This is such a wonderful tribute to the thirty-three actors, directors, and writers who make up the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Most of it is all full-page pictures of every ensemble member. The pictures are all black and white and done in a sort of avant-garde style that reflects the spirit that the theatre company has conveyed for the past 25 years. The ones of John Malkovich, Laurie Metcalf, and Moira Harris are particularly good. In addition to the pictures, the book also contains a history of the company, telling how it was formed by Jeff Perry, Gary Sinise, and Terry Kinney in 1974 in Highland Park, IL, and leading up to the company receiving the National Medal of Arts in 1998. There are also insightful and thoroughly entertaining short essays written by outsiders who have worked with the company over the years, including Sam Shepard and Terry Johnson. In the back of the book, there is a complete list of all the shows that Steppenwolf has presented, plus the credits of all the individual members. This is a magnificent book and I highly recommend it.

This book is a must-buy for theater-lovers and photography fans alike. Skrebneski's portraits of the 33-ensemble members (which include John Malkovich, Gary Sinise, Laurie Metcalf, Joan Allen, and John Mahoney) are absolutely beautiful. The essays in this coffee-table book reflect the essence of this "rock n'roll" theater. I recommend this book as a holiday gift to every theater-lover on your list!

There's nothing like talking about the universe of the DeLillo. It's nice even uttering a few superficial lines about it. Let alone going fully crazy into the magnitude of textual depth that is possible, and even necessary, in a book-length rave.

I cannot say enough about DeLillo. Apparently, Osteen feels the same way. I would characterize the book as 'critical'. Not just abstractly critical, like 'this is some literary criticism'. But fully critical, like 'there are some extremely serious things happening, happened, will happen. And we need to talk, have talked, about them at a very serious level'. By serious I mean what DeLillo means when he says it took him a few books written to realize how serious we have to be about writing. Serious as in life-and-death struggle. There is nothing more important than life. The closer to consciousness things get, the more meaningful they are. We like to dive in to the flow of DeLillo-dreaming and let it wash over us as we bathe in it and drink it's revealing purity of intention/reality.

We're taking about DeLillo! For this we do not want un-inspire-ing people around. People who think his characters all talk the same, or his books aren't very emotion-causing. We simply want people like us, who-like-us, we want people, like I mean people whose visual resolution is high. Who can really see. Who are fully awake to what death has to take away. Yes, we'll be dead soon. Before then, please do not make me feel like I'm wasting my time. With the things you might say.

American Magic and Dread--a fairly suggestive title. Because DeLillo is american. That doesn't mean limited. It means the center, the solar furnace of the elements with which he designs life-forms, happens to be here, the richest nation ever, the nation at the swirling epic-center of the riskiest, most audacious project to control nature that people-kind has ever known. We're talking about total destruction, nukes on hair-trigger alert, never-ending. So, the apocalypse hasn't happened yet. Like the big media's haven't documented the literal hell-on-earth that is existence for most of the souls who live, animals trapped in the plot of human exploitation and abuse. Apparently DeLillo eats hamburgers. Maybe he's researching. He feels he needs to taste death in order to write books filled with torturers. Maybe he just doesn't care. Whatever the case, I'm not going to police his thoughts--I won't refuse to read him until he goes vegan. Zappa was a murderer. He smoked cigarettes. (Killing yourself is murder just as bad as killing someone else). And I listen to him whole-heartedly.

Smith says "Too much truth is a prescription for failure". He was talking about why DeLillo was not read as much as his total perfection of intelligent artistry called for with respect to size of readership. So, lots of people bought Underworld. But how many people read it? It's nice to imagine that there are multitudes of souls out there "real" enough to appreciate DeLillo. After all, if I can see his text's "burning light", why can't others? As Smith also says, "There is no such thing as a leaf--there are only leaves".

Osteen's work is the full deal. When reading it, I'll quit, becuase it's too good to read. Meaning, I can only integrate so much goodness at any one time. Sometimes I max out, and have to save stimuli for later. It's about how dense text is. How much meaning happens per alphabetic character. There has to be a limit. We know that DeLillo has flirted with this limit. Osteen does what he does fairly well. It may be wrong to say that fiction is better than criticism. Platonic. Ideals and whatnot. They're just things for different modes of you. Modes can be pretty demanding. Often I will be fully unable to deal w text. But like now i'll be textual. Lines will be life. Writing/reading will do it for me. I'll have things to say, I'll be willing to listen to writers' sayings. The question is, does Osteen do justice to D? Meaning D(eLillo) is so twisted and godly and surprising and new--does Osteen come close to whatever in the world kind of things we should be telling each other about D? With this book, do we reach conditions of remembrance of D-text that are equal more or less to the conditions we can reach in our own private ruminations? Does O let us trip? What is the quality of his dream-logic? Does he bring us down, or trip us out? Does he like it? Can he make his book sing? How far can he take us? Is it worth it, walking along with him for some of the times of our lives? With the things he might say? Text is drug. Is the drug mind-expanding? Is the book informational? Do we learn more reading it than we'd learn never reading it? In short, should we read American Magic and Dread? I wouldn't know. As Rilke says, "All critical intention is beyond me".

