Caught in a world distinguished by its disconnection with basic rules of life, wrapped in an ethics far removed from any reason to use it, DeLillo's characters make sense only to themselves and those who prey upon them, fulfilling their self-indulgence for a price. Baudrillard warns of what happens to humans when they demand and get too much. The two should get together, and they do so in Schuster's (English, Montgomery Country Community College, Pennsylvania) treatment. Organizing his thoughts alon the lines of works of DeLillo, Schuster provides significant moments bound by Baudrillard's critical theory, along with contributions by Saussure, Barthes, Marx, and Derrida. Along with the evolving language of terrorism and the quivering of inevitable societal collapse, Schuster examines DeLillo's system of objects, signification and symbolic exchange, the artist in perpetual opposition, the graffiti instinct, body time v. object time, and various seductions and permutations of the ambivalent. Annotation 2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
