Don DeLillo's The Silence is one of the more disappointing books I've read in recent memory. It was billed as a very "2020" read: The year is 2022 and on Super Bowl Sunday, the grid - the whole grid - internet, electric, phone, etc., etc., etc. - goes out. The book jacket says that what follows is "a dazzling and profoundly moving conversation about what makes us human." I disagree. I think what follows is, frankly, a lot of inactivity and, based on what we've all lived this past almost-year (though through a different crisis) unrealistic.
If the book had been longer, if DeLillo had explored his characters for more than, I don't know, 24 hours after the digital connections are severed, if he had explored how local and state and national politicians reacted - how they even reached people given the loss of cable and internet and with it, God forbid, Twitter, that would have added depth and interest. If they'd discussed more than Einstein's Theory of Relativity and German philosophy it would have added relatability.
There are a handful of lines with particular resonance: Are we living in a makeshift reality? Is it natural at a time like this to be thinking and talking in philosophical terms....or should we be practical?
Ultimately, though, this was a book without a point, either one committed to paper, or one for the reader to imagine after finishing the last page. The idea is intriguing, but the execution is lacking.
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