The Silence by Don DeLillo Review

Don DeLillo is one of those writers I’m told is a genius. I’ve tried Underworld and White Noise, two of his “best” novels, and failed early on with both. I actually managed to finish this pile of book called Point Omega a decade or so ago and hated it. Maybe age is a factor and now that I’m older and (arguably) wiser I’ll appreciate Donny-boy’s writing? Nahhhh.

Although, after the opening chapter of The Silence, I thought I was finally seeing what others seem to see in DeLillo. It’s set on a plane at night, an American middle-class couple are returning to New York from their hols in Europe when there’s a power failure and the plane seems to be in danger of crashing - oo! Colour me excited.

Cut to their friends in New York who are preparing a Super Bowl party when the power goes out for them too and they can’t watch the game. And then the novella all goes to shit and stays in the crapper for the rest of the book. Because that’s when the characters sit around and behave like pretentious characters in a pretentious story, spouting drivel about nothing. Here’s a sample:

“I look in the mirror and I don’t know who I’m looking at. The face looking back at me doesn’t seem to be mine. But then again why should it? Is the mirror a truly reflective surface? And is this the face that other people see? Or is it something or someone that I invent? Does this medication I’m taking release this second self? I look at the face with interest. Interest and an element of confusion. Do other people experience this, ever? Our faces. And what do people see when they walk along the street and look at each other? Is it the same thing that I see? All our lives, all this looking. People looking. But seeing what?”

Does this sound like anything a real person would say? Did everyone become immediately stoned once the power went out? And that’s it for the rest of the “story” - characters spouting monotonous monologue. Because… the world’s going to hell in a handbasket, or some such tripe that the author’s trying to put across?

I noticed that DeLillo has a penchant for listing words that I don’t think is good writing but he’s the big banana with all the fancy awards so what do I know. And the whole book is printed in horrible typewriter font so it’s ghastly to look at the whole time. There’s a short essay included at the end of this book, “Man at the Window”, that confirms that, yes, DeLillo experienced lockdown the same as the rest of us plebs.

The Silence starts well but quickly turns into unimpressive literary nonsense. Yup, I still don’t get the bruhaha over ol’ Don DeLillo!