★★★★
246 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1978
"Imperialist lackeys and running dogs."
- Don Delillo, Running Dog
"The camera's everywhere." (pg ??)
"It's true." (pg 159)
"Landscape is truth." (pg 229)
"It's a fact. A truth. It's history." (pg 236)
So, it is DeLillo’s 6th novel. 40 years old I guess. I liked it. Essentially, a bunch of people (reporters, senators, the mob, and secret government organizations) are all searching for an erotic film made in the Führerbunker in April of 1945. Is it a black and white pre-suicidal orgy? Is he in it? These groups are all connected in a paranoid and weary way to each other. Each is searching for something, but also a bit indifferent. It's a philosophical, moody novel. It is weird in a way only DeLillo can be. Playing tennis on a volleyball court. Dogs. Sex and pornography discussed obliquely. Fingers tapping on walls. Lots of discussion of motion pictures, art, technology. Always, the push West, into the desert. Dying.
There is also a pressence of Vietnam that hangs on this novel. It WAS written in 1978. The echos of Vietnam are still vibrating through America. Things are being sorted. Ideas are coalesing into themes. Things collected, recorded, taped. Flash. Things given names, polished. Polished ambiguities. And always money, power, corruption.
When the reviewer stops reviewing, what does it mean?
Cut.