Introduction
In Max Frisch’s Homo Faber (1957),1 some travelers engage in a discussion about the relevance of technology to their lives. The protagonist, Walter Faber, remarks that even the ship on which they are voyaging is “the product of technology” (78). This remark seems to take the other characters aback. Up to this point, they have not been paying attention to the “technological” nature of their stay on the vessel. They are absorbed by close-tohand activities such as reading and playing table tennis. Meanwhile, Faber is captivated by the meticulousness of the components of the ship. He gazes at the engine-room as if it were a sculpture in the Louvre. He goes as far as to think that “sculptures and things like that are nothing more (to my way of thinking) than forbears of the robot” (78). Faber disregards a whole cultural heritage, as culture, for him, has mutated into a set of algorithmic data, devoid of the “primitive symbols” of spirituality. Conversely, the other travelers are oblivious to the cultural importance of the ship itself. They derive their vitality chiefly from familiar proximate activities. These antithetical views raise a number of crucial questions as regards the nature of the cultural impetus in the technological era. Is it necessary to render spirituality and emotions obsolete in order to keep up with the growing insertion of technology in everyday life? Does “living technologically” necessitate terminating all sorts of cultural imperatives that have existed alongside technology for millennia? Can technology ever be separated from culture?
This study approaches such questions through the novels of Don DeLillo. As one of the prominent authors of postmodern fiction, DeLillo demonstrates that the world does not stand on neutral ground. With this aim, he dredges up the interrelatedness of cultural imperatives with various technologies. Similarly to other authors such as Philip K. Dick, Joseph McElroy, Thomas Pynchon, William Gibson, and Douglas Coupland, DeLillo explores the implications of technology in contemporary culture as if the former were a ship of which one is not always aware. For DeLillo, the advance of technology does not imply the marginalization of
culture. On the contrary, the postmodern world for him is rich with “a spirit of cooperation”2 that should not be considered as impure. DeLillo describes himself as a translator of the things he sees and hears,3 and what he sees seems to be the impossibility of separating culture and technology. He translates the various manifestations of culture through the mediating nature of technology.
The manner in which DeLillo approaches the technology–culture interrelatedness is best abridged through what has been neologized “technoculture.” The term “technoculture” was coined by Henry Burger in the 1960s. In a letter to a journal, Burger suggested the term to designate a new discipline that focuses on “the interplay between technology and culture” (260).4 The concept of technoculture brings forth the simultaneous workings of culture and technology. It presupposes that the two “spheres” have always been complementary constituents. As such, the interconnectedness implied in “technoculture” requires redefining culture to include its technological aspect and redefining “technology” in a way that acknowledges an important cultural involvement.
Generally speaking, culture refers to “a society’s shared and socially transmitted ideas, values, emotions, and perceptions that are used to make sense of experience, generate behavior, and are reflected in that behavior” (Haviland et al., 28).5 Even if this definition concentrates on the social aspect of culture, it reveals an important point. The task of culture is to transmit the beliefs, behaviors, and activities that shape one’s life. Technology has become one of the major mediums for transmitting these imperatives. The advance of technology casts cultural imperatives in a new light. Image technologies, information technologies, nanotechnology, digitalization inform the individual’s need to live better and even to live fully. They reveal the possibility of transcending the human being, which problematizes the distinction between the human and the technological.
The function of technological implication is not limited to being “the direct material manifestation of rational thought.”6 From late twentieth century onward, technology has usually been related to efficiency. It implies for some of DeLillo’s characters that the newly formed cultural imperatives can provide superhuman capacities. However, when seen from a more objective viewpoint, it means mostly that culture is being rebuilt on previously unfamiliar associations. Seeing technology in terms of culture has brought about new expressions of designation that do not connote technological determinism. One speaks of technoculture as “collaboration,” “implication,” “intermingling,” rather than a negative “effect,” or a numbing “imposition.” Sadie Plant7 favors the term “weaving”:
[sic] the digital machines of the late twentieth century weave new networks from what were once isolated words, numbers, music, shapes,
smells, tactile textures, architectures, and countless channels as yet unnamed. Media become interactive and hyperactive, the multiplicitous components of an immersive zone…. The yarn is neither metaphorical nor literal, but quite simply material, a gathering of threads which twist and turn through the history of computing, technology, the sciences and arts.
(11–12)
Plant’s concept of weaving is important in the investigation of DeLillo’s novels because it seeks to break free both from cultural determinism and from technological determinism. Its quality of forming a construct that avoids considering culture and technology as two distinct spheres facilitates the process of “interlacing” the two terms into a layered whole.
Plant’s “weaving” enables the possibility of understanding technoculture in a way that undermines determinism. For this reason, the concept returns throughout the study to offer a technocultural relationship that is based on interrelatedness rather than on a favored aspect of culture or technology. This weaving is represented in various ways in DeLillo’s novels. Familiar extensions are woven with unfamiliar ones (Ratner’s Star, Zero K). Ordinary spaces radiate with the brightness of the transcendental (White Noise, The Names), and the pixels of the house of myths, television, open doors to warm colors of synesthesia (White Noise, Americana). History is woven with anonymous spaces, and recorded historical events are woven with famous and nameless men (Great Jones Street, Running Dog, Libra). Reality is woven with breaking news, and screens are woven with psychological distress (Mao II, Underworld, The Body Artist, Falling Man, The Silence). Deserts are woven with a tele-visual stream of consciousness, and skyscrapers are woven with fleeting identities (End Zone, Players). Faith is woven with posthuman aspirations and the Internet is woven with spiritual connections (Underworld, Cosmopolis, Point Omega, Zero K).
The unusual patterns that DeLillo weaves create a degree of ambiguity. Albert Bergmann suggests that dealing with this ambiguity starts with laying bare the approximate function of technology through that which seems to be the mundane activities of everydayness.8 In his novels, DeLillo pays particular attention to the interaction between technology and culture in what he calls “dailiness.” Dailiness refers to the overlooked ordinary beliefs, behaviors, and activities adopted by the characters in their constant interaction with technology. It could be claimed that DeLillo belongs to a category of writers who “tear through [the everyday] to reveal the living spirit enshrouded within, not above, or beyond, but within—and in doing so to liberate something strange, mysterious and bizarre.”9 DeLillo’s purpose in disclosing such a setting is to anatomize a crucial involvement of technology in culture and vice versa. He declares that he seeks to unravel
a sort of “radiance in dailiness”10 that seems to underlie his fiction. This radiance involves the characters’ spiritual and intrinsic technological functioning in a context of everyday activities.
While there has been research on DeLillo’s concern with technology, none has extensively investigated the technocultural aspect of his novels. In Postmodern American Fiction: a Norton Anthology (1994),11 DeLillo is added under the section “technoculture.” He is quoted for his depiction of his characters’ interactions with image technologies in the postmodern world. Generally speaking, DeLillo’s critics provide extensive readings on culture (Mark Osteen), subjectivity and technology (Randy Laist, Joseph Tabbi), history and memory (Bob Batchelor and Philipp Wolf), time/space and atoms (Lilla Farmasi and Samuel Coale), ethics and faith (Jesse Kavadlo and Paul Giaimo), the environment (Elise Martucci), and language (David Cowart). These critics usually form complete, partial, or marginal connections between their inquiry and technology. However, it is noticed that more often than not technology and the self are established either against each other or next to each other but rarely, if ever, within each other. This tendency creates a dualistic view between technology and the individual. At times, the division leads to seeing technology as an extension that absorbs one’s humanity, falling in this way into technological determinism.
Human beings, as Donna Haraway insists, are “cyborgs.”12 They are not dualistic constructs of mind/body, subject/object. Multiplicity and contingency are intrinsic to the cyborg’s mentality and identity. In this context, multiplicity and contingency mean simply the possibilities that technology opens through its interaction with the “dailiness” of characters. The possibilities that characterize technology reflect the layers of culture. The experience of the “cyborg” does not depend on his/her interaction with just humans. It also depends on the behaviors caught from humanizing or being exposed to various technologies. This is best shown in novels such as Underworld, Cosmopolis, and Zero K where characters weave together spiritual practices with advanced technology.
The connections that DeLillo’s characters draw between unfamiliar forms of technologies and their background extend their experiences. As an extension, technology reflects the physical as much as the mental apparatuses. While structures such as supermarkets and cars provide the external extensions of the characters’ dailiness, television and computers constitute their visual/virtual extensions. The paraphernalia of extensions points out the diversity and growing uses of technology. In order to avoid a narrow view, instances of both dated and advanced technologies are given to demonstrate their implication in the characters’ beliefs, behaviors, and activities. If advanced technology is believed to overcome spiritual practices, it is shown that this is not the case. To this aim, particular attention is given
to the hermeneutical processes of the characters’ interaction with various sorts of technologies in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century. This timespan corresponds to the postmodern age.