I just want to you to acquire some sensations feelings and thoughts. I care for you, because if I were you, I'd be you. I'd do what you're doing. I know you want to come and join in song. I know life is not long. It all depends, on how you'll make it through, the things you do, whether true, or too few. Please, give us a chance. Let us tell you things. Do not turn away--our song is not very long. You've come this far. Choose life, and not death. This may be a (difficult) problem. Or it may be effortless, like true love sometimes is. Only you can tell what's true. You shall decide what to let live. No matter what you do, the end will just be you. The life of love, it may take us far. Make your life reach the magic of love itself.

Don Delillo, author of White Noise, wrote a classic with this book. A story about a family consumed with fear of death didn't seem like one I wanted to read, but when you get into the story, you begin to like it more and more. The book is filled with humorous events and a glimpse into what people really make of the world. The characters in the book look way into simple things like grocery shopping and television. They are always thinking that the other is more afraid, constantly arguing over it without any real knowledge. The book is an easy read, and one that will keep your interest. This book is considered a satire of consumerism and technology in america, and it definately is. The characters take each of these into depth, always giving you something to look at. After reading this book, you will question your motives somewhat when you go out, either to the movies, to eat or go shopping. I truly enjoyed this book and would reccomend it to anyone.

White Noise by Don Delillo was a book that should be read by all ages. It's basic concepts that were brought out were the acts of consumerism and death. There was also some sex involved in there too. As you can see, a perfect book for the growing college student. I also liked how Delillo brought in some humorous moments when they were during his grocery shopping and watching television. This novel basically describes the typical American family and shows how this family is just as normal as the rest of us, but shows the side we never really see. I particularly like how Delillo displays Jack as this bizarre man who really focuses on death. He can't help but think about it. I really liked him in this novel because he reminds me of myself as I walk around and think "outside the box" if you know what I mean. This book constantly made me laugh, especially when the father fights with his son. That whole argument is hysterical! The book throws some good twists to American society that most of us never see. My basic thoughts on this novel are that you should read this because it will really make you laugh, and make you think about your typical day of work and life.

White Noise is quite possibly the most enjoyable book I've ever read. Don DeLillo creates a humorous account of a middle-aged man (Jack Gladney) obsessed with death and its inevitability. In his writing, DeLillo suggests that Americans use consumerism as a way of warding of death, which is one of the novels running themes. The characters in the novel are oddly outrageous with their fanatic conversations about the recollection of trivial things like "Where were you the first time you brushed your teeth with your finger?" or "Where were you when James Dean died?" The dialogue throughout the novel is brilliant and at one point, a father-son conversation about rain coaxes the reader into questioning the validity of his or her own senses. The novel also shows how people are infatuated by televised disastrous events. White Noise reads like a demented sitcom, full of dark comedy, and unique neurotic characters that keep you entertained and interested through its entirety. If you enjoy comical and creative writing, then read this book!

In Libra, Delillo deals with one of the most well-known and well-documented events in recent history. The volumes of information, of images, of rumor, of intrigue dominate the story of JFK's assassination. Wisely, Delillo chooses to focus on a more peripheral and much less understood individual, Lee Harvey Oswald. There are so many contradictions in the case for and against Oswald. Was he alone? Was he innocent? Was he part of a team? These questions slide into obscurity as Delillo reconstructs Lee Harvey Oswald/O. H. Lee/A. J. Hidell/William Bobo. The inconsistent Oswald.

The book unfolds with alternating chapters between two narratives of the past, and one in the present [1988]. One of the pasts is Oswald's life starting as an adolescent boy in the Bronx, which eventually collides with the other, beginning in April 1963 as a group of disenfranchised former CIA men decide to create a plot to make an attempt on the President. They do not intend to kill him. Shoot and miss is the plan. But as Delillo famously says, "Plots carry their own logic. There is a tendency of plots to move toward death." So here we have a postmodern explanation for the mystique of conspiracy theory. There isn't an ordered lattice of events and characters, conducted by a deliberate intelligence. There is chaos, only ordered by a downward tendency toward death and destruction. It's Chaos Theory applied to human and political systemms.

