The way through

From Underworld by Don DeLillo:

I walked back and forth across the parade in the blowing snow. Then I went to my room and threw off my jacket. I wanted to look up words. I took off my boots and wrung out my cap over the washbasin. I wanted to look up words. I wanted to look up velleity and quotidian and memorize the fuckers for all time, spell them, learn them, pronounce them syllable by syllable--vocalize, phonate, utter the sounds, say the words for all they're worth.

This is the only way in the world you can escape the things that made you.

After turning the last page

Paul Auster's Leviathan was published in 1992 and dedicated to Don DeLillo. Its events seem to eerily prefigure Falling Man... I'll be attending a lecture on this latter work today and it will be interesting to see if the subject comes up.