The diverse nature of the world that DeLillo investigates is intrinsically connected to postmodern technology. From Americana (1971) to The Silence (2020), DeLillo zooms in on the particularities of contemporary life in relation to corresponding technologies. Despite denying his title as a postmodern author,13 DeLillo deals with “predominantly post-modern sensibilities.”14 It could be claimed that these postmodern sensibilities concern the implication of image technologies and information technologies, among others, in the characters’ dailiness.15 This implication comes with a degree of uncertainty and confusion, as the possibilities of technological advance usually convey complex messages to the viewer. However, technological advance is not the essence of such disposition. To avoid an apologetic technological stance, technology reveals rather than creates uncertainty. Instead of being a parasitic injection, uncertainty is intrinsic to DeLillo’s characters, which is apparent in novels such as Libra (1988) and Falling Man (2007).
DeLillo’s approach to technoculture in his novels reveals the growth of unusual connections. Such connections bring together spheres that have been distant to an extent, as has been mentioned. DeLillo could be said to highlight the interrelatedness of technology and culture in different periods and through different modes of appearance. Technology becomes a surface to be discovered and rediscovered in new ways, as it keeps advancing. In order to remain aware of the hidden workings of technology, DeLillo constantly reformulates a binary ontology. This ontology is symbolized by the characters’ constant shift of perspective caused by the growing intertwinement between the physical environment and virtuality. The resulting traffic pushes DeLillo to keep returning to themes such as visuality, history, time, reality, space, architecture, information, and the posthuman. DeLillo returns to these themes not because he is unable to find new horizons, but because they constantly redefine the perception of the postmodern individual.
DeLillo’s characters perceive a partial view of technology since they perpetually relate the unfamiliar to the familiar. Consequently, their beliefs, behaviors, and activities reflect internal struggles. This does not imply that technology is the nucleus of their struggles. Rather, their interaction with technology brings out new perceptions of their uncertainties. As technocultural beings, DeLillo’s characters embody a transitional rather than an inauthentic mode of being.
By investigating the subtle but vital interconnectedness of technology and culture, DeLillo is an early advocate of postmodern technoculture. The term itself was neologized by Burger one decade before DeLillo’s first novel,
Americana (1971). In essence, technoculture is a compound that cannot be separated from an interdisciplinary field of study. It is a bricolage in the sense that it does not focus on one independent discipline.16 A number of works have focused on theorizing technoculture or reading available theories concerned with technocultural connections.17 Miscellaneous philosophies clarify the interrelatedness of culture and technology, and such diversity is beneficial to this thesis.18
Being a bricolage implies that “technoculture” is compatible with the diversity inherent in DeLillo’s novels. It also means that “technoculture” can circulate with ease between various fields such as ontology, phenomenology, and information theory. Even if the neologism “technoculture” in itself is not central to several references used in this project, these references still give vitality to the theoretical framework of “technoculture.” A number of philosophers have investigated the relationship between culture and technology in their respective fields. Particularly crucial are the writings of Sadie Plant, Marshall McLuhan, Katherine Hayles, Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze, Donna Haraway, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Slavoj Žižek. The correlation between technoculture and the theories of these thinkers may seem vague or confusing. Consequently, defining their relevant concepts is not sufficient. The method adopted creates synergy between “technoculture” and concepts such as technological extension, hyperreality, information overabundance, and posthuman. This approach not only pinpoints DeLillo’s investigation of the technology–culture interaction, but it also expands the involvement of technoculture in literary readings.
To maintain an interdisciplinary approach, the chapters are based on various thematic representations of technoculture. These themes are built in such a way as to stress the collaboration between technology and culture in space and within the mind. In his 17 novels and novellas, DeLillo discloses the history of how technologies have progressed and migrated from a limited external space to the very “space” of the psyche. However, DeLillo is distinguished by his sincere interest in the physical involvements of technology in his characters’ dailiness despite the ascendency of virtual extensions. Therefore, the chapters simultaneously investigate space as an external technocultural environment and as a virtual and/or visual technoculture.
Chapter 1 argues that DeLillo’s conception of dailiness is compatible with technoculture. A definition is given of technoculture as an extension that concerns not only the daily use of objects, but also the transcendental implication of technologies. The emergency of dealing with technological determinism has led to adding a section that shows DeLillo’s awareness of this propensity. Such a detour facilitates the introduction of the transcendental dimension of technoculture. The second part of the chapter
describes more thoroughly the nature of dailiness as a woven set of cultural imperatives and technologies. DeLillo delineates the various implications of technology in space and in the psyche of the characters. It is argued that ordinary objects and spaces are rich with transcendental connotations. To that end, televisual experiences are investigated from the lens of myth and synesthesia. The televisual experience comes in the form of a protective coat and pixelated trance.
Chapter 2 discloses the role of image technologies in redefining the meaning of past and lived historical events. The first part of the chapter argues that the televisual event has contributed to changing the structure of historical accounts. Because history is transmitted directly through image technologies, it has undergone a temporal and orientational transition. This transition is dubbed “latent history” by DeLillo to explain the state and manifestation of history in the technocultural era. Latent history no longer deals with past events only but also with actual events. Not only does it transcend official accounts of history, but it also validates imaginative possibilities. The second part of the chapter locates, through the Kennedy assassination, a turning point of the American consciousness. The assassination is a precursor to a line of uncertainty that defines the individual’s immersion in a culture of images. Lee H. Oswald is chosen as a case study connected both to the rise of latent history and to the insertion of image technologies in the individual’s dailiness.
Chapter 3 reveals the manner in which reality itself is reconceptualized through the characters’ interaction with live events. The first part argues that the recorded event has become a simulacrum among a large heritage of simulacra. The Kennedy assassination is no longer exclusive. Events such as taped murders and the 9/11 attacks revive the sense of uncertainty born with the Kennedy assassination. However, they do not necessarily resuscitate a sense of ethical values, even when the tragic event is lived. Tragic events contribute to the mutation of one’s lived or televisual experience. They become familiar in spaces from which they were remotely distant, such as supermarkets and motels. As a consequence, this forced familiarity creates a shift in the manner in which the characters gaze at the televisual medium. The second part of the chapter argues that reality is not eradicated but transformed into a mediated construct. The physical presence of the individual is compared to the televisual one to assess the nature of a mediated experience of reality.
Because of the importance DeLillo gives to direct and mediated sense of space, Chapter 4 explores the characters’ experiences of technocultural space in dailiness. It is argued that technocultural space is heightened in metropolises as much as in natural environments. The first part of the chapter argues that spaces such as the desert incite tele-visuality despite the lack of image technologies. Tele-visuality is understood as an
intrinsic component that adapts to different environments. This poses a phenomenological question of perception. In End Zone, the individual seems to adopt a tele-visual method of perception even when image technologies are scarce because space itself is informational in nature. The phenomenological question of perception is also tested in an advanced technocultural space. If scarceness allows the mind to construct its own tele-visual process of understanding, how does the mind react to a technologically enhanced space? The second part of the chapter demonstrates that technocultural space is implicated in the individual’s behavior. The individual can respond to her/his environment either by adapting to it or by giving in to its grandeur. Investigating the material environment, in Players, clarifies the role of the phenomenology of space in the structure of ontological perception. Technocultural space, be it as barren as the desert or as complex as a metropolis, invites the characters to adapt. Hermeneutical processes seem to correspond to the space in which characters are found. This shows that characters are not indifferent to different technocultural environments.
Chapter 5 draws on the previous chapters to reveal the proliferation of information in the postmodern age. The first part introduces the role of information in re-structuralizing the characters’ understanding of technocultural space. It is suggested that encounters with various sources of information lead to ontological and spiritual revelations. In the second part of the chapter, it is argued that these revelations are concretized or fantasized through advanced technology. The characters gathered have recourse to advanced technology to breach the limits of what it means to be human. They become thus posthuman. They make use of the possibilities of information, which are encouraged by advanced technology, to transcend their limitations. The question posed is whether the characters’ attempt to transcend their limits is equal to an attempt to transcend their humanity. Do they remain human even when they try to merge fully with technology? To answer this question, abstract realms such as cyberspace are set, in comparison to the material world, as primary environments of existence.
