A story about this — 4 years ago
I nearly stopped on the same page I did the first time I tried reading this. The descriptive prose is gorgeous, but the artificiality of dialogue and character became overwhelming after awhile. As the events of the story became more concrete, the language rendering them became more obtuse. Also, given what’s happened in the years since publication, DeLillo’s assumed connection between writers and terrorist seem awkward and a bit aggrandizing.