The New Tragic Narrative

[Paul Nightingale]

>From Mark Osteen, American Magic and Dread: Don DeLillo's Dialogue with
Culture, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.

The chapter on Mao II (pp192ff) uses the quotation on writing and terrorism,
ie "bomb-makers and gunmen ... make raids on human consciousness" (p41 is
referenced; it's the 1991 Viking ed and the same page in my 1992 Vintage
pbk). Osteen goes on to cite a continuation of this theme later in the
novel. The reference to Beckett and ("the new tragic narrative") appears on
p157 of Mao II.

These are all conversations between characters, who might or might not be
mouthpieces for the Author-as-God (or even God-as-Author). Osteen writes:
"Although in interviews DeLillo has ... remarked on the way terrorist acts
permit needy people to give their lives order ... he also challenged the
affiliation between terrorists and artists in his early work, satirizing
artists like Jean-Luc Godard who believe art should be 'terroristic'"
(American Magic and Dread, p206).

I haven't read/reread what DeLillo actually wrote, but my money's on Godard.