The main aim of the study is to demonstrate that technoculture is inevitably involved in the dailiness of Don DeLillo’s characters. More specifically, technoculture is intrinsic to understanding the characters’ beliefs, behaviors, and activities. The chapters bring forth representations of the interaction between technology and culture to show that they are continuously woven together in different forms. Instead of being increasingly driven apart, culture and technology have reached a point of indiscernibility. It is argued that the gradual insertion of technology in the characters’ dailiness does not necessarily imply that reality is swallowed by technological rigidity. Rather, DeLillo’s novels bring to light the transformation of technocultural dailiness decade after decade. Though this transformation is confusing or
resisted at times, it points out a transitional mode of being. This transitional state does not dehumanize DeLillo’s characters as much as it reveals their humanity in relation to the changing technoculture.
Notes
1 Frisch, Max. Homo Faber. Translated by Michael Bullock, San Diego, A Harvest Book, 1987.
2 DeLillo, Don. “Unmistakably DeLillo.” Interview by Mark Feeney. Conversations with Don DeLillo, edited by Thomas DePietro, Jackson, University Press of Mississippi, 2005, p. 169.
3 Robert McCrum reports in an article the words of DeLillo who declares that “I’m just translating the world around me in what seems to be straightforward terms…. But I’m not trying to manipulate reality. This is just what I see and hear.” www.theguardian.com/books/2010/aug/08/don-delillo-mccrum-interview McCrum, Robert. “Don DeLillo: ‘I’m Not Trying to Manipulate Reality–This Is What I See and Hear’.” The Observer. Guardian News and Media, August 7, 2010. Accessed May 16, 2017.
4 Burger, Henry G. “ ‘Technoculture’.” Technology and Culture, vol. 2, no. 3, 1961, pp. 260–261. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3101029
5 Haviland, William A., et al. Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge. 14th ed., Belmont, Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2013.
6 Roderick, Ian. Critical Discourse Studies and Technology: A Multimodal Approach to Analysing Technoculture. London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2016, p. 9.
7 Plant, Sadie. Zeros + Ones: Digital Women + the New Technoculture. London, Fourth Estate, 1997.
8 Borgmann, Albert. Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life: A Philosophical Inquiry. London, University of Chicago, 1984.
9 Lefebvre, Henri. Critique of Everyday Life. Translated by John Moore, vol. 1, London, Verso, 1991, p. 107.
10 DeLillo, Don. “ ‘An Outside in this Society’: An Interview with Don DeLillo.” Interview by Anthony DeCurtis. Conversations with Don DeLillo, edited by Thomas DePietro, Jackson, University Press of Mississippi, 2005, p. 70.
11 Geyh, Paula, et al., editors. Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology. New York, W. W. Norton, 2006.
12 Haraway, Donna Jeanne. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London, Free Association, 1991.
13 When asked how he reacts to his novels being called postmodern, DeLillo answers that he remains indifferent. “I don’t react. But I’d prefer not to be labeled. I’m a novelist, period. An American novelist” (Nadotti 115). DeLillo, Don. “An Interview with Don DeLillo.” Interview by Maria Nadotti. Conversations with Don DeLillo, edited by Thomas DePietro, Jackson, University Press of Mississippi, 2005, pp. 109–119.
14 DeLillo, Don. “Dangerous Don DeLillo.” Interview by Vince Passaro. Conversations with Don DeLillo, edited by Thomas DePietro, Jackson, University Press of Mississippi, 2005, p. 77.
15 Postmodernism is read at times as the age of visual extensions such as television. In “Toward a Concept of Postmodernism,” Ihab Hassan reflects on the conceptual constitution of postmodernism. The first conceptual problem that he discusses concerns the word “postmodernism” itself. He suggests that, though the word sounds “awkward,” it is still a better substitute for calling contemporary age “the atomic, or space, or television, Age” (588). What is relevant to this context is that, for instance, image technologies or information technologies are intrinsically connected to postmodernism as the house of multiplicity.
Hassan, Ihab. “Toward a Concept of Postmodernism.” Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology, edited by Paula Geyh, et al., New York, W. W. Norton, 2006, pp. 586–595.
16 The first major work on technoculture is a set of papers amassed by Constance Penley and Andrew Ross. The premises of “technoculture” are set in the introduction to stress a rational of inclusion.
Technologies are not repressively foisted upon passive populations, any more than the power to realize their repressive potential is in the hands of a conspiring few. They are developed at any one time and place in accord with a complex set of existing rules or rational procedures, institutional histories, technical possibilities, and, last, but not least, popular desires.
(xiv)
Penley and Ross add that “cultural negotiations” are necessary to unearth and analyze the hidden workings of technology.
Penley, Constance, and Andrew Ross, editors. Technoculture. London, University of Minnesota Press, 1991.
17 See Borgmann, Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life; Davis, Eric. TechGnosis: Myth, Magic & Mysticism in the Age of Information. Berkeley, CA, North Atlantic Books, 2015; Cooper, Simon. Technoculture and Critical Theory: In the Service of the Machine? London, Routledge, 2014; Davis, Gregory H. Means without End: A Critical Survey of the Ideological Genealogy of Technology without Limits, from Apollonian Techne to Postmodern Technoculture. Lanham, University Press of America, 2006; Genosko, Gary. When Technocultures Collide: Innovation from below and the Struggle for Autonomy. Waterloo, Canada, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2014; Roderick, Critical Discourse Studies and Technology.
18 In 2008, for instance, Debra Benita Shaw has published a study that gathers different philosophies to highlight their technocultural implications. Shaw, Debra B. Technoculture: The Key Concepts. Oxford, Berg, 2008.
1 Don DeLillo’s Technoculture
The Interrelatedness of Culture and Technology
“Radiance in Dailiness”
In Zeros + Ones: Digital Women + the New Technoculture (1997),1 Sadie Plant suggests that “man and his tools exist ‘only in relation to the interminglings they make possible or that make them possible’ ” (77). Plant edits the quote she borrows from Deleuze and Guattari’s Mille Plateaux in a way that breaks the dichotomies between man and tool. Tools, for her, are not only technological objects to be used. Man is not the superior user whose tools endow him with extended power. She rather conceives them as the two “perceptible elements” working simultaneously in a particular process (77). In his novels, Don DeLillo adopts a similar perception. He views everyday tools in particular and technology in general as a complementary necessity to his characters’ daily life. He calls the daily processes of this necessity “radiance in dailiness.”
DeLillo uses the description “radiance in dailiness” during an interview with Anthony DeCurtis, an editor and writer from Rolling Stone. DeCurtis propounds that DeLillo’s particular attention to the details of everyday life reflects his fondness of “the trappings of suburban middle-class existence.”2 DeLillo answers that he rather attempts to find a “kind of radiance in dailiness” through writing.3 The author does not aim to “bind his characters to suburbs and bedrooms” (Dewey 5).4 Instead, he observes and peels off the layers of a radiance present in dailiness. “Radiance,” as conceived by DeLillo, could be understood as the everyday technological brightness and “waves and radiations.” Dailiness could be interpreted as the highlighted beliefs, behaviors, and activities adopted on a daily basis, and how undertaking or understanding them is mediated by technology. The manner in which technology mediates daily life is not an optional addition. It is, as Plant suggests, a complementary necessity. In this way,
Don DeLillo’s Technoculture
investigating any aspect of culture would inevitably comprise a technological implication.
Viewing radiance in dailiness as a relationship of implication is compatible with the definition of technoculture. For centuries, technology has been defined as the application of scientific knowledge only. It implies that technology is capable of being neutral as regards the world it modifies. However, a number of philosophers and critics have refuted this demarcation.5 They believe that technology is neither “simply a tool”6 nor “subservient to other value spheres.”7 Technology becomes rather an active component in various cultural aspects of life. Technology and culture have never been separate spheres. They form what has been recently introduced as technoculture.8 Ian Roderick9 defines technoculture as an interactional relationship presupposing that technology and culture “are not distinct spheres of activity and knowledge but rather that the one is always implicated in the other” (1). Technoculture as a relationship of implication invalidates the dualism that has characterized technology and culture since the nineteenth century (9). Technology is, therefore, not only the production of new machines in factories or the mere assemblage of cars, smartphones, television. Culture is not only the social domain upon which humans organize beliefs, behaviors, and activities.
It is with this spirit that DeLillo defines radiance in dailiness. Rather than observing technology and culture from without, DeLillo adopts a technocultural “reflexive analysis from within, as it were, the belly of a beast that has grown to monstrous proportions” (Shaw 4). This analysis avoids compartmentalizing the two terms, so radiance in dailiness functions in terms of technocultural inclusion rather than addition. Thus, radiance in dailiness suggests that technology is implicated in culture and vice versa.
