Don DeLillo’s Mao II: a Virilian reading

Abstract

DeLillo’s fiction is postmodern mostly in that it addresses the major aspects of what has been called the postmodern condition. Mao II, published in 1991, voices concerns about the menace of terrorism. It also deals with the issue of the position of the novelists/the novel in an age dominated by the media. Paul Virilio has also paid particular attention to such aspects in his theories. The novel published about three decades ago and the theories first presented around that time have proved to be prophetic today. Reading the American author in the light of the theories of the French thinker better illustrates the status of both as figures warning against the daunting realities of our age. This article attempts a reading of Mao II in the light of Virilio’s theories about war of images or info war, tele-presence, polar inertia, and the substitution of actual reality by the virtual.