(1982) The Names
1982-09-12
A thought provoking and atmospheric novel, following an American expatriated to Greece with his family, dealing with the repercussions of a divorce, the strangeness of a foreign county, and the enigmatic traces of a language-obsessed murder cult.
The interpersonal dynamics of the novel are strong. The more riveting bits of the book are in dialogue. Characters get fleshed out, philosophical themes find their exposition and debates, and the atmosphere is formed. The conversations are realistic, but with an elevated intellectual register. They also feel natural, with an uncanny dynamism, making them particularly vivid.
The protagonist's son is an interesting character in particular. While the wife felt a bit underdeveloped, contrived as a foil to the protagonist, and the band of Americans tended to feel like a uniform voice, providing philosophical digressions, the son feels like an independent spirit, on par with the main character. There's both a nice paternal relationship that develops, but also an odd wittiness to the kid. He has a curious and precocious intellectualism which is both different than the other characters, and true to a kind of kid you can encounter in real life. There's a combination of adult intelligence and childlike wonder in the character, which enhances the dynamic between father and son, and also forwards the themes of the novel.
Lurking behind the pages is an unsettling sense of mystery, of inscrutable workings behind the scenes. DeLillo manages to convey an atmosphere of unease and subtle confusion throughout the novel, without ever laying it out quite explicitly. This seems to be an early example of the themes he plays with in later work.
This theme manifests firstly in the sense of alienation the group of Americans feel. To some extent, this is self-imposed: they mingle among themselves, stay away from exploring the foreign countries they live in, or otherwise integrate with the culture, so inevitably, a sense of unbelonging emerges. In other ways, the unease is instilled in them. Their work assignments make creating roots hard, and lead them to identify with a community of the foreigners who happen to share their fate.
The protagonist's mysterious job and patron reinforce this sense of strangeness. We don't quite know the purpose of his work, and certainly not the nature of his employer. This makes him un-tethered, to the world around him, to his family, and almost, to reality itself. The relationship between the main character and information is almost adversarial, reinforcing the strange atmosphere he drifts through.
A more major theme of the novel is that of language and symbolism. The author's interest in the consequences of an information age---where we find ourselves inundated in a flow of media, words, information---manifests itself in a precocious way, foreshadowing the themes of later novels, such as White Noise.
We have grown up in a society with widespread literacy, surrounded by letters, words, literature; we no longer pay much attention to the complex structure of writing. When we read, we transform otherwise meaningless symbols into letters, words, and then realize them in the language we know, which manages to associate abstract concepts with concrete representations. We take this for granted, but there is a magic to it. DeLillo plays straight at the core of this, exploring the strangeness of symbols, and words themselves.
This theme has a physical form: that of a mysterious death-cult choosing their victims through wordplay. Greece is a fitting location for the plot to unfold, given both the unfamiliar alphabet, and the long history of philosophy. When exposed to a foreign script, you become more aware of the machinery of language, and how wonderful it is. This sense of awe is otherwise found in our interest in cryptic writing, symbology, and other esoterica.
The interesting themes are weighed down by a scattered plot. With a stronger narrative, the themes might have been focused into a more complete whole. Unfortunately, they feel more like a collection of disparate songs, and not an accomplished symphony. There isn't much plot progression, and events feel awkwardly placed, and not fully realized.
Furthermore, the other characters, besides our narrator and his son, feel under-developed. I would have liked to learn more about them, to have more perspective on the book's themes. This is a weakness of the first person narrative in many novels, and unfortunately, this one also suffers from a myopia which centers the narrator over other characters, with insufficient justification. Frankly, our protagonist is neither interesting nor compelling enough to monopolize our point of view.
However, these weaknesses in structure are deftly outweighed by the brilliant prose. DeLillo has an engaging cerebral style, mixing philosophical reflection and description in a pithy, intricate, and delightful manner. The precision and artistry remind me of the inner workings of a fine watch, where so much craftsmanship and function is packaged so concisely. This technicality is not without beauty, as the scenic descriptions of Greece are also brilliantly executing, making you feel as if transported to those mesmerizing islands. The book succeeds masterfully in creating the desired atmosphere, which is no small feat.
I would recommend this book on its prose and mood alone, but I also feel that the author improves notably in his subsequent work.