DeLillo’s conception of radiance in dailiness as implication is not always recognized. Many critics acknowledge DeLillo’s capacity as a “cultural anatomist,” in Joseph Dewey’s words (6), but they view the deep involvement of technology in daily life negatively. Dewey himself, when he describes DeLillo as a cultural anatomist, adds that the author’s analysis of fin de millennium America is “not a particularly comforting one” (6). The critic accuses the “invasive technologies” present in DeLillo’s novels of creating a culture where “the real becomes distant, the familiar estranged, the everyday irrelevant” (8). Even if Dewey constructs a valid narrative analysis of DeLillo’s novels, he still laments a gradual loss of authenticity provoked by technology. Randy Laist develops a similar perception.10 His view is however relatively less extreme than Dewey’s. “More than any other major American author, DeLillo has examined the manner in which contemporary American consciousness has been shaped by the historically unique incursion into daily life of information, military, and consumer technologies” (3; emphasis added). Laist offers an important synthesis of
the manner in which technology affects the “soul and the world,” and he acknowledges the involvement of technology in daily life. However, he views technology as an intrusion rather than as implication. Both critics agree that DeLillo explores the relationship between technology and culture, but neither view it in terms of technoculture. They rather adhere to an extreme or relative technological determinist view, which reduces DeLillo’s credibility as a “cultural anatomist.”
Technoculture could restore this credibility, as it offers a less radical view of “radiance in dailiness.” DeLillo describes himself as a translator of the things he sees and hears.11 “Radiance in dailiness” encompasses his perception, for it translates the various manifestations of technoculture. These manifestations include how DeLillo’s characters understand themes such as technology, history, the self, time, space, death, and information. The manifestations also include the manner in which characters make use of technological devices, spaces, and knowledge to extend their capacities. “Radiance in dailiness” is built on the expression of beliefs, behaviors, and activities, and it is equipped with a paraphernalia of extensions for everyday usage. Therefore, technoculture as “radiance in dailiness” presupposes that culture and technology have never been separate spheres of functioning. They are rather united for the better or for the worse in DeLillo’s novels to “reveal what it means to be American, and perhaps, what it means to be human” (Kavadlo 9).12
Prototypical Extensions in Ratner’s Star and Zero K
“Culture is technoculture,” Erik Davis insists (2015).13 Culture has never stood alone; technology has always assisted it. Indeed, technology and culture have always collaborated with each other to set ways of living and to improve these ways. DeLillo seems to be aware of this perpetual intermingling. This view is corroborated by Alexandra Glavanakova who suggests that DeLillo bases his writings on the philosophy that humans have always been “technological and prosthetic” (101).14 “Radiance in dailiness,” as DeLillo’s expression of contemporary technoculture, discloses more than a means-to-end relationship between technology and culture. For DeLillo, to be human does not mean to be solely culturally predetermined, as “[h]uman beings have been cyborgs from year zero” (E. Davis 1). To be part cyborg does not mean that humans are losing their humanity either. Being part cyborg is compatible with Marshall McLuhan’s representation of extension. McLuhan15 suggests that human beings undergo autoamputation to extend their capacities (47). They give up their natural capacities to rely on tools that serve as extensions for the body. From the most primitive flint knife to the most advanced smartphone, technological extensions have always been a complementary part of the human body.
Don DeLillo’s Technoculture
McLuhan repeats this statement with fervent highlight. However, his representations of media extensions remain broad. They do not touch upon the intrinsic processes of humans’ responses to a world they understand through media.16 In his review of Understanding Media, Patrick D. Hazard derides McLuhan’s use of inadequate literary figures in his analysis.17 For the critic, figures such as Charles Baudelaire and James Joyce have “probably taught us all they can about media they never saw…. Which artists in the new media are the Baudelaires and Joyces of film, radio, and television?” Hazard asks. The answer could be novelists such as Don DeLillo, as he employs intuitive vigor to delineate the anatomy of postmodern technoculture.
Before investigating the manner in which DeLillo anatomizes postmodern technoculture, it is worthwhile to look into the modernist/postmodernist debate revolving around DeLillo’s oeuvre. James Joyce remains one of the strongest references that both DeLillo and his critics acknowledge. “For the richness of his language and the scope of his literary ambition, James Joyce looms largest in DeLillo’s imagination.”18 It could be said that DeLillo is considered the Joyce of the postmodern movement, but the appellation itself sets forth additional layers of undecidedness. Indeed, the question regarding DeLillo’s literary affiliation remains unexhausted. Henry Veggian asks: “is DeLillo a late modernist, or a postmodernist who recycles literary modernism in the way that a sculptor might recycle everyday objects into ‘found art’ ”?19 Some critics believe that DeLillo is a postmodern writer (Cowart, Laist, Johnston), while others insist that he remains modernist (Nel, Lentricchia). Even if there are also critics who abstain from labeling DeLillo (Kavadlo, Yehnert, Martucci), they do not clarify DeLillo’s stance. In order to avoid a restricted view of DeLillo’s position in the literary heritage, it is safer to suggest that he works his novels at the crossroad of modernism and postmodernism. He makes use of the modernist aesthetic structure in an attempt to understand the postmodern world.
DeLillo mutates the modernist structure to anatomize the postmodern society. He does not stop at describing technology as a physical extension of man. He goes a step further by interrogating the psyche’s response to technology while it growingly becomes an abstract extension. DeLillo’s notion of “radiance in dailiness” could be said to focus on applied technoculture. It describes technoculture as a constant interdependence between culture and technology in the context of everyday experience.20 “Radiance in dailiness” also points to the flow created between the ontological understanding of life and the set of technological media enacted to shape that life.21 The everyday technological brightness and “waves and radiations” enclosed in dailiness function as extensions to the characters’ beliefs, behaviors, and activities.
Since DeLillo’s characters adopt different ways of life, technology translates their beliefs, behaviors, and activities in different ways. The technologies that DeLillo’s characters use in daily life vary in terms of sophistication and usage. Therefore, it is not sufficient to disclose the relationship between technology and culture as a linear construct. It is important to keep in mind that technology upholds multiplicity as much as culture does. Two characters are chosen in order to explore simultaneously DeLillo’s method to build technological extensions and the various technologies used for that purpose. Henrik Endor from Ratner’s Star and Ross Lockhart from Zero K epitomize how technoculture adapts to their needs in a context of dailiness. At the beginning of their quest, the two characters have similar beliefs, technologies, and goals. However, as their changing beliefs diverge, they choose different sets of technologies to express them. Juxtaposing these two characters shows DeLillo’s different representations of technological implication in daily life.
Ratner’s Star (1976) is DeLillo’s exploration of a reality too mysterious to be contained and too intriguing to be ignored. It is structured as Alice’s journey in wonderland.22 Billy Twillig, a 14-year-old prodigy, flies to central Asia to work in a subterranean scientific center. Billy is summoned in order to decode a message supposedly coming from space, specifically from Ratner’s Star. During his stay, Billy discovers a completely new context that supposedly focuses on explaining the world scientifically. He compares such scientific milieu with recollections from life back home. The novel resists any linear plot. With an “extravagant architecture,” DeLillo opens his novel to genres such as sci-fi, Menippean satire, bildungsroman.23 The novel is itself built as an extension that goes in all directions. The whole structure of the novel is based on multiplicity. Its very purpose seems to be indicating how the characters mediate their lives through various kinds or levels of technology.
The novel is divided into two parts. The first part is undertaken outward. Billy discovers the various compounds of the center, with futurist and most of the time uncanny findings. The second part is a journey inward. Billy is selected among a few scientists to decode the message and create a universal language. In addition to pursuing his goal, that is, doing mathematics, Billy meets different individuals and discovers a whole new world in the center. One of these individuals is his predecessor Henrik Endor.
Endor is a renowned mathematician and astrophysicist, who abandons a life of fame and science in order to dedicate his time to digging. Early in the novel, Billy finds a picture of Endor taken a few years before. In the picture, Endor is “bearded, in his sixties, and wore a star pentagram on a chain around his neck” (Ratner’s Star 21). Endor’s bodily expression translates his lifestyle before becoming a digger. In order to highlight the transition, the reader is given an account of Endor’s previous lifestyle:
Endor had married three times, suffered injuries in two wars, flown jet aircraft to nearly record-breaking altitudes to do photographic research in astronomy. He had written several books of a speculative nature, best-sellers every one. He was an accomplished cellist and founder of an all-mathematician chamber group. Heads of state had honored him in marble halls.
