Mourning Roundup: Feb. 8, 2010
FEBRUARY 8, 2010 TAGS:
Don DeLillo on dying and the end of the road.
A leitmotif of Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel White Noise is the pallor of death. A white chemical cloud surrounds the protagonist, a professor, condemning him to an ever-present fear of dying rather than the actual cessation of life. And so the professor and his wife journey to find a little white pill that purports to ease the crippling anxiety of mortality.
DeLillo, now a septuagenarian novelist who has seen a generation of younger writers emerge after him, has published a new novel. The question of death persists, as a fear and as an ever-present reality.
Point Omega, DeLillo’s latest effort, is bracketed by a prologue and epilogue involving a piece of video installation art called “24-Hour-Psycho” by Scottish conceptual artist Douglas Gordon. Alfred Hitchcock’s classic is slowed down to 2 frames a second, so the film that usually runs at 2 and half hours takes a whole day to watch.
The piece of art is hypnotic and maddening. Like the specter of death in White Noise, it envelopes the two main characters and the narrative structure of the novel.
Of course, Point Omega, is about more than just the fear of dying (another prominent theme is the over-reliance on technology), and the critical consensus is that it is a disappointing and ultimately minor work. But it’s hard not to consider DeLillo a great novelist without taking into account the masterful way he pairs life with its inevitable outcome.
Reviews from: The New York Times, Slate, The Wall Street Journal, The Toronto Star and Esquire
Betting on Death:
The Wall Street Journal offered a piece this weekend on purchasing life insurance policies of elderly people as an investment.
Things become more interesting when life settlements become securitized, or bundled in much the same way mortgages are sold off to investors. Frequent contributor Ben Popper wrote about that phenomenon back in the summer of 2009 for The Washington Post.
A leitmotif of Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel White Noise is the pallor of death. A white chemical cloud surrounds the protagonist, a professor, condemning him to an ever-present fear of dying rather than the actual cessation of life. And so the professor and his wife journey to find a little white pill that purports to ease the crippling anxiety of mortality.
DeLillo, now a septuagenarian novelist who has seen a generation of younger writers emerge after him, has published a new novel. The question of death persists, as a fear and as an ever-present reality.
Point Omega, DeLillo’s latest effort, is bracketed by a prologue and epilogue involving a piece of video installation art called “24-Hour-Psycho” by Scottish conceptual artist Douglas Gordon. Alfred Hitchcock’s classic is slowed down to 2 frames a second, so the film that usually runs at 2 and half hours takes a whole day to watch.
The piece of art is hypnotic and maddening. Like the specter of death in White Noise, it envelopes the two main characters and the narrative structure of the novel.
Of course, Point Omega, is about more than just the fear of dying (another prominent theme is the over-reliance on technology), and the critical consensus is that it is a disappointing and ultimately minor work. But it’s hard not to consider DeLillo a great novelist without taking into account the masterful way he pairs life with its inevitable outcome.
Reviews from: The New York Times, Slate, The Wall Street Journal, The Toronto Star and Esquire
Betting on Death:
The Wall Street Journal offered a piece this weekend on purchasing life insurance policies of elderly people as an investment.
“Say you purchase a $1 million policy held by an 82-year-old woman. Actuarial tables say she has five years to live. If you do the deal via Life Partners Holdings Inc., a major life-settlements firm, you must pony up $540,000. The woman gets $200,000 of that; the remainder goes toward future premiums and transaction fees.
Should she obligingly die on time, you net a 13% annual return. Yet if she doesn't shuffle off this mortal coil for 10 years and you end up forking over much more in premiums, the return sinks to 3%. Every extra year she soldiers on, your take shrinks.”
Things become more interesting when life settlements become securitized, or bundled in much the same way mortgages are sold off to investors. Frequent contributor Ben Popper wrote about that phenomenon back in the summer of 2009 for The Washington Post.
RELATED CONTENT
TO ADD A COMMENT, PLEASE FIRST SIGN IN OR REGISTER.
