Imperfect pretentious peril.
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Smart Alec narrative, pretentious dialogue and wooden characters without description of feeling make it difficult for the reader to engage. An empty plot which tries I think to allude to something, but even that is flimsy. Notwithstanding the above there are some good ideas and some good writing. The former and the latter just do not mix - a very irritating combination. Uncommonly unsatisfactory, read it as I did (if you dare) at your own peril.
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Much to talk about: a great choice for a book group
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Although there is a strong story, Mao II is more an exploration of interconnected themes and images. It raises a lot of issues that stay with you, and insists that you think for yourself.
For me the main theme was around how people could be controlled by individuals. At the highest level, this was applied to groups, such as the Moonies and Maoist terrorists. This was set against a series of backdrops of crowd behaviours and mass tragedies, such as Hillsborough, Tiananmen Square, and an unnamed square in New York where the homeless congregate.
The same theme ran through the main characters. The central character is a dissolute writer, Bill Gray, who has stayed hidden for 20 years. His life is organised, and largely controlled, by a fan who has tracked him down and become his personal assistant. He is supported by an ex-Moonie girlfriend, who has not been completely de-programmed. They both become protective when the writer insists on being photographed by a photographer from New York who "only does writers". The new character destabilises the situation, and the writer re-enters the wider world.
It is here that the second theme of "writing and terrorism as a zero sum game" emerges. Bill is convinced that terrorists are taking the ground for commentary that was the preserve of serious novelists, and that news is the medium for them doing so. He becomes involved in the negotiation for the life of a poet held hostage in Beirut, and seems to become the target of the same group.
Some of the imagery is prescient: the twin towers of the World Trade Centre loom large through the window of the photographer's apartment, ten whole years before 9/11. Some of it is already out of date, either technically and socially. The inhabitants are so amazingly primitive that they still think a word processor is a pretty neat idea. Similarly, today's terrorists have moved away from Maoism, so that the idea of a woman photographer interviewing a Muslim extremist is simply unimaginable today.
Although a depressing book in many ways, there is hope lying in the rubble of this text. The story ends with a 4am wedding parade in Beirut that provides suitable "green shoots" of hope.
This is a book you'll either love or hate, and there's plenty to discuss. For these reasons, and because it's a genuine modern classic, it would make a great book for a book group. For example: "would you accept a baby from someone who walked up to you in the street?" Please discuss.
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Pretentious and empty
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While some of his imagery does work (hence the second star), it is obvious that he is just trying too hard. He mingles torturously constructed, wooden-sounding, sentences with clichéd phrases to make reading the book a chore rather than a pleasure. While reading the book, my face was in a grimace most of the time and I almost shouted with joy when I finished it. The idolised writer character just spouts highly contrived – but ultimately barren – pearls of wisdom, and one gets the lasting (but erroneous I’m sure) impression that he is just a vehicle for the author’s narcissism. This is the only book of Delillo’s I have read, but if his others are similar, I would rate him as massively inferior to other modern writers such as J. G. Ballard.
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Supremely written.
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DeLillo's intelligence is astounding; his observations seem to clarify many uncatergorised fears that makes us 'all to human'; the scope and depth of his imagination is frightening: and all in all this is definitely a fantastic read. In a nutshell, the plot is secondary to the ideas and themes that run throughout this epic novel - the power of imagery (photgraphs, mainly) and words, global terrorism and movements. Of these themes, the most striking is the photograph, and, in a sense, how the definite image of an event has come to resemble more than the reality itself.
The central characters are a female photographer and a reclusive author, who come together for a once-in-a-lifetime photo shoot of the hermit novelist, and it is the build-up and culmination of this which makes up the rest of the novel. The exchange here is one of the most brilliantly written, thoughtful, most inspiring pieces fo literature I've ever read, and i recommend everyone to give it a go merely for this alone. Can't say too much about the plot, since there isn't really one. But, if a storyline is essential to your enjoyment of a book, I suggest leaving this alone . . . On second thoughts - give it a go and it'll probably change your stance.
For this reason, though, it loses one star.
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Sheer Brilliance
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Having read Underworld, I though DeLillo would never have been able to prodece a book that would dazzle me more ... but Mao II is just that book. The sheer beauty of the prose is in places breathtaking, and the enormity of the ideas and themes, played out in the small details of characters lives and fragments of images viewed on television screens, held me engaged enough to finish the book in one sitting. There are sections I have returned to again and again - The photographing of Bill Gray, the depiction of Khomeni's funeral - and I have yet to not find the return worthwhile. Yes, Underworld is a huge and great novel - but for literary genius, this is the one to read.
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