(Ratner’s Star 83)
Endor is a man who dives into the extreme multiplicity of postmodern technoculture, as he flies to the highest altitudes and succeeds in many fields. Endor’s motility, which is assisted by advanced technology, extends his capacities.24 In this description, Endor’s embodiment transcends the immediate spatiotemporal context within which he is found. The body, which is extended by advanced technology, is used as a medium25 for celestial accomplishments. When he flies a jet aircraft to a high altitude, his aim is not related to a physical experience. His body and the advanced technology at his disposal are the mediums through which he undergoes research in astronomy.
The use of the body as a medium for “capacity extension” is equally represented in Zero K (2016). Similarly to Billy Twillig, Jeffrey Lockhart, the narrator of the novel, witnesses a radical and uncanny transformation in the human psyche and body. Jeffrey is invited to a subterranean scientific center called the Convergence. True to his faithfulness to isolated underground locations, DeLillo transports the reader to the “carious teeth” of the Uzbekistani desert. Ross Lockhart, a self-made billionaire, sends for Jeffrey, his son, to observe the miracles of science. Ross invests his wealth in cryogenic research to “pause” his wife’s life. Artis Martineau suffers from several incurable diseases. Her only option for survival is life after death. Seeing no other available option, Ross tries to push the limits of science to find the best cryonic formula. Similarly to many of DeLillo’s characters, Ross does not shy away from having recourse to unorthodox methods. He founds the Convergence with the aim of freezing Artis’s consciousness until technology is advanced enough to build her anew.
Similarly to Endor, Ross is described as a bearded man in his mid-to-late sixties. He too uses his body as an extension for his aims. His space of comfort consists of his office mostly. Ross seeks to save his wife through the possibilities made available by the vast network he has established. Seen from the first-person point of view of his son, Ross seems to be connected to physical and virtual extensions. They allow him to maintain control over the progress of the Convergence.
This [office] was improvised, several screens, keyboards and other devices set about the room. I was aware that he’d put major sums of
money into this entire operation, this endeavor, called the Convergence, and the office was a gesture of courtesy, allowing him to maintain convenient contact with his network of companies, agencies, funds, trusts, foundations, syndicates, communes and clans.
(Zero K 7)
Ross adheres to that which Albert Borgmann calls “the persistent glamour of the promise of technology” (105).26 The pattern of technology is implicitly implicated in his choices. Technology promises to extend his power far enough to defy death itself.
Ross sees in the collaboration between science and technology the promise of achieving what has been so far impossible for Man, that is, immortality. DeLillo chooses cryopreservation as an example of that collaboration.27 The author seeks to expose the extreme measures that individuals are ready to take to ensure survival. Combined with his expertise in finance, technology offers Ross the means to advance fast in cryonic actions. The purpose behind this urgent need is not profit as much as having the burden of loss lifted off his shoulders.
Endor and Ross share their Faustian need to push the limits of technological possibility and to mobilize the necessary means to achieve their goals. However, the expression of their technological extension is not exclusive to their work hours. Their dailiness is itself adjusted to their beliefs. They both make sure that the architecture of technology mirrors their erudite aspirations. They try not only to achieve a goal but also to translate possibilities to reflect it. Technological possibilities could be read in terms of metaphors. Drawing from George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Ian Roderick explains that metaphors are not merely figurative forms of language.28 They are deeply integrated in the processes of thoughts and actions.29 Roderick then suggests that the individual’s daily use of technology is not experienced as a neutral set of tools that interact with other tools. Rather, the individual experiences technology in accordance with his or her own background or lived experiences. As it is the case for Endor and Ross, the continuous dialogue between technologies and their personal experiences opens possibilities previously unimaginable. In this way, their reality does not draw its strength solely through weaving connections with other human beings. It depends also on the behaviors caught from humanizing or being exposed to various technologies.
Endor and Ross construct their environment to be a constant reminder of the conclusions they reach, as will be shown. Their radiance in dailiness is an internal as well as an external affair. It encompasses not only the education and control of the self but its very production (Barglow 143). For Raymond Barglow,30 procedural activity transitioned from ritual practices31 to formal structures.32 Ritual practices “connect
Don DeLillo’s Technoculture
individuals within a lifeworld of meanings and values,” and formal structures “articular a social reality where personal identity and personal relationships are irrelevant” (144). While Ross maintains the formal structure of contemporary life through anonymous transactions, Endor returns to ritualistic practices.
Put together, the two characters represent the process through which two similar individuals would drastically diverge in worldview. The most apparent divergence noticed between the two characters is the technology they use. It will be argued that the bodily and technological extensions of both characters mirror their changing beliefs.
When Endor leaves the center and starts his daily activity of clawing the earth, the extensions he takes with him consist of the clothes he is wearing and a clothes hanger. Even if Endor does not share his worldview with a community, his digging and humming is a return to worldly practices. The refined man Billy sees in the aforementioned picture has disappeared. Endor’s shirt and trousers are worn out, the chain is gone, his sagacious face is tanned and unwashed (Ratner’s Star 84). Endor stands near a “fifteen feet long, eight wide and twelve deep” hole, which resumes his life’s work (Ratner’s Star 83). Upon close inspection of Endor’s figure, Billy notices that “small crawling things moved about in his white beard” (Ratner’s Star 84). As wondered in Zero K, “[w]as this the beard a man grows who is eager to enter a new dimension of belief?” (7). Billy finds it unusual that such erudite icon would abandon the center to indulge in larvae diet. The teenager’s first guess is that Endor could not decode the message; but, as it is revealed near the end of the novel, Endor does succeed in decoding it before departing. Therefore, Billy’s questions remain so far unanswered: “what does he [Endor] want? Why is he behaving this way?” (Ratner’s Star 83).
Once he has decoded the message, Endor realizes that all routes lead to the same destination. He comes to understand that the message “tell us something of importance about ourselves” (Ratner’s Star 91). The message received had been sent from earth. It has boomeranged back to announce the date of an eclipse. The radio signals that have sent it have been elaborated by an extinct civilization. This incites Endor to believe that the technology of those considered primitives is not as inferior as the modern man thinks. Maybe it has been even more advanced than the technology used in late twentieth century. This theory is shared by an anthropologist, Maurice Wu, whose research includes discovering the nature of the beings who have sent the message:
In the very distant past on this planet, there was a species of life that resembled modern man both outwardly and otherwise. Intellectually I’ve managed to accept this without reservation. Now, thanks to Walter,
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Pferde I, 9 340 393; II, 17. 18. 93. 94. 119. 132. 133. 134. 249.
308. 309. 319. 320. 322. 324. 329. 331; Kur I, 322.
Photographische Ausrüstung I, 3. 28. 29.
Piaslik I, 374; II, 111. 112.
Pjewzoff I, 34. 127. 174.
Pik Kauffmann I, 13.
Po II, 56.
Pocken I, 128. 139; II, 268.
Poesie in Innerasien I, 278-285.
Porphyr I, 317; II, 306.
Potai (Wegmaß) I, 72.
Potala II, 226.
Prinz Heinrich von Orléans I, 34. 144; II, 122. 193.
Prschewalskij I, 34. 131. 215. 241; II, 84.
Pschui, Häuptling I, 378.
Pul I, 18.
Punditen II, 183. 287.
Pung I, 18.
Pu-schang-hai II, 57.
Pustun (Schafpelz) I, 37.
Puth-schang-hai II, 51.
Raben I, 51 120 364 382; II, 168. 244. 247.
Raga-sangpo II, 329.
Ramlung II, 313.
Raskolniken I, 183. 184. 268.
Raubtierfalle I, 79
Rawal-pindi II, 355. 356. 360. 361.
Rawur-sangpo II, 327.
Rebhühner I, 10. 207. 302; II, 16. 107. 110. 126. 142. 152. 153. 159. 160. 244. 304.
Rehe I, 51. 71. 238. 259.
Reispudding I, 149
Ribbach II, 349. 350. 351. 364.
Richthofen, Freiherr von, Professor I, 226; II, 84.
Rijnhard II, 223.
Roborowskij I, 157 174 180 181 186
Rockhill I, 320; II, 192.
Rosen, wilde II, 106.
Rosi Mollah II, 120. 135. 146. 270. 271. 272. 309. 350.
Rostow I, 5
Roter Fluß s. Kisil-su.
Rubine I, 75.
Rudok II, 322. 324. 325. 326; Gouverneur II, 324. 325. 326. 328.
Ruinen I, 178. 228-229. 230-232; II, 4. 37-50.
