War has always been a complex topic to discuss. While some tackle its significance to history, others choose to speak of its atrocities, but Don Delillo, in his novel Point Omega, attempts to grapple with the apathy towards human life that emerges during times of war.

Point Omega has two primary characters, Richard Elster and Jim Finley. To sum up an otherwise complex story, Elster is a retired propagandist and Finley is a filmmaker and the novel’s narrator. During the Iraq war Elster works for the Department of Defense spinning propaganda that encourages public support for the war but now he lives in a barren desert largely removed from society. Finley seeks out Elster hoping to make a documentary about the man’s life.

All characters in Delillo’s story are static and rarely change in any other significant way. A large portion of the story is simply conversation between Finley and Elster. Through Elster’s seeming disregard for the lives lost as a result of the Iraq war, he works to perpetuate his apathy towards his former job. As a manipulator of the public’s opinion on the war, he shows readers the mechanical coldness of the mindset inherent a wartime politician.

At first, readers are led to believe that Elster’s uncaring attitude is merely reserved for the political realm in which he worked. As the story progresses, however, readers see that Elster’s outlook on humanity as a whole is equally bleak. Partway through the book Elster’s daughter with whom he lives goes missing and rather than become outwardly concerned, Elster is shown to become even more withdrawn from the world.

If this does not sound particularly complex it is because not all of the story’s meat is in the story itself. With elegant prose such as “Consciousness is exhausted. Back now to inorganic matter. This is what we want. We want to be stones in a field,” much of the beauty of Delillo’s story stems from the ideas that his story will provoke rather than the ideas that it by itself seeks to express.

The book, despite its complexity, is only 117 pages long and this may put some readers off as the price tag attached to the book is in the 20 dollar range. Despite this, if readers are looking for a book that is both complex in its expressions and provocative to thought, Point Omega is an excellent selection. Readers who prefer a more casual face value read should keep looking however, as casually reading the novel will result in missing much of its richness.