Libra is also Delillo's most accessible book, at least in the context of the others I have read, (all but Underworld, The Names, and Mao II). Unlike White Noise, the people in Libra seem somewhat real. They are not totally so for that would mean that we understand them, which we don't. Delillo always creates fractured, composite views of his characters. We get glimpses, often contradictory, into their past and their intentions. Maybe it's because I have read a lot of his work, but Delillo's philosophic statements, if you can even call them that, are much more connected to the narrative here than in his other work. For example, Nicholas Branch, in the present day narrative, is a contemporary CIA analyst poring over all the data on the assassination. At one point he begins examining the physical evidence. There are so many abstractions and difficulties in this investigation that the presence of real objects provides a glimpse of something like truth. "The Curator sends the results of ballistics tests carried out on human skulls and goat carcassess, on blocks of gelatin mixed with horsemeat...They are saying, 'Look, touch, this is the true nature of the event. Not your beautiful ambiguities.'" These sections contain some of the most poignant and valuable insight in any of Delillo's work I have seen.

Libra is an interesting, if somewhat complicated work that both illuminates and obscures the character of Lee Harvey Oswald. This isn't as frustrating an experience as it might sound. By the novel's conclusion it would be cheap to wrap up such a sad and desolate story with niceties and tidy endings.

Don DeLillo's novel "Libra" is a novel that focuses on the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy on the 22nd of November 1963. Rather than telling us completely why he was shot and the complete details of the assassination(which to his credit he does well without giving too many Clancy-esque details)it focuses on the man who's name and face is synonymous with the assassination, the man who allegedly shot the President with 3 bullets from a bolt-axle rifle with a defective aim in less than 6 seconds whilst being a poor shot: Lee Harvey Oswald. His life. the significance of the title being that Lee Harvey Oswald's star sign was Libra.
It starts from Oswald's childhood with the rantings of his bizarre mother and how his childhood was spent in poverty which led him to have left-wing ideals. This was one of the factors that led to his downfall, his ideals. It charts his career in the navy, his association with characters involved in the asassination(like David Ferrie) and his rather strange years in Russia and back to the USA again.
This book hoever does have a few technical inconcistencies(which I can't help but point out as I am quite an anorak on the details of the case). The main one being that the backyard photos were never taken by Oswald but were of a man with the assassination rifle and holding some left-wing literature and Oswald's face superimposed upon it. This has been proved by certain shadow inconsistencies in the photos.
DeLillo does have a gift for writing and his writing style is very poetic. This combined with the historic even of the assassination of a President imposed on some social satire (the satire being the nature and views of the American people in that era and the impact of the assassination in that it deprived the people of a sense of security and of an influencing figure, especially to the youths, to whom JFK was a godfather figure) combnie to make an ever-relevant book which shares the twin badges of being well-written as well as well-regarded.

Prior to 9/11, the assasination of President John F. Kennedy was the most public of American tragedies. Regardless of an individual's personal feeling toward the President, that person was emotionally drawn into the assasination by television and the other mass media. It might be argued that this event shaped the face of televison journalism for decades to come. The story had everything: drama, tragedy, conspiracy theories and the live televised murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. Few of us who were alive on that fateful day in Dallas cannot remember what he or she was doing at the exact moment the news was first heard.

That Don DeLillo decided to treat the event in a "fictionalized" manner gave him great latitude to combine well documented facts with the novelist's own creative talents. The result is absolutely brilliant. Although DeLillo centers his narrative around Oswald, he uses real and invented characters to give his book the feel of a novel while at the same time the immediacy of journalistic reporting. Although the reader is well aware of what is to come, DeLillo builds up the suspence by his masterful manipulation of time. He interweaves chapters that deal with Oswald's early life with chapters that are in "present" time as well as with chapters dealing with the period immediately preceeding the assasination. As the reader moves through the book, Oswald and the plotters all move inexorably toward that day on which their fortunes were to meet. By the time of this meeting DeLillo has so developed each of the characters to a point that their actions and the scenario that the author presents are completly believable. Particularly impressive is the way the author developed some of the subsidiary characters such as the disaffected Cuban, Raymo; Oswald's mother, Marguerite; and the G. Gordon Liddy clone, Mackey. The testimony of Marguerite before the Warren Commission is one of the most riveting pieces of monologue I have read, completely defining the speaker's character and all her misconceptions, tenderness, and cunningness.

