Acropolis in the Rearview

James Axton, an American risk analyst living in Athens, is haunted by the Acropolis, which he continually avoids visiting. The ancient monument, symbolizing order and beauty, stands in stark contrast to the chaotic, blaring modern city below. Axton's social circle is a group of expatriates—businesspeople, academics, and their families—who navigate the complexities of living abroad, their conversations laced with irony, self-doubt, and the weight of history. The Acropolis becomes a metaphor for the burdens of Western civilization and the ambiguous relationship modern people have with their own cultural inheritance. Axton's reluctance to confront the monument mirrors his hesitancy to face the deeper questions of his own life and marriage.

Expatriate Family Fractures

Axton's wife, Kathryn, and their son, Tap, live on a remote Greek island, where Kathryn volunteers on an archaeological dig. Their separation is both physical and emotional, as Kathryn pursues a new sense of purpose in the ruins of the past, while Axton shuttles between business trips and existential uncertainty. Tap, precocious and observant, writes his own novel, absorbing the adult world's tensions. The family's conversations are filled with playful banter and underlying resentment, culminating in Axton's self-mocking list of "27 Depravities"—a litany of his perceived failings as husband and father. The family's disintegration is set against the backdrop of ancient stones and modern anxieties, as each member seeks meaning in their own way.

The Cult in the Hills

Owen Brademas, the dig director and a friend of Kathryn's, recounts his encounter with a mysterious group living in caves on the island. This cult, composed of educated but rootless individuals, is obsessed with alphabets, inscriptions, and the origins of language. Their interest is not in history or religion, but in the pure forms of letters and the patterns they create. The cult's presence is unsettling, their motives unclear, and their connection to a series of ritualistic murders across the region begins to emerge. Brademas, haunted by grief and a sense of ruin, is both drawn to and repelled by the cult's austere logic.

Language and Power

The expatriate community's conversations are saturated with discussions of language—Greek, English, Ob (a family code), and the technical jargon of business and archaeology. Language is both a bridge and a barrier, a means of connection and a source of alienation. Axton's work as a risk analyst involves parsing data, probabilities, and political realities, while his personal life is marked by misunderstandings and failed communication. The cult's fascination with alphabets mirrors the larger theme: the power of names, the violence of categorization, and the longing for meaning in a world of shifting signs.

The Alphabet Murders

A series of murders—on Greek islands, in the Middle East, and beyond—are linked by a chilling pattern: the victims' initials match the first letters of the place where they are killed. The cult, it becomes clear, is enacting a ritual of patterned violence based on the logic of language itself. The act of matching names and places becomes a form of sacred violence, a way of imposing order on chaos. The expatriates, especially Axton and Brademas, are drawn into the investigation, their own obsessions and vulnerabilities mirrored in the cult's actions.

Risk and Ritual

Axton's job with the Northeast Group, an American firm selling political risk insurance, brings him into contact with the machinery of global capitalism and the shadow world of intelligence. His boss, Rowser, is a paranoid, secretive figure, obsessed with data and security. The business of risk—calculating the odds of violence, revolution, or disaster—becomes a metaphor for the characters' attempts to manage the uncertainties of their own lives. The rituals of business, marriage, and cultic murder are all ways of coping with the terror of contingency.

The World as Pattern

The narrative is structured around the search for patterns—whether in language, history, or personal experience. Brademas, Axton, and others are compelled to find order in the world's randomness, to believe that events are not merely accidental. The cult's murders are the most extreme expression of this drive, but the same impulse animates the archaeologists' digs, the risk analysts' reports, and the expatriates' endless conversations. The desire for pattern is both a source of comfort and a trap, leading to violence and madness as well as insight.

The Mani and the Names

Axton and his son Tap travel through the Mani, a remote region of the Peloponnese, searching for traces of the cult. They encounter ruined villages, tower houses, and cryptic graffiti—"Ta Onómata," The Names—painted on a rock. The landscape is bleak and elemental, stripped of history and association, a place where the cult's logic can play itself out to the end. The journey is both a literal and symbolic descent into the heart of darkness, as Axton confronts the limits of his own understanding and the violence at the core of meaning.

The Filmmaker's Obsession

Frank Volterra, a filmmaker and old friend of Kathryn and Axton, becomes obsessed with the cult and its rituals. He dreams of making a film that will capture the essence of their violence, their logic, their place in the landscape. Volterra's pursuit is both artistic and self-destructive, a quest for authenticity that mirrors the cult's own extremism. His relationship with his partner, Del, is marked by intimacy and alienation, as they circle the edges of the cult's world, unable to penetrate its core.

The Desert's Endgame

The narrative shifts to India, where Brademas tracks the remnants of the cult to the Thar Desert. The group is dying, scattered and broken, their rituals reduced to starvation and madness. Brademas, himself ill and exhausted, becomes both participant and observer, drawn into the cult's final act—a murder that completes the pattern but empties it of meaning. The desert, with its emptiness and clarity, becomes the setting for the story's ultimate confrontation with death, language, and the limits of understanding.

The Storyteller's Confession

Brademas, in a final conversation with Axton, recounts the cult's end and his own role as witness and confessor. The act of storytelling becomes a form of absolution, a way of making sense of horror and loss. The narrative fracture and multiplicity loops back on itself, as Brademas reflects on his childhood, his memories of the prairie, and the longing for innocence. The cult's violence is revealed as a mockery of the human need for structure and meaning, a parody of the very act of naming.

Violence and Misidentification

Back in Athens, violence erupts when David Keller, Axton's friend, is shot by would-be assassins—possibly in a case of mistaken identity. The attack exposes the fragility of the expatriate community, the dangers lurking beneath the surface of ordinary life. The investigation that follows is marked by confusion, suspicion, and the impossibility of knowing who is responsible or why. The violence is both random and patterned, echoing the cult's logic and the larger uncertainties of the world.

The Parthenon's Cry

In the aftermath, Axton finally visits the Acropolis, experiencing the Parthenon not as a symbol of order but as a site of loss and longing. The ruins are alive with the voices of tourists, guides, and the city below—a cacophony of languages that becomes the true offering to the ancient stones. The Parthenon's beauty is inseparable from its wounds, its cry for pity. The novel ends with a meditation on language as both a source of connection and a reminder of the world's fallen wonder.

The Prairie Dream

In a coda, Tap's novel imagines a boy on the prairie, tongue-tied and unable to speak the language of the adults around him. The boy's struggle to yield, to cross over into understanding, mirrors the novel's larger themes: the desire for connection, the terror of incomprehension, and the hope that language—however broken—can bridge the gap between self and world.

Characters

James Axton

Axton is the novel's narrator and central consciousness, an American risk analyst adrift in the Mediterranean world. His marriage is fractured, his work is both lucrative and morally ambiguous, and his sense of self is perpetually unsettled. Axton is both participant and observer, drawn to the patterns beneath the surface of events but wary of their implications. His relationships—with Kathryn, Tap, Brademas, and the expatriate community—are marked by irony, self-doubt, and a longing for meaning. Psychologically, Axton is defined by his ambivalence: he is both attracted to and repelled by the violence and order he encounters, seeking absolution in language and narrative.

Kathryn Axton

Kathryn is Axton's estranged wife, a Canadian who finds purpose in archaeology and the physical labor of the dig. Her move to the island is both an escape from her marriage and a quest for authenticity. She is practical, resilient, and fiercely independent, yet her relationships—with Axton, Tap, and Brademas—are fraught with unresolved tensions. Kathryn's loyalty to place and idea is both her strength and her limitation; she is shaped by struggle and a desire to be equal to the world's difficulties.

Tap Axton

Tap, the nine-year-old son of James and Kathryn, is a writer in his own right, composing a "nonfiction novel" that reflects and refracts the adult world around him. He is observant, literal-minded, and sensitive to the undercurrents of family life. Tap's coded language (Ob) and his fascination with words echo the novel's larger preoccupation with language as theme and structure. His development is marked by a growing awareness of the world's complexities and the limits of parental protection.

Owen Brademas

Brademas is the director of the archaeological dig and a central figure in the novel's exploration of language, memory, and violence. He is marked by grief, a sense of ruin, and an almost mystical attachment to patterns and inscriptions. Brademas's encounters with the cult and his final journey to India are both a quest for understanding and a confrontation with his own limitations. Psychologically, he is defined by his need for structure and his fear of chaos, his longing for absolution through memory and narrative.

Frank Volterra

Volterra is a filmmaker whose fascination with the cult and its rituals becomes an all-consuming obsession. He is charismatic, driven, and often reckless, seeking authenticity in art and life. His relationships—with Kathryn, Del, and Axton—are marked by intensity and alienation. Volterra's pursuit of the cult is both a creative quest and a form of self-destruction, mirroring the novel's themes of violence, pattern, and the limits of representation.

Del Nearing

Del is Volterra's partner, a woman marked by past trauma and a wary, ironic detachment. She is both participant and observer in Volterra's quest, providing a counterpoint to his intensity. Del's relationship with Axton is ambiguous, marked by moments of intimacy and distance. Psychologically, she is defined by her resilience and her refusal to be fully drawn into the madness around her.

Charles and Ann Maitland

The Maitlands are a British couple who have lived through the upheavals of postcolonial history, their marriage marked by irony, reticence, and a deep sense of loss. Charles is a security consultant, Ann a translator and teacher; together, they embody the survival strategies of the expatriate class. Their relationship with Axton is one of mutual recognition and unspoken understanding, their emotional lives shaped by the experience of displacement and the need for coping protocols.

David and Lindsay Keller

David is an American banker, pragmatic and affable, whose work brings him into the orbit of political violence and economic instability. Lindsay, his much younger wife, is a source of calm and equilibrium, her innocence and generosity providing a counterweight to the cynicism of the expatriate world. Their relationship with Axton is marked by camaraderie and, ultimately, by the violence that erupts in Athens.

Andreas Eliades

Eliades is a Greek businessman whose conversations with Axton and Ann Maitland are charged with political and personal ambiguity. He is both a critic of American power and a possible agent of violence, his motives and loyalties never fully clear. Psychologically, he embodies the novel's themes of suspicion, misidentification, and the dangers of ideological certainty.

Rowser

Rowser is Axton's superior at the Northeast Group, a man obsessed with security, data, and the management of risk. He is secretive, compulsive, and ultimately implicated in the shadow world of intelligence. Rowser's relationship with Axton is both paternal and adversarial, a reflection of the larger systems of power and surveillance