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Chapter 23 - Death

(Not) Moving Deathward: The Living and the Undead in DeLillo’s Late Works

from Part V - Material Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2022

Jesse Kavadlo
Affiliation:
Maryville University of Saint Louis, Missouri
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Summary

Most critics who analyze so-called “late” works—those written by elderly authors – seek to classify those works in terms of stylistic traits. Yet these critics’ definitions frequently contradict each other, suggesting that, as Michael and Linda Hutcheon write, “there are as many late styles as there are late artists.” In light of the fact that many of Don DeLillo’s recent works concentrate on loss and the work of mourning, this chapter proposes that his post-millennial novels display a form of lateness manifest   less in style than in theme and character. Specifically, his late-career works present an array of near-death, suspended life, or afterlife experiences: a gallery of ghosts, zombies and vampires through which, as Edward Said remarks about late musical works, “death appears in a refracted mode, as irony” (24). In other words, the late DeLillo, as he displays in his novels The Body Artist, Falling Man, Point Omega, and Zero K, and his story “The Starveling,” is concerned less with death than with undeath.

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  • Death
  • Edited by Jesse Kavadlo
  • Book: Don DeLillo In Context
  • Online publication: 19 May 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009025676.029
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  • Death
  • Edited by Jesse Kavadlo
  • Book: Don DeLillo In Context
  • Online publication: 19 May 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009025676.029
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Death
  • Edited by Jesse Kavadlo
  • Book: Don DeLillo In Context
  • Online publication: 19 May 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009025676.029
Available formats
×