Thankfully, DeLillo avoids falling into the conspiracy theory trap and he neither preaches a particular point of view nor uses the hindsight of history to draw conclusions from events which followed the assasination (as did Oliver Stone). That there are among us "men in small rooms" who deliriously inflate their own importance and who by a single act of violence can insure their place in history is all too real. DeLillo sees it as his task not to try to "furnish factual answers", but only to "fill some of the blank spaces in the know record" so that these misguided individuals might be better understood. He has succeeded in his task.

The Names is indeed well-written, and a sensory delight, taking the reader on believable and quite scenic travels with an international bank executive who speaks in short, hyperintelligent sentences. The dialogue has the classic DeLillo wit and depth, and the DeLilloesque observations about the surroundings are so much better, because there are several sets of surroundings involved in this travel novel.

Unfortunately, however, I did not think it was a deep "meditation on language," as some have suggested it is. Yes, DeLillo does try hard to weave in things about language and words and meaning, and he does have some intelligent observations about self-referentiality and tautologies, but these don't seem to be very tightly integrated into the plot. It almost seems as if the "names"-oriented aspect of the book was added afterwards; the book could function just as well without all the things about names and language.

Still, this is a thrilling read, even if only as a travelogue and commentary by perhaps America's most astute social commentator. I'd recommend it to those who have read White Noise and want more DeLillo, but I wouldn't recommend it to someone wanting to just discover DeLillo. (I think White Noise or Mao II would be much better for that purpose)

Though White Noise--the academic novel meets family sitcom meets apocalyptic event--is more directly humorous and linearly plotted and Mao II--the author and the terrorist--has more immediate relevance to September 11 and Underworld--individuals in the shadow of the Cold War--operates on a grander scale, The Names may be the most successful DeLillo novel. As with the other books I've listed, don't approach The Names with the hopes that it will reach a clean resolution. But, even if somewhat infuriating, the experience will nonetheless be rewarding. DeLillo's skill at crafting sentences that stay with you, that make you laugh, that strike you as impossibly true has never been greater than in The Names. The book's "failure" may be that the individual sentences, the exchanges between the various couples are more satisfying, certainly less flat than the larger plot--the cult with their patterns. But the latter provides an element of suspense, of genuine scariness that gives the former a great immediacy. This book will stay with you if you give it a chance.

The Names was the book that gave rise to Delillo's progressive fame and is probably one of Delilo's finest and most unique books. While the majority of his novels are set in America, this one is set in the exotic premise of Greece and India, with referrals to the Middle East. This proves to be a very absorbing diversion. Overflowing with superbly crafted characters and a solidly structured plot scattered with witty and sharp insightful observations and possessing an almost irresistible writing-style, The Names deserved to be a best seller when it was released.

The novel concerns Americans living abroad, America the Myth as perceived by the rest of the world, a series of chillingly brutal cult-murders, the elusive and haunting cult itself and the concept of separation from family and on-going conflict between modern day couples. The alphabet and the metamorphosis between converging languages is also an essential component in this novel. Gripping as well is the weighty yet expertly condensed history that makes appearances. James the protagonist is a risk analyst, separated from his wife, Kathryn, who digs at archaeological sites. Their son, Tap, writes novels. Stop there. I will not give away any more about the characters involved.

These aspects provide intriguing reading material and Delillo fans will not be disappointed. For newcomers to Delillo, The Names is also a good introduction.

Perhaps what is most worthy of praise is that the prose is incandescently ingenious and profound and that this novel highlights Delillo's ability to create multitudes of characters that possess very well formed individual identities. The dialogue is also thought-provocative, believable and occasionally startling.

This raises the next point, the irrefutable fact that the book is half dialogue. This is highly unusual, as the proportion is much lower in other novels, let alone Delillo's. This, as I am delighted to say, is not a flaw but a virtue as it is endlessly interesting to peer into the sometimes-mysterious conversations the characters have. It is arguable, though, that The Names would have achieved more if more of it were concentrated on the development of the plot.

Also evident is the ostensible lack of unity in The Names. As I mentioned, there are insightful paragraphs scattered about the novel. Why scattered? Although they all are based loosely a singular theme, it has to be put forth that if more work had gone into them, they could have been made to fit together more obviously, which would have been enough to grant this novel five stars.

