“In a Tumbling Void”

DeLillo’s Late Lyrical Prose

Abstract

DeLillo’s The Silence contemplates the entropy which lies at the core of digital trafficking in a new, sustained critique of the accelerations of the new economy, recently intersecting with the current and recurrent states of emergency. My analysis of his late lyrical prose locates this novella within his Millennium series of six short lyrical narratives written in the sparse, paratactic form inaugurated with his absurdist plays. In these late works, the author recovers an experimental, modernist style which, in its clipped, hermetic tones, explores the secrets of domestic jargons and of small talk while calling for a badly needed social reconstruction and for a compelling reflection on post-traumatic confinement as a condition still able to preserve the humane ability to write and communicate beyond screens.