684. Ratner's Star

Ratner's Star

Don DeLillo
1976

Around 440 pages

Don DeLillo is going to be with us for a long time, so it's important to start off a good note and make a quality first impression. He didn't, but I'll try to be cordial about it.

Billy Twillig has won the first Nobel Prize ever to be given in mathematics. In the near future, Billy is sent to live with 30 Nobel laureates and asked to decipher transmissions from outer space. Thomas Pynchon is annoying, and writers that try to write like Pynchon are irritating too. And novels that may have inspired David Foster Wallace are the worst of all.

A sprawling stories that isn't tethered to any likable characters or realistic dialogue. That was cordial, right?

RATING: **---

Interesting Facts:

DeLillo said that the structural model was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.

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