Initially, the plot plods along at a relatively slow pace then suddenly accelerates at a breakneck speed near the end to an intensely satisfying conclusion. A warning: this pace may not be to everyone's liking.

I've said enough abut The Names. It thoroughly deserves to be ranked alongside delillo's more successful novels such as White Noise, Underworld and Mao II. Judging from the Amazon.com sales rank, the Names is not at all a popular of book, and for that reason, this review will be imparted to relatively few, but for those of you listening, The Names was not only a milestone in this great author's career, but also one of the most hauntingly told and important books of his generation.

Certain football fans may be left dissatisfied with Endzone. A football book that is not really about football at all, DeLillo uses the adventures of Logos College fullback Gary Harkness as a point of departure from which to explore aspects of post-structuralist systems theory that became his trademark in later books. DeLillo's study of the polysemous nature of language in relation to meaning is first-rate. The parallel he establishes between the jargon of football and nuclear war demonstrates how the deterioration of semiotic meaning within language can threaten personal creativity and individuality. Caught in this suffocating network of interlocking symbol systems, Gary finds in football the only means by which to express himself freely and independent of the sterile reality around him. For Gary, football is an end unto itself, whose jargon and primitive physical contact provides him with an alternative system of meaning away from the ascetic chaos of the postmodern world. In this way, DeLillo underlines the inherent value both of physical activity and verbal creativity as expressions of individuality, which rise above the constraints of a language system devoid of expressiveness and order. An oblique and thoughtful novel, Endzone may enthral you - but only if you have the inclination. Those of you, however, who are neither literature students nor semiotic theory enthusiasts, may find it tiresome, pretentious, or just plain dull.

I've read the first two paragraphs of DeLillo's "End Zone" perhaps a hundred times and always marvel at the clarity, economy, and power of his direct, adjective-free writing style. This book has influenced my writing as much as any (I'm a newspaper reporter/editor).

Two of my favorite books are "football" books: This one and Roy Blount Jr.'s "About Three Bricks Shy of A Load," an inside-the-team-bus account of the Pittsburgh Steelers' 1973 season. Both are peopled with characters human, flawed, appalling and funny; both use quotes in fresh and startling ways; and both are terrific slices of the American Pie.

I couldn't agree less with the reader from Boston, MA. "End Zone" is about as unified a book as you're likely to read. It is quite obviously a parable with football standing in for nuclear war. As such, it is impossible to break it down into several component stories. There is an obvious beginning, middle and end: you have the arms build-up and the machismo of the preparation for war; the war itself, which is notably the shortest part of the book; and, finally, the long, painful and bizarre aftermath. There's no question that the rich, humorous characters add to the enjoyment but their stories serve the larger plot. The book makes no sense if you can't see it in its entirety. You might as well watch Wildcats if you think this is a simple football book.

i just finished running dog by don delillo. i was promised "the lurid elements of the thriller--espionage, assassination, pornography--into a work of art that captures the fevered shades of the latter-day American psyche."

well, i got those elements, but i was missing cohesion, plot and character development. i'm disappointed and feel like i wasted a lot of time, during which i racked my brain trying to figure out who any of the characters were and what the hell they were doing -- forget about their motivations. i expected it all to pull together in the end, and i thought that if i just paid enough attention i would get a riveting denouement and payback. no such luck!

i loved white noise, but this one is a bummer!

For me, the great pleasures of DeLillo are his absolute narrative control and his precise descriptiveness. Here's a quick example, with the character Selvy on the southwestern desert: "That day was like this one. A morning of startling brightness. Clarity without distracting glare. The sky was saturated with light. Everything was color." At the same time, DeLillo's narratives are sometimes about characters on meaningless quests-think "Mao II" or "Players". Read this book. But don't expect any edifying or enlightening commentary on life as it is lived, unless you are paranoid.

Running Dog is essentially a witty and sarodnic spy/intrigue/romance. DeLillo in a bar room brawl with Ian Fleming, Graham Greene, Charles Willeford and Larry Flynt. It's like punk rock DeLillo. Filled with porn, sex, violence, apathy, lecherous men and empowered women and DeLillo's Hitler fixation, manifested here less incidentaly than in White Noise. For my money its the least indulgent and most readable and fun novel of DeLillo's ouevre. All Of Chuck Palahniuk's work is a sort of cross between Running Dog and Vonnegut's Sirens Of Titan and Cat's Cradle. If you like Palahniuk, then Running Dog will offer you a great bridge to step up to DeLillo. For those who were turned off to DeLillo after yawning through Underworld and its hype, then Running Dog will be a revelation. If you don't agree with Penguin Books and have a hard time considering White Noise to be one of the greatest books of the 20th Century, up there with Ulysses, The Big Sleep and Madame Bovary, (Don't worry-neither do I) take it from me- You'll love Running Dog. I won't bother giving you a plot summary because do you really need me to reiterate what the publisher and Amazon says above? Alrighty then. Running Dog's a lot of fun!

