Mao II: A Look on Terrorism and Mass Organization

Don DeLillo's 10th novel, Mao II deals with terrorism and mass media that were also the themes explored in his novel, Falling Man. 

"What terrorists gain, novelists lose.  The degree to which they influence mass consciousness is the extent of our decline as shapers of sensibility and thought."

Considering that the work was published in 1991, the novel is considered to be ahead of its time in foreseeing an age of terror and its effect on America.  One of the main themes explored in the novel is the "psychology of crowds" as seen in the mass cult wedding depicted in the first chapters.  I liked Falling Man more but I think the reason for this is because I will never forget watching on television the actual falling down of the two towers and I saw how this changed the world.

As to the title of the novel...

"Bill had his picture taken not because he wanted to come out of hiding but because he wanted to hide more deeply, he wanted to revise the terms of seclusion, he needed the crisis of exposure to give him a powerful reason to intesify his concealment.  Years ago there were stories that Bill was dead...they were not about Bill so much as people's need to make mysteries and legends.  Now Bill was devising his own cycle of death and resurgence.  It made Scott think of great leaders who regenerate their power by sropping out of sight and then staging messianic returns.  Mao Zedong of course..."

Twenty-One: Falling Man

Interesting Factoid?

There is a performance artist in the book that suspends himself upside down wearing a business attire reminiscent of a photograph by Richard Dew.  Don DeLillo claims that he did not know that the title of the photograph is also Falling Man

Impressions?

A couple of firsts with this book.  First novel I read that is related to 9/11 and my first Don DeLillo.  What can I say, it was an awesome first impression and I can’t wait to get started with both Underworld and White Noise.

Most Memorable lines?

“There were people shouting up at him, outraged at the spectacle, the puppetry of human desperation, a body’s last fleet breath and what it held.  It held the gaze of the world, she thought.  There was the awful openness of it, something we’d not seen, the single falling figure that trails a collective dread, body come down among us all.”       

“But does a man have to kill himself in order to count for something, be someone, find the way?”