Sacharoff II, 369.
Sachir II, 202.
Sadak-köll I, 246
Sagen, Zollvorsteher I, 14.
Sagget-sang II, 321.
Säghisghan I, 164.
Sahib II, 229.
Sai I, 202. 203. 204. 289. 295.
Sai-tag I, 68. 70.
Sai-tschekke I, 206.
Saizeff, Oberst I, 8 145 381; II, 89. 102. 368. 369.
Saksaul II, 20. 21.
Saldam (Anstand für Jäger) I, 109.
Saluen II, 222.
Salz I, 333 334; II, 184. 238. 260. 314. 315. 319.
Salzsee (Lop-nor) II, 69.
Samarkand I, 6.
Sampa-nesrak II, 353.
Sampo Singi II, 187. 188. 189. 190. 191. 192. 237.
Sando II, 15.
Sandschu-Paß II, 368.
Sandstein I, 366; II, 111. 139. 171. 172. 184. 241. 243. 257. 258.
Sapp (Gerte) I, 61
Sär I, 18. 132.
Sarik-buja I, 103.
Sarik-buran (gelber Sturm) I, 41. 63.
Säri-kari II, 234.
Sarikol II, 56.
Sarik-tasch I, 13.
Särtäng II, 15.
Särtäng-Mongolen II, 15. 16.
Sarten I, 7. 8.
Saspul II, 352.
Sate-köll I, 242. 288.
Sa-tscheo I, 137. 144. 206. 229. 230. 242. 286; II, 11. 15. 16. 17. 23. 80.
Satschkak I, 61.
Satschu-sangpo II, 193. 194. 195. 196. 197. 225. 236. 237. 256259. 341; Übergang II, 193-195; Wassermasse II, 195.
Sattma (Hirtenhütte) I., 61.
Sattowaldi-köll I, 268.
Schafe I, 176. 303. 304. 305. 311. 319. 330. 368; II, 111. 115. 118. 121. 132. 187. 329. 335; Fett II, 158; Lasten II, 184. 260. 335; Tötung II, 190; wilde II, 252.
Schagdur I, 198 199 257 260 262 264 266 267 271 272 274. 287. 288. 290. 291. 293. 294. 297. 300. 301. 379. 382. 394. 395. 396; II, 10. 14. 15. 16. 17. 19. 29. 30. 31. 32. 37. 42. 44. 62. 64. 65. 68. 69. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 82. 88. 89. 95. 96. 97. 98. 104. 105. 108. 109. 110. 111-113. 120. 121. 126. 129. 137. 139. 140. 142. 145. 148. 150. 153. 155. 161. 164. 169. 171. 173. 174. 175. 176. 179. 182. 184. 185. 186. 188. 189. 190. 195. 197. 202. 203. 206. 207. 208. 210. 219. 225. 228. 231. 233. 237. 240. 243. 244. 246. 247. 248. 251. 252. 253. 255. 256. 263. 264. 265. 269. 278. 305. 310. 313. 318. 328. 330. 332. 333. 338. 342. 351. 352. 357. 359. 361. 362. 363. 364. 369.
Schaggué-tschu II, 320.
Schah Dschahan II, 356.
Schah-gandschum II, 311. 312.
Schah-jar I, 34 72 79 96 101; Bek I, 97.
Schah-jar-darja I, 96
Schahr-i-Kettek-kum I, 136.
Scha-kurun I, 46.
Schalung II, 303.
Schalwa I, 13
Schang-ja I, 115.
Schannig-nagbo II, 260. 262.
Schan-schan II, 52.
Schäschkak I, 41
Scha-tschôu II, 47. 49, s. Sa-tscheo.
Scheitlar I, 193. 248.
Scheitlik I, 43.
Schejoktal II, 368.
Schereb, Lama II, 96. 97. 104. 105. 108. 109. 110. 112. 113. 116. 118. 120. 121. 132. 134. 136. 137. 138. 148. 149. 152. 153. 154. 155. 159. 160. 162. 163. 165. 167. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174. 179. 180. 182. 183. 184. 186. 187. 188. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197. 198. 200. 201. 202. 203. 205. 206. 207. 208. 209. 210. 211. 215. 216. 217. 220. 221. 222. 226. 227. 228. 231. 232. 241. 242. 243. 244. 246. 251. 253. 254. 255. 256. 257. 260. 263. 265. 273. 275. 276. 277. 278. 301. 306. 309. 310. 323. 327. 332. 338. 345. 352. 365. 369.
Schiefer I, 291. 292. 317. 320. 324. 325. 354. 366. 373; II, 105. 306. 337. 341.
Schigatse II, 201.
Schilf I, 53.
Schinalga I, 195. 196.
Schirge-tschappgan I, 234 241 243 245 246 257 272; II, 83.
Schneckenschalen I, 219. 220. 221. 227. 231. 238; II, 42. 67.
Scho II, 190.
Scholung II, 313.
Scho-ovo II, 16.
Schor I, 66. 151.
Schor-Boden II, 68. 75.
Schor-köll I, 61. 182.
Schueiking-tschu II, 52.
Schwäne I, 65. 140. 166. 235. 238. 240. 241; II, 85.
Schwed-peling II, 207. 208.
Schweinfurth I, 134.
Secundrabad II, 360.
Seeboden, alter I, 151. 152. 219; II, 35.
Seenregion in Tibet II, 301. 305. 340.
Seeschwalben I, 259.
Seit-köll I, 128 129 143 154
Selling-tso II, 253. 254. 255. 256. 258. 259. 262-264. 266. 267. 269. 273. 288. 301. 341.
Semillaku-köll I, 273. 275.
Semis-chatun I, 15.
Sendschkak I, 138.
Senkor-Stamm II, 321.
Serdse II, 343. 345.
Setscha II, 309.
Shakkanjorm II, 312.
Shawe, Dr II, 349. 351. 361. 363. 364.
Shen-shen II, 56. 59. 60.
Sialkut II, 348.
Si-an-fu II. 56.
Si-gu II, 56.
Sim I, 249.
Singer I, 194. 216. 217. 226.
Si-ning II, 11.
Sir-darja I, 14
Siriap II, 341.
Sirkin I, 19. 25. 26. 29. 31. 44. 131. 133. 140. 146. 194. 195.
198. 200. 251. 253. 255. 259. 262. 264. 267. 269. 270. 271. 273. 277; II, 77. 88. 95. 96. 98. 104. 105. 111. 113. 114. 115.
120. 123. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 136. 140. 142. 148. 150. 152. 155. 162. 164. 167. 168. 169. 170. 220. 263. 269. 277. 318. 322. 332. 337. 342. 350. 351. 363.
Siwa I, 118.
Skorpione I, 38; II, 44. 94.
Sodschi-la II, 353. 354. 361. 362.
Solang Undü II, 231. 237. 238.
Somme-sangpo II, 314.
Sonamarg II, 362.
Sor I, 14.
Söre (Hirtenhütten) I, 52.
Sorun I, 63.
Sorun-köll I, 65.
Sourgak I, 287.
Splingaert I, 292.
Srinagar II, 349. 352. 355. 361.
Städte, alte I, 136. 172. 177; II, 40; s. a. Andere-terem, Jing-pen, Lôu-lan
Stationsgebäude, russische I. 10.
Stein, Dr. I, 178; II, 52. 54. 361.
Steinböcke II, 110.
Steinkisten II, 345. 347. 365, s. a. Mani
Steinpyramiden I, 289; II, 20. 35. 333. 342, s. a. Obo.
Steinsalz I, 62.
Steppenmurmeltiere I, 14.
Straße, alte I, 144 226; II, 10. 20. 24.
Straße, strategische I, 10.
St. Yves I, 20.
Sufi-kurgan I, 12.
Sugett-bulak I, 203
Sugett-dawan II, 368.
Suji-sarik-köll I, 248.
Suk-suk II, 20.
Su-leh II, 56.
Sume II, 366.
Sum-tun-buluk II, 3.
Su-ößgen I, 182.
Supa-alik I, 374
Süssük-köll I, 261.
Sutschi (Wassermänner) I, 32.
Svinhufvud, Oberst I, 5.
Tabakpfeife I, 179
Tabbtsang II, 367.
Tadschinurmongole II, 323.
Tadsch Mahal II, 356.
Tagar I, 226. 227.
Taggar II, 347. 368.
Tag-kum I, 190. 191.
Taigun I, 133. 139.
Tailak-tuttgan I, 175
Tajek-köll I, 248.
