The Silence

By: Don DeLillo

Narrated by: Laurie Anderson, Jeremy Bobb, Marin Ireland, Robin Miles, Jay O. Sanders, Michael Stuhlbarg

From the National Book Award–winning author of Underworld, a “daring…provocative…exquisite” (The Washington Post) novel about five people gathered together in a Manhattan apartment, in the midst of a catastrophic event.

It is Super Bowl Sunday in the year 2022. Five people, dinner, an apartment on the east side of Manhattan. The retired physics professor and her husband and her former student waiting for the couple who will join them from what becomes a dramatic flight from Paris. The conversation ranges from a survey telescope in North-central Chile to a favorite brand of bourbon to Einstein’s 1912 Manuscript on the Special Theory of Relativity.

Then something happens and the digital connections that have transformed our lives are severed.

What follows is a “brilliant and astonishing…masterpiece” (Chicago Tribune) about what makes us human. Don DeLillo completed this novel just weeks before the advent of the Covid pandemic. His language, the dazzle of his sentences offer a kind of solace in our bewildering world. “DeLillo’s shrewd, darkly comic observations about the extravagance and alienation of contemporary life can still slice like a scalpel” (Entertainment Weekly).

“In this wry and cutting meditation on collective loss, a rupture severs us, suddenly, from everything we’ve come to rely on. The Silence seems to absorb DeLillo’s entire body of work and sand it into stone or crystal.” —Rachel Kushner

Critic reviews

"A full cast propels DeLillo's latest audiobook, which portrays our current relationship with technology. At a time in the close future, an unexplained technology disruption occurs, impacting the characters of this work at various levels. An international flight to New York crash-lands; the survivors are treated in a clinic that is also affected by the blackout. The Super Bowl broadcast goes dark, forcing neighbors to interact. DeLillo reflects on the nature of humanity, and who we've become. Marin Ireland's centering narrative anchors the stellar performances. Memorable characters include a gruff sports gambler who is reduced to watching a blank screen, portrayed by Jay O. Sanders, and a couple who survive the crash and are left to observe the aftermath, portrayed by Jeremy Bobb and Robin Miles. The collective performances make this story resonate more deeply."

No plot

Such a strong, exciting start and then faded into oblivion. Disappointing. Good performance from the reader though.

Ere the sockson locked at the dure

"Ere the sockson locked at the dure."
- James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

"We were headed in this direction. No more wonder, no more curiosity. Totally impaired orientation. Too much of everything from too narrow a source code."
- Don DeLillo, The Silence

My father-in-law, 28 years ago, was the director of Information Warfare and Special Technical Operations Center (STOC), a part of the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon. I remember, being a college student dating his daughter, talking to him about his work there. He was the first to introduce me to the idea that we are always electronically at war. Our information grid, our electrical grids, our servers, our systems are constantly being "attacked". It was a brave new world that only has gotten braver the last two-three decades I'd imagine.

DeLillo imagines the aftermath of an attack in 2022 (or is it a solar flare or aliens?) that disables our grids; downs everything. Leaving us in the dark. No Google. No phones. No Super bowl. Delillo isn't interested in the later part of this narrative. He isn't writing a Stephen King novel or a dystopian SF novel. He is really only after the texture of what we would THINK, what we would SAY right as it happened or shortly after. I guess we have one month left in 2020, so shit.

The other day COX CABLE was down for two hours. We had no internet service (for our phone or computers). TV was limited since it is all through TV. Our social lives were limited because so much of our "lives" happens through the internet. So much of who we are exists either in a reflection through these social media source or through these connections. What happens when that vanishes suddenly? For everyone? Where are we? Where do we go when the world goes silent? What happens when the noise we thought was in our head goes silent and we are alone listening to the void?

Update: I also LOVED the typewriter font the book was printed in, so there is also that. One really nice detail. Also, don't pay too much attention to the stars. This might be a 4-star DeLillo. It has haunted me a bit since reading it yesterday, but perhaps that is just the clouds of 2020 or the anticipation of what December will bring.

Update: One of the things that keeps me coming back to Don DeLillo (just finished my last DeLillo novel, excluding Amazons, the other day is his MOOD. It is hard to describe, but I read a couple paragraphs of DeLillo and you know I'm reading him. Imagine you are on the edge of a black hole and falling into it. Your body elongates. Stretches. Before you disappear into the void as your left arm gets pulled inside, you start to pluck that arm. The sound your naked arm makes, as you slip into infinity, THAT is the mood of Don DeLillo.

The Heck Did I Just Listen To

Maybe if I sat down and listen to it all in one sitting, or maybe if I read it in print... Maybe I'll get the deeper meaning of this story. But I listened to half on the way in to work and the other half on the way home, and I was utterly confused. SPOILER ALERT: The event that cut off the football game caused the plane to crash, so how did the passengers get to the watch party so quickly? And, if everyone is rambling about Einstein, physics, and having sex with each other in weird places, is that happening all over the place or just with these people?
I'm sure Don DeLillo is a great writer, but, man, was I confused at the end. The story just kind of ended with the protagonists rambling about life stuff. Or did I miss the denouement somehow?
Not my cup of tea. Your mileage may vary.

Audio play with catchy academic dialogue

The catchy academic dialogue and characters catched my attention. How they interact before the blackout, then comes conspiracy theories and schock. Focus on the characters reactions to unknown cause. I like the academic touch with references to Einstein. It is more of an audio play than a novel, but it could potentially be the beginning of a thriller. I would have liked more substance to the plot.

Albee for a broken society

Look, DeLillo isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. A common reason people don’t like his books is the characters don’t talk like actual human beings, and there is a *lot* of talking. The Silence is in the same vein as Point Omega but without the high art undercurrent, instead (and pointedly) the narrative is anchored to a Super Bowl Sunday in the not-too-distant future.

Because of the stilted dialogue and flat characters, the choice to go with a full cast is probably the best approach. It’s much easier to follow what’s happening and develop some sense of who these people are in this weird little story.

This is a fairly brief, but powerful meditation of this sad moment in history, our dependence and entanglement with our screens, our need for vapid entertainment, and our disassociated relationship with the natural, physical world and its inherent rules. Drink deep, and descend.