critic thought that readers who enjoyed Justine by Lawrence Durrell and The Magus by John Fowles would "want to read" this, with its similar "exotic atmospheres and settings." I did enjoy the first two. The Names was a different experience; not terrible, but its 339 pages felt like 539, it was neither especially intriguing, nor fully realized. It meanders the way Justine does but unfulfillingly. You have the sense you're supposed to find the characters fascinating, but they really aren't. Trigger warnings for gun violence, rapey sexual harassment, and precocious, novel-writing children.

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An excerpt from "A Talk with Don DeLillo", Oct. 10, 1982, New York Times:

Critic Diane Johnson has written that Mr. DeLillo's books have gone unread because ''they deal with deeply shocking things about America that people would rather not face.''

''I do try to confront realities,'' Mr. DeLillo responds. ''But people would rather read about their own marriages and separations and trips to Tanglewood. There's an entire school of American fiction which might be called around-the-house-and-in-the-yard. And I think people like to read this kind of work because it adds a certain luster, a certain significance to their own lives.''

THE writer to whom Mr. DeLillo has most often been likened and for whom he has great respect is Thomas Pynchon. ''Somebody quoted Norman Mailer as saying that he wasn't a better writer because his contemporaries weren't better,'' he says. ''I don't know whether he really said that or not, but the point I want to make is that no one in Pynchon's generation can make that statement. If we're not as good as we should be it's not because there isn't a standard. And I think Pynchon, more than any other writer, has set the standard. He's raised the stakes.''

Mr. DeLillo also praises William Gaddis for extending the possibilities of the novel by taking huge risks and making great demands on his readers. Yet many readers complain about the abstruseness of much contemporary writing.

''A lot of characters,'' Mr. DeLillo says, ''have become pure act. The whole point in certain kinds of modern writing is that characters simply do what they do. There isn't a great deal of thought or sentiment or literary history tied up in the actions of characters. Randomness is always hard to absorb.''

Mr. DeLillo believes that it is vital that readers make the effort. ''The best reader,'' he says, ''is one who is most open to human possibility, to understanding the great range of plausibility in human actions. It's not true that modern life is too fantastic to be written about successfully. It's that the most successful work is so demanding.'' It is, he adds, as though our better writers ''feel that the novel's vitality requires risks not only by them but by readers as well. Maybe it's not writers alone who keep the novel alive but a more serious kind of reader.''