Takla-makan I, 60. 141. 156. 164. 216. 221. 306. 327; II, 28. 29. 95. 133. 196.
Talldik-Bach I, 13.
Talldik-Paß I, 13. 14.
Talkan (geröstetes Mehl) I, 147; II, 3. 89.
Tamarisken I, 24. 83. 109. 121. 160. 161. 162. 169. 175. 211. 258. 291. 292; II, 19. 20. 23. 30. 60. 70. 106; Holz II, 52.
Tamascha (Vorstellung) I, 82.
Tana-bagladi I, 143. 146. 148. 151. 170. 191.
Tang-la-Kette I, 355; II, 222.
Tang-le II, 263.
Tanguten II, 166. 181. 187. 201. 323; Kauf und Verkauf von Kindern II, 323.
Tanksi II, 346.
Tänzerinnen I, 30.
Tarbagatai II, 104.
Tarim I, 19 31 34 36 47 48 52 53 83 98 107 110 126 141. 145. 148. 152. 171. 188. 191. 192. 197. 239. 241. 242. 246. 249. 266. 269. 275. 278. 288; II, 29. 43. 45. 49. 56. 85. 86; Dörfer I, 128; Fähre I, 84; Flußteile I, 37. 39. 45; Laufänderungen I, 37. 93. 94. 107. 207; Namen I, 98. 105. 108. 269; Treibeis I, 117; Ufer I, 38 88 91 92; Uferseen I, 105. 128. 259; Wasserfall I, 45; Wasserstand I, 124; Zufrieren I, 41.
Tärim I, 108.
Tarimbecken I, 180.
Taschi-lumpo II, 199. 201. 203. 205. 254.
Taschkent I, 6; II, 369.
Täsildar II, 347. 348. 352.
Tatran I, 150. 152. 163. 170. 171.
Tattlik-bulak I, 290. 292. 293; II, 93.
Ta-wan II, 57.
Telepathie I, 377. 379.
Tellpel I, 93.
Temirlik I, 295. 298. 361. 363. 370. 374. 378. 379. 380. 382. 383. 389. 393. 394; II, 1. 2. 3. 5. 10. 88. 97. 98. 208; Amban I, 378.
Temperaturen I, 12. 24. 33. 41. 72. 81. 88. 97. 98. 99. 110. 118. 140. 152. 157. 159. 166. 167. 168. 171. 174. 175. 179. 181. 185. 186. 187. 189. 193. 199. 203. 207. 210. 211. 226. 233. 245 246 262 269 273 274 291 292 293 294 303 308 310. 317. 328. 329. 335. 345. 354. 357. 360. 370. 372. 374.
386 387 389 390 391 392 394; II, 1. 5. 14. 16. 23. 25. 34.
35. 91. 107. 135. 136. 152. 181. 201. 235. 236. 242. 250. 251. 252. 280. 295. 305. 306. 307. 309. 314. 321. 324. 328. 329. 330. 333. 335. 336. 337. 338. 311. 342. 344. 345. 354.
Tenge I, 18. 132.
Tengri-nor II, 90. 151. 160. 173.
Teppe-teschdi I, 103.
Terek (Pappel) I, 10.
Terek-dawan I, 12.
Terektal I, 12.
Terem I, 23.
Teres I, 96.
Teresken I, 303. 308; II, 11. 19.
Tibet I, 144. 172. 198. 320. 322. 395; II, 93. 94. 95. 318. 319. 331. 332. 343. 344. 354, Bevölkerungsdichte I, 361; II, 303. 304; Bewachung der Nordgrenze I, 395; Erschließung II, 286; Flüsse II, 195. 196; Geld II, 230. 313; Grenzen II, 160. 237. 238. 252. 312. Klima I, 294. 295. 302. 358. 383; II, 107. 120. 185. 199. 200. 315; Seen I, 310. 356; Schwierigkeiten der Reise II. 94. 95.
Tibeter II, 154. 155. 167. 168. 173. 176. 179. 181. 182. 183. 204. 206. 210. 211. 215. 216..217. 218. 220. 221. 228. 233. 235. 236. 239. 240. 249. 252. 256. 257. 258. 259. 260. 262. 263. 265. 266. 267. 269. 270. 271. 279. 280. 282. 283. 285. 286. 288. 289. 290. 292. 293. 300. 305. 307. 308. 310. 311. 313. 314. 317. 320. 321. 323. 327. 328. 329. 332. 333. 338. 344;
Abschließungspolitik II, 277. 286. 287; Äußeres II, 199. 215. 232; Begräbnis II, 272. 301; Dolmetscher II, 219. 220. 221. 222. 224. 228. 229; Dörfer II, 205; Frauen II, 191; Gehorsam gegen Obrigkeit II, 311; Gesandte II, 292. 293; Gouverneure II, 200. 211. 224. 278. 297; Gruß II, 237. 301; Häuptling II, 207. 257. 260; Hirten II, 186. 187; Hunde II, 232; Jäger II, 163. 164. 171. 207. 208. 247. 277; Kleidung II, 191. 203. 232. 233; Lager II, 233-236. 251. 252; Lamas II, 210. 211. 233; Mädchen II, 255; Nahrung II, 190. 235. 236. 266. 267; Nomaden II, 163. 186. 187. 188. 189. 198. 204. 205. 213. 218. 253. 254. 255; Pferde II, 232. 233; Postkuriere II, 215; Räuber II, 238. 240. 241. 328; Schafhürden II, 309; Soldaten II, 212. 213. 214. 218. 219. 223. 224. 226. 228. 229. 230. 231. 233. 235. 236. 255. 260. 263. 264. 265. 273. 285. 287. 289. 290. 291. 301; Tauschhandel II, 335; Tauschmittel II, 237; Teekarawane II, 198. 200. 201; Tempel II, 279. 333; Tötung eines Schafes II, 190; Verhältnis zu China II, 226; Bestrafung von Verrätern II, 202. 218; Wachsamkeit II, 165; Waffen II, 278.
Tien Shan II, 56.
Tiger I, 41. 63. 76. 86. 103. 104. 106. 110. 184. 196. 220. 373; Jagd I, 103-104
Tikkenlik I, 137. 193. 250; II, 98.
Tikkse II, 347. 348.
Tikkse-gompa II, 347.
Többwe I, 204
Togdasin I, 374. 377. 381. 382. 383. 384. 388. 389. 391. 394; II, 1. 3.
Togdasin Bek I, 188. 192; II, 104. 105.
Togluk I, 44.
Tograk (Pappel) I, 24. 211.
Tograk-bulak I, 204.
Tograk-kuduk II, 23.
Tograk-mähälläh I, 106.
Togri-sai I, 370. 372. 374; II, 112.
Tojagun I, 240.
Tokkus-attam I, 275.
Tokkus-dawan I, 168.
Tokkus-kum I, 115.
Tokkus-tarim I, 244.
Tokta Ahun I, 239. 243. 275. 287. 288. 290. 294. 298. 301. 305. 306. 307. 309. 311. 314. 378. 381. 382. 385. 386. 387. 392; II, 2. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 18. 67. 69. 71. 72. 73. 76. 78. 79. 80. 83. 338.
Toktamet Bek I, 185.
Toktekk I, 175.
Tonga II, 355; Fahrt in II, 355. 356.
Tong-burun I, 13 14
Tongo, Vulkan II, 306.
Tonkuslik I, 37.
Tonschluchten II, 5-8. 9-10.
Tor (Raubtierfalle) I, 79
Tora I, 202. 205. 206. 229; II, 38. 42. 52.
Torpag-bel I, 15.
Tosak (Tigerfalle) I, 103. 104.
Tosgak-tschantschdi I, 247
Transalai I, 13. 14.
Treibeis I, 117. 118. 119. 121. 123. 127.
Treibholz I, 95.
Troizkosawsk I, 199
Tsagan Chan I, 395.
Tsagan-ula II, 19.
Tsamba I, 393; II, 190. 236.
Tsamur II, 238.
Tsangar-schar II, 330. 333.
Tschahrbag I, 27.
Tschakkande, Strauch II, 20.
Tschaltschik I, 176
Tschang-la II, 346. 365.
Tschanto II, 207. 287.
Tschappgan I, 242.
Tscharchlik I, 132 137 260 270 287 364 394; II, 1. 4. 18. 77.
78. 86. 87. 98. 99. 109. 115. 117. 168. 169. 248. 308. 330. 349; Amban I, 250. 284; II, 1. 90.
Tscharchlik-su II, 93. 105. 106. 108. 110. 322.
Tschardschui I, 6.
