Ratner's Star

by Don DeLillo

Book Overview

A whimsical, surrealistic excursion into the modern scientific mind. --The New Yorker

One of DeLillo's first novels, Ratner's Star follows Billy, the genius adolescent, who is recruited to live in obscurity, underground, as he tries to help a panel of estranged, demented, and yet lovable scientists communicate with beings from outer space. It is a mix of quirky humor, science, mathematical theories, as well as the complex emotional...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679722920
• ISBN13: 9780679722922
• Release Date: July 1989
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.6" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Some wild ride...

As others have noted, RS is a novel of language and ideas, less so (far far less so) a novel of characters and plotting. It is a brilliant meditation -- on mankind, modernity, and science. It is also, in a word, exhausting. The first half of RS (divided in numbered chapters) was rich in the extreme -- quirky, funny (hilariously so at times), incisive. The second half (divided in unnumbered 'chapters') was rich in a different way: a prose poem-like gloss/continuation of the first half, so laden with non-sequiturs and misdirection as to make it very difficult to follow at times, but compelling all the same. I could happily have read several 'halves' like the first. After awhile I grew rather tired of the second. Nonetheless, RS richly merits its 5 stars. It is one of the oddest pieces of writing I've ever read; high praise!

Ratner's Star

This book has quickly become one of my favorites. A beautifully written novel about language, mathematics, the fear of death, and an individuals place within the complexity of reality. There are sentences within this book that made me read them six or seven times they were so beautiful. An exceptional work that i cannot wait to read again.

Difficult but rewarding

The Names and Ratner's Star are probably Don DeLillo's two most difficult works. They're both dense, brainy and exacting, both laden with pages of abstract theory. In short, they are a long way from the funny, swiftly moving prose of White Noise, Players and Running Dog. Ultimately, though, because The Names is preoccupied with the nature and textures of language, it might be slightly easier for lovers of literature to enjoy. Ratner's Star, on the other hand, delves deeply in the heavy waters of space, time and complex mathematics. As someone who is scientifically and mathematically inept, I can't say I followed the more esoteric portions of the text, but I'm not sure that's the point. Rather, it seems to have been DeLillo's intention to deliberately lose the reader in order to illustrate that the sciences, while seeking to elucidate the wonders of the natural world, often lead us into heightened states of confusion. If you're thinking of reading Ratner's Star, prepare yourself for a challenge. Maybe not on the order of Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake, but difficult nonetheless, particularly in the context of current fiction, which is very often spectacularly undemanding. In terms of plot and narrative, this book deserves perhaps a three (much of it is formless and untethered, a far from the relatively airtight Libra and Underworld). But it is an exacting and complicated book that, like so much of DeLillo's best work, invites us to take a closer look at who we are and what we believe in. And for that it gets five stars.

Great DeLillo for math/science fans

This is what DeLillo wrote after having spent a few years studying mathematics. It is a beautiful effort, albeit a bit different from much of his other work: no terrorists, no fear of death, and none of the characters is as memorable as the Gladney family from White Noise. It does, however, resemble White Noise is that it has the standard silly/almost-surreal professorial figures, and children wise beyond their years. DeLillo does show his Pynchonesque side, demonstrating thorough knowledge of math and physics; he is not just spouting catchphrases when he writes about these things.Ratner's Star is mediocre DeLillo (which is still great!) for those not interested in math and science -- and perhaps top DeLillo for those who are interested in math or physics. Extra points for those readers who were intellectually precocious as kids: you will definitely identify with Billy, more or less.The ending is wonderful, and I must say I didn't see it coming; although as soon as I read it, I thought "how could I not have seen it coming!" That is the mark of a well crafted novel.

DeLillo's funniest.

A hoot and a half: the main character, an adolescent astrophysics prodigy, is unique and immensely entertaining. His situation and surrounding cast of characters are preposterous. Reality takes a delicious beating, and the reader actually learns a little something about the construction of the universe, embedded seamlessly in the fun.