A fitting coincidence to read this short work by the master of postmodernism straight after one of his arguable heirs (Ben Lerner). One forgets—given White Noise was 35 years old when The Silence was written—just how boundary-pushing and prescient DeLillo has always been. Through his choice of words (always economical), DeLillo captures the absurd state of modern America, assessing the limits of consumerism and technology. The Silence imagines, through the eyes of five differently self-obsessed people, what would happen were the internet to go down, leaving us potentially rudderless without this now seemingly essential prop. A world without rules or previously held ways of going about things foreshadows the eerie 'silence' of the COVID-19 pandemic era. Implicit in The Silence is DeLillo's view that, were we to survive, then we may revert to 'sticks and stones' (quoting Einstein, that if World War III were nuclear, then this would be the format for World War IV). Another great take on incomprehension in a rapidly changing world.
By Don DeLillo