Rating: 
Summary: Different
Review: It's 124 pages and the first 25 pages describe a couple having breakfast. They have a problem with the toaster. The problem must have got to the husband because the next thing we read is that he has committed suicide. Trying to fix appliances can be pretty frustrating. Then the wife (his third - he went back to the first wife to kill himself) goes back to the house they were renting and practices being a body artist. This involves an act where she stands on stage carrying a brief case and checking the time on her watch. (Some people think this is slow and repetitious and walk out, the world being full of stupid philistines who cannot appreciate significant art). Anyway she goes back to the house to practice and finds a creature living in the attic. It's a small man and she may be imagining him. He takes a walk to pick up some scouring powder (Ajax - very symbolic) and disappears.
That's about it. After reading it you can say you've read some Don DeLillo (one is supposed to have read Don DeLillo if one is not to be considered semi-literate) and you don't have to wade through his long novels.
Rating: 
Summary: a case of the emperor's new clothes...
Review: I know that he gets rave reviews and has a huge following but DeLillo seems to have forgotten that a novelist is a storyteller.The Body Artist is a non-story, albeit involving some wonderfully clever pieces of writing. DeLillo is a great writer but a poor storyteller. I'd rather spend my time reading the work of authors who can combine both talents - Auster, Murakami etc.
Rating:
Summary: DeLillo focuses on his other obsession
Review: Throughout most of DeLillo's works there is a constant theme that often is overlooked by critics and readers who are more interested in his descriptions of postmodern America. This theme is one focused on language, how it functions in relation to perception and how we create meaning from words. Many readers are probably inclined to think at first that this novel is a self-absorbed, navel-gazing and aimless work. To a degree, it is, but so are our own private thoughts at that moment before we process them into speech and other abstractions. What DeLillo manages to do is describe a thought process and how it is derived through language. [Several times in the book the main character uses a word of which its meaning she is not certain--yet it still functions, has a personal meaning.] While this may not be the most fascinating topic of a 'novel' I think THE BODY ARTIST _does_ accurately describe the thought process of the contemporary American mind, where one is inundated with information and subjected to a supposed degradation of language. It's not beach reading, but it is thought-provoking.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Ruminations
Review: The Body Artist is an interesting rumination, but my one piece of advice is--just be sure you are in the mood for this one. It's not your typical novel, because nothing really happens, there is no plot to speak of. It will, however, make you think. Think about the nature of identity and what makes us who we are. The Body Artist is really more of a parable than a novel. The two main characters--Lauren, a "body artist" who turns her own body into nothingness, a blank sheet and an odd man who she discovers living in her home who can do perfectly uncanny imitations of other people's voices, but has no voice of his own--are interesting in their bizarre similarities. But nothing really happens to them. But still, DeLillo is DeLillo and he writes marvelously. If you are in the mood for something experimental, give this one a try.
Rating: 
Summary: DeLillo has nOt given up on the universe
Review: I've read the book twice, and I intend to read it more. In the mean time i'm listening to the audio-book again and again. Repetition is a key. Words are not meant to come then go forever. If they're quality, they're meant to come again and again. DeLillo must have spent lots of time writing this, so why would I read it for a few days then abandon it? If you would be a mind artist, like a body artist there are positions to assume, moves to make, disciplines to engage, decisions to make. Do you want to be an artist? To explore the world in ways most people can't even dReam of? This book has taken me steps closer to my own body, and thus to the truth of my mind's life. D is my favorite novelist, but who cares? It's futile to try to export my tastes to people who may be out of synch with my deal. This is a good book for writers. It lets us know that we don't have to write _Underworld_'s all the time--we can rhythmically contract our vision to a rather local, intimate arena, and yet this doesn't mean we have given up on the universe, it only means we are free to see the you and me.
Rating:
Summary: Mrs. Caliban revisited
Review: DeLillo's book, The Body Artist held me in a spell throughout. It is gorgeously written -- the mundane details of life are so clear and true that it hurts the heart. DeLillo tweaked my psyche back to all the times I haven't been in the moment or listened to the ones I love. The only thing that felt wrong was something in the story construction -- A strange man appears to have been living in the protangonist's house undetected until after the death of her husband. Because the scenario parrallels that of the monster in Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls so closely, it detracted a bit from my experience of the book. I suppose in a different light there could actually be a dialogue between the two works or even a deeper extension of the monster character. Caliban's creature is rather one dimensional while DeLillo's little man is anything but. Still, I think that both the little man and the monster serve the same purpose in the story -- a recepticle or vehicle for experiencing or dealing with grief. In any case, The Body Artist brought up questions of isolation, time, quality of life, reality and the existence of poety in the everyday details we often ignore.
Rating: 
Summary: Total Nonsense
Review: I was interested in the story of "The Body Artist" because, as some of you know, a "body artist" is the name we in my profession (architecture) have given to those who actually design the outer part of a building, the nonfunctional but beautifully pleasing visible part. I was such a body artist before my eyesight disappeared. Yes, I'm a blind architect. Good only for cold equations and what is somewhat obscurely referred to as "business" consultations. In any event, "The Body Artist" is NOT about architecture. It is a very numbing story about a woman named Goody Michaelson who runs a bed and breakfast establishment in the Outer Banks. One day a huge storm rushes up the coast and Mrs. Michaelson refuses to leave the hotel. She is carried off to a tropical island off the coast of Madagascar where she learns the homely folkways of the tribe of intelligent Lemurs she encounters there and devotes the rest of her life to her fruit collection, forgetting about the "personal service" standard that had marked her days in the hospitality industry. I don't know, I thought it dragged a little after we arrived in the Madagascar part but, heck, I'm not the one who has to read aloud, it's my long-suffering but essentially functional wife. Think I'll keep her. As to the book, I sawed it into four equally sized sections, drilled a 3/4" hole in the center of each, and bolted the four together. Beautiful little piece, hearkening back to my old "body artist" days if I do say so myself. How I wish I could go back to active design.
Rating:
Summary: Haunting Novel
Review: Ostensibly, this is a story about grieving. Lauren is a body artist, meaning that she expresses her thoughts and feelings on stage through a variety of body appearances and positions. Her expressions reflect her extraordinary sensitivity to the world around her. When Lauren's husband, Rey, takes his life in suicide, what is left of their relationship, like her body work, assumes a visual expression in the form of a boy-man of indeterminate age, who lives in the past, present and future all at once. The image brings to her remnants of Rey, of herself, and of Laren-Rey (their relationship). Mere remnants remain because Rey is dead, and life's full richness with him is no longer possible. The boy-man is a tangible, seemingly real image, just as her body works are real to Lauren when she performs. This is not a ghost story. Rather, Lauren is grieving. Her grief takes this boy-man shape, helping Lauren to cope with Rey's death and her feelings about the suicide, about Rey, about their relationship, and about how she will express herself in her art. We all are haunted by those in our past, not by ghosts, but by our memories and remnants of our feelings. DeLillo's novel is an extension of these common feelings, as seen through the eyes of a most expressive protagonist. We all live simultaneously in the past (our memories, our character bases), the present, and the future (our hopes, fears, plans, dreams). All of this brews within us as we journey through our life's drama and trivia. Capturing such normal thought processes in such a creative way poetically blends the conscious and subconscious. The book is not just about grieving and being haunted by those we have loved, but about how we pass through, regard, and express our time alive.
Rating:
Summary: A Change of Pace
Review: Subtler than DeLillo's other works, "The Body Artist," is not the book that he will be remembered for by posterity. However, it is nontheless an interesting literary experiment that is well worth reading. I would recommend another of his works for those unfamiliar with his style, perhaps "White Noise" or "Libra," but for those of you who ARE familiar with DeLillo, this should be an enjoyable, albeit brief, read.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece by a Master Writer
Review: The characters are highly finished, and their pursuits indicate the keenest penetration, and the most perfect knowledge and understanding of the human situation. Especially important are the multiple correct details of our everyday lives. One example: "When the phone rang she did not look at it the way they do in the movies." Amazing! DeLillo knows real people don't look at ringing phones and by telling us (with a negative description) he reminds us of what is phony and fake in the movies. This is a masterpiece by a master, one of the best living writers of English. If you are interested in real literature, not the fake imitation so prevalent these days, read this work by a writer's writer. The richness of the language is reward enough, but you'll get a good story too. After you have read this one, go on to read Mao II (PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction), then Underworld (Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters) and White Noise (National Book Award), after which you will be ready to approach his best novel to date, The Names.
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