Tschargut-tso II, 289. 292. 293. 296. 298. 301. 302. 304. 305.
Tscharwak I, 62.
Tscheggelik-ui I, 245 272 273 275; II, 96.
Tsche-mo-to-na II, 61.
Tscherdon I, 249. 250. 299. 300. 301. 303. 305. 306. 308. 309. 311. 314. 316. 317. 318. 319. 320. 322. 325. 328. 333. 338. 340. 341. 344. 345. 349. 350. 351. 352. 353. 354. 355. 356. 358. 361. 366. 367. 369. 373. 377. 382. 384. 389. 392; II, 1. 18. 88. 93. 95. 96. 113. 120. 121. 125. 138. 140. 142. 154. 156. 158. 160. 165. 171. 177. 178. 208. 246. 247. 248. 263. 264. 266. 282. 301. 313. 328. 336. 346. 351. 369.
Tschernajewa I, 6; II, 369.
Tschernoff I, 19. 31. 129. 143. 195. 198. 201. 202. 203. 205. 212. 213. 216. 217. 218. 219. 222. 227. 228. 229. 230. 235. 237. 239. 240. 243. 247. 249. 254. 271. 276. 277; II, 76. 77. 78. 82. 83. 88. 93. 95. 99. 113. 114. 120. 121. 123. 125. 126. 138. 140. 145. 146. 147. 162. 163. 165. 220. 245. 247. 250. 251. 258. 261. 263. 266. 276. 277. 302. 306. 309. 310. 330. 332. 333. 336. 337. 338. 340. 341. 342. 344. 345. 346. 351.
Tschertschen I, 146. 147. 150. 151. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174. 175. 176. 179. 370; II, 110.
Tschertschen-darja I, 150. 156. 157. 158. 164. 169. 170. 171. 182. 184. 185. 186. 187. 188. 189.
Tschertschenwüste I, 138. 170. 233; II, 330.
Tschidschegan (totes Schilf) I, 219.
Tschigertschig I, 9.
Tschiggan-tschöll I, 72.
Tschigge (Binse) I, 161. 193.
Tschiggelik I, 299
Tschimen I, 97. 182. 183; II, 109. 116.
Tschimengebirge I, 368.
Tschimen-tag I, 275. 286. 299. 300. 303. 304. 374. 382. 383. 390; II, 8.
Tschimental I, 299. 309. 374. 383. 391; II, 4. 111.
Tschitschek I, 128
Tschiwiklik-köll I, 138. 193. 249. 250. 269; II, 43.
Tschokka-tag I, 62. 63. 66.
Tschokk-dschalung II, 325.
Tschöll-köll I, 65; II, 2.
Tschong-ak-kum I, 108.
Tschong-aral I, 96.
Tschong-darja I, 108.
Tschong-köll I, 246
Tschong-kum I, 136.
Tschong-schipang I, 182.
Tschong-tarim I, 188.
Tschong-tograk I, 115
Tschorá II, 190.
Tschorten II, 353. 365.
Tschugulup (Flußarm) I, 72.
Tschugun (Kupferkanne) I, 185
Tschurden II, 366.
Tschuring II, 307. 310. 311.
Tschutschepp II, 366.
Tsebu II, 327.
Tsen Daloi I, 20.
Tsering Daschi II, 306. 310.
Tsien-Han-shu II, 55. 56. 57. 60.
Tsin-Dynastie II, 48.
Tso-Daloi I, 20.
Tsokkang II, 366.
Tsolla-ring-tso II, 324.
Tso-nekk II, 205. 206. 231.
Tso-ngombo II, 333. 334. 336. 339. 341. 342.
Tsos, tibetische Münze II, 263. 313.
Tsung-ling II, 56.
Tuff I, 330 360
Tuga-ölldi I, 272.
Tugatschi-baschi II, 116.
Tugh I, 364.
Tulume (Ziegenlederschläuche) I, 147
Tumschuk I, 39. 60.
Tung-chuan II, 16.
Tun-huang II, 56. 60.
Tura-sallgan-ui I, 135 136 141 143 144 146 173 195 197 199. 240. 249. 250. 255. 260. 382.
Turdu Bai I, 19 23 132 146 155 158 160 161 163 166 168 172. 196. 252. 254. 276. 287. 291. 294. 297. 301. 307. 314. 318. 319. 322. 324. 326. 328. 340. 344. 347. 348. 350. 351. 352. 355. 363. 368. 372. 382. 384. 392; II, 1. 5. 89. 91. 93. 95. 103. 113. 114. 116. 117. 120. 121. 123. 125. 129. 133. 134. 136. 139. 141. 146. 148. 151. 152. 153. 156. 163. 164. 167. 171.
178. 244. 247. 251. 252. 271. 276. 287. 290. 306. 314. 321. 322. 331. 337. 342. 359. 368. 369.
Turduning-söresi I, 193
Turfan I, 138. 206. 216. 249; II, 30. 52. 53. 65.
Tursan-köbruk I, 138. 249.
Turguten I, 395.
Turkestan I, 6
Tus-algutsch-köll I, 128.
Tusluk-kusch I, 55.
Tusluk-tag I, 62. 63. 66. 68.
Tusun-tschappgan I, 138 239 240
Tutek (Bergkrankheit) I, 13. 388; II, 135.
Tuwaduku-köll I, 261.
Ufer, konkaves I, 38. 44; konvexes I, 38
Uferlinien II, 270. 288. 304. 314. 316. 324. 336. 340. 346.
Ugen I, 98.
Ugen-darja I, 122. 126.
Ujäsdnij natschalnik (Distriktschef) I, 8
Ullug-köll I, 258.
Ullug-tschat I, 15.
Unkurluk II, 110.
Urancha II, 109.
Urga II, 96. 287.
Urumtschi I, 106. 126. 144. 199. 285; II, 287.
Urus-sallgan-sal I, 135.
Uspenskij I, 199
Usun-jar I, 298.
Usun-schor I, 294. 394.
Vizekönig von Indien II, 357, s. Curzon, Lord
Wacholder I, 13. 14.
Waller II, 361.
Wang-Mang II, 48. 53.
Wanka II, 115. 118. 329.
Wasch-schahri I, 138. 186.
Wasser, Messung der Durchsichtigkeit I, 56
Wassermessungen I, 10. 15. 30. 31. 40. 41. 43. 44. 46. 52. 55. 56 58 60 63 64 65 71 73 74 80 82 94 96 111 116 118
126. 127. 241. 242. 244. 245. 247. 250. 257. 258. 269. 272.
278. 314. 317. 325. 330. 340; II, 83. 86. 106. 152. 195. 256. 266.
Weber, Missionar II, 348.
„Weißer Zar“ I, 395.
Wellby I, 320. 331. 364; II, 326.
Wesir Wesarat II, 343. 348. 354. 362.
Westpassat II, 136. 137. 138.
Wildenten I, 42. 120. 308; II, 264. 267. 335.
Wildgänse I, 44. 84. 95. 101. 120. 196. 207. 313. 348. 373; II, 153. 268. 304. 327.
Wildschweine I, 37. 41. 51. 72. 197. 238. 259; II, 75.
Wind, in Tibet II, 136. 140. 141. 149. 311. 312. 315. 318.
Wladikawkas I, 5.
Wölfe I, 41 161 175 184 185 303 304 311 312 327 331 332. 348. 352. 358. 373; II, 22. 110. 141. 150. 154. 156. 168. 171. 234. 247. 311. 327. 330. 345.
Woronesch I, 5.
Wrewskij, Generalgouverneur I, 13.
Wu-ni II, 56.
Wüstenseen I, 129.
Wu-sun II, 57.
Wu-ti, Kaiser II, 48. 57. 58. 59.
Wu-tschu, Münzen II, 48. 53.
Wylie II, 55. 60.
Yake I, 300. 310. 311. 318. 321. 332. 341. 344. 348. 352. 353. 354. 356. 361. 364. 370. 373. 383. 392; II, 110. 122. 126. 141. 142. 148. 151. 152. 157. 159. 171. 172. 178. 179. 187. 200. 203. 204. 220. 241. 252; zahme II, 4. 154. 200. 201. 255. 309. 313. 323. 329. 336. 338. 340. 342. 343; Lasten II, 309.
Yakgras II, 152. 159.
Yakmoos II, 141. 152.
Yamen II, 43.
Yang-kuan II, 56. 57.
Yao-tsö II, 51.
Yarkand II, 56.
Yen-tsö II, 51.
Younghusband II, 359.
Yüan-Ti, Kaiser II, 48. 85.
Yü-Tor II, 57.
