PRACTICAL JOKES: DON DELILLO´S RATNER´S STAR AND LITERARY GAMES

Abstract

“Literary games” are strategies employed by writers to draw attention to, to disrupt, and even to subvert the conventions of literary production and reading. In his oddest novel, Ratner´s Star, Don DeLillo employs many such strategies; strategies which not only provide the reader with much playful diversion, but which also have the practical consequence of guiding readers to alternative (and challenging) ways of engaging with literary texts. This paper explores the literary games played by DeLillo in his novel, Ratner´s Star and suggests some of the practical implications these games have for our conception of what it means, in the aftermath of fundamental revolutions in linguistic and philosophical theory, to be a reader.