Too didactic in its attempt at not being didactic without that being the work's ambition. Heavily influenced by the absurdist playwrites, Delillo, though I have yet to read his prose fiction, is not a playwrite by any means. Funny at times, strong with intertexual parallels, but weak as a whole.

This is one of the better books ive read. Buy it, read it and lend it to a friend.

We did this play in my high school dramatic production class. It is an interesting view on the meaning of reality versus illusion. Although a bit convoluted in parts, it is worth a read if you are into that sort of thing

How do you even begin to analyze the magnitude of DeLillo's achievement in 'Underworld'? This little book is a good place to start. Professor Duvall gives a brief and informative sketch of DeLillo's life and career to date and then dives into the meat of his book, wrestling with some of the themes - it would be impossible to do them all - of the novel. He comes over as well-informed, sharp and widely read, without ever being pretentious about it. And the book is even up-to-date enough to discuss the post 9/11 resonance of the novel's cover image.

At times a little dry for my taste, but that is a minor quibble. Duvall has packed a lot of thought into a nicely packaged book.

The fundamental problem with Ratner's Star is Delillo's insistence with bombarding the reader in a deluge of menancingly technical language. Sure, he writes beautifully and as ever, his language is precise but it appears that in an attempt to gain recognition, he has forgotten the purpose of writing and instead decided to exhibit his skills with the English langauge. As a result of this, there is the ostensible lack of crystal-clear creativity that is present in his other works. Delillo left what he usually excels in and engaged in this apparently experimental book.

I feel inclined to say that I was left frustrated at times. There is so much fluidity and generous portions of classic Delillo in the first half, yet in an attempt to succeed this, the second half finds itself drowning in the abyss. The length of the book is also not totally justified when the almost non-existent plot is put into consideration.

Heart breaking also is the absence of his portrayals of the real world, what Delillo really does shine at. Departing from that field, we have here a slightly irritating mix of insane characters and the psychedelic combination of fantasy, mathematics and science. There is imagination here but it appears to be used in the wrong way.

If you like Delillo, you will cherish this weighty book, but at the same time you might walk away feeling cheated by this book whose art is so hard to define.

For those looking for a bit of light reading, I would advise against this book. True, very little of DeLillo is easygoing, but this, his fourth novel, makes his others read as easily as the likes of Grisham or King. Ratner's Star can perhaps be best described as DeLillo does Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow." It focuses on a group of quirky scientists and mathemeticians trying to decipher what they believe are messages from extraterrestrials, and the crazy "adventures" they have in the process. There are lots of great moments in this book, great humor, and the central message (the more we learn, the less we know) is very cleverly displayed in true DeLillo fashion. However, the writing is so confusing and dense in most places that it hardly seems worth it except for the truly dedicated DeLillo fan.

The Names and Ratner's Star are probably Don DeLillo's two most difficult works. They're both dense, brainy and exacting, both laden with pages of abstract theory. In short, they are a long way from the funny, swiftly moving prose of White Noise, Players and Running Dog. Ultimately, though, because The Names is preoccupied with the nature and textures of language, it might be slightly easier for lovers of literature to enjoy. Ratner's Star, on the other hand, delves deeply in the heavy waters of space, time and complex mathematics. As someone who is scientifically and mathematically inept, I can't say I followed the more esoteric portions of the text, but I'm not sure that's the point. Rather, it seems to have been DeLillo's intention to deliberately lose the reader in order to illustrate that the sciences, while seeking to elucidate the wonders of the natural world, often lead us into heightened states of confusion. If you're thinking of reading Ratner's Star, prepare yourself for a challenge. Maybe not on the order of Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake, but difficult nonetheless, particularly in the context of current fiction, which is very often spectacularly undemanding. In terms of plot and narrative, this book deserves perhaps a three (much of it is formless and untethered, a far from the relatively airtight Libra and Underworld). But it is an exacting and complicated book that, like so much of DeLillo's best work, invites us to take a closer look at who we are and what we believe in. And for that it gets five stars.