Don DeLillo: the physics of language

Abstract

A close examination of writer's career-long exploration of language and his emergence as a postmodern novelist of major stature; Don DeLillo, author of twelve novels and winner of National Book Award, PEN/Faulkner Award, William Dean Howells Medal, and Jerusalem Prize, has begun to rival Thomas Pynchon as definitive postmodern novelist. Always thought-provoking and occasionally controversial, DeLillo has become voice of bimillennial moment. Charting DeLillo's emergence as a contemporary novelist of major stature, David Cowart discusses each of DeLillo's twelve novels, including his most recent work, The Body Artist (2001). Rejecting idea that DeLillo lacks affinities across cultural spectrum, Cowart argues that DeLillo's work invites comparison with that of wide range of antecedents, including Dunbar, Whitman, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Freud, Lacan, Derrida, Hemingway, Joyce, Rilke, and Eliot. At same time, Cowart explores ways in which DeLillo's art anticipates; parallels, and contests ideas that have become common currency of poststructuralist theory. The major site of DeLillo's engagement with postmodernism, Cowart argues, is language, which DeLillo represents as more mysterious - numinous even - than current theory allows: For DeLillo, language remains what Cowart calls the ground of all making. Don DeLillo: The Physics of Language is a provocative investigation of most compelling issues of contemporary fiction.

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