the silence by don delillo. good. i was wondering if he was wandering after underworld, which was huge, encyclopedic. each book was slim after that. i thought maybe he was depleted and was measuring time with slim volumes hoping to find something to locate himself and inspire us. maybe i'm wrong, i think the last ones i read were cosmopolis and the body artist. i tend to forget specifics, but i remember the essence of underworld. and now the silence. it's the best book about the shifting undermining nihilistic tumult of life now. or i should say life under occupation in the united states of turtle island. i read it in a day, 116 pages, typewriter type, with leading and wide margins—it breathes. 

                                    ———

       Is there a shred of nostalgia in these

recollections? 

       People begin to appear in the streets, warily

at first and then in the spirit of release, walking,

looking, wondering, women and men, an incidental

cluster of adolescents, all escorting each other

through the mass insomnia of this inconceivable 

time.

       And isn't it strange that certain individuals

have seemed to accept the shutdown, the burnout?

Is this something that they've always longed 

for, subliminally, subatomically? Some people,

always some, a minuscule number among the human

inhabitants of planet Earth, third planet from the

sun, the realm of mortal existence.

 

Don DeLillo

The Silence