Mao II Book

"The cult of Mao was the cult of the book."

A writer is always said to bring wisdom and knowledge to his readers, to give them guidance, clarity of mind by using stories and instances regardless of truth as exemplars. But can the writer do the opposite and inspire terror, chaos, and bewilderment? It is often said that a writer sacrifices himself for the better fortune of his readers. Writing should be a beloved practice to those who are enamored by words, by language, and sometimes by the ability of playing god and make-believe. That is not always the case. It is easily traceable in literary history that writers have the hardest time concentrating on their works. Indeed it is rather easy to write a few pages when inspiration hits you, but writing and rewriting hundreds even thousands of pages over a grueling stretch isn't an attractive plight. Writers readily suffer fatigue, languor, creative blocks, and would often put off their work for great lengths of time. But then his suffering is assuaged the minute he publishes his work and people are inspired by what he painfully poured out of himself. But what if instead of inspiration, his horrors take hold of his prose and flow through his readers? What if he instills fear and uneasiness into their minds? And what if the book takes the form of a chimera that terrorizes both creator and receptor? In Christopher Nolan's Inception he uses dreams to put in ideas into people's heads. But in Don DeLillo's Mao II, the obvious truth is revealed, in the real world, writing books take this function.

"What terrorists gain, novelists lose. The degree to which they influence mass consciousness is the extent of our decline as shapers of sensibility and thought. That danger they represent equals our own failure to be dangerous."

In Mao II, Bill Gray, the world's most renowned novelist, an aging dinosaur and an illusive sonofabitch firmly believes that he was born too late. He was of the idea that writers used to be the scale of the world's moral balance and sometimes even the force the drives it off its axis. Books inspired fear, they served as catalysts of change. Most of the visionary books were banned; great writers were often murdered and burned on a stake. People in power didn't like ideas people were getting from what they read. The Bible inspired great religious frenzy and turned lots of heathens into believers of Jesus Christ. Similar function goes for Islam's Quran. And these works inspired a great many religious wars. The Greek Philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle's works inspired an intellectual revolution. The Malleus Maleficarum caused the deaths of thousands of forward thinking women. Mein Kampf was an idea that killed millions of Jews. Marx and Engle's Manifesto started a movement so hated by the world. Oscar Wilde's flair caused uproar and probably got him killed. D.H. Lawrence's vulgarity made him a literary villain. Victor Hugo's Les Miserables gave the common people the feeling of power. Jose Rizal's novels inspired the Philippine revolution. Even Nabokov's Lolita gave rise to such a resounding cry of moral righteousness. But nowadays, definitely post 9-11, terrorists and acts of terror have taken hold over the populace and what was once a mass that was affected by literary ideas now moved to terror's rhythm of fear and self preservation. The Osama bin Ladens and the Saddam Husseins of the world are now more known than the Garcia-Marquez and the Toni Morrisons. Even modern writers have not escaped the fate of fear. Salman Rusdie's Satanic Verses shows how terrorism is encroached even to the influencers emeritus. A long time ago people read books and these chiefly inspired how they think, the choices they made. Nowadays people watch and listen to terror-dominated news and their mindset and life-choices are affected by what has happened. Books are now relegated as fantasy and escapism serving as a pastime rather than a critical tool of change, and it is no great wonder the biggest selling books are about vampires and masochistic sex. What was once a public that read and reacted on ideas and concepts now dwelled on reported events. The time of the thinking man is gone; the rule of the fear-addled reactionary homo-sapien is upon us. Is this the post-modern word we live in?

"He is saying terror is the what we use to give our people their place in the world. What used to be achieved through great work, we gain through terror. Terror makes the new future possible. All men, one man. Men live in history as never before. He is saying we make and change the history minute by minute. History is not the book or the human memory. We do history in the morning and change it after lunch."

"Mao believed in the process of thought reform. It is possible to make by changing the basic nature of the people."

Mao Zedong, the man who graces the novel's title was not just a revolutionary leader; he was also a brilliant writer. As a youth he wrote well-regarded poems and several philosophical treatises on the subject of war, democracy and so forth. But what really symbolized Mao, aside from his images, was his Little Red Book that the Chinese people clamored for. Formally called Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, this work was printed and sold by the millions because the populace wanted to learn and adapt the ideas of their leader. I am saying this because although Mao did commit many vile acts of terrorism, what propelled people to notice and revere him was not his actions but the idea he wanted to propagate.

"There is a longing for Mao that will sweep the world… eloquent macho bullshit."

This novel of set pieces isn't as coherent as I'd hoped it to be. It combines hazy, fragmented views on terror, on war, of the lone and of the mass, of writing and shaping and out of the disarray comes a piercing cry out of the rubble that should be heard in the shell-shocked world of today: fear me, fear the writer. DeLillo purposely fills the book with scenes that cause unease and he reminds the reader that an idea is still scarier than an act. That the mass can never be compelled by fear and terror unless it takes root in informed viewpoints that the individual must make on his own, and that when traced, everything comes back to literature. Thus when man realizes his errs, he shall see that terror does not come from explosions and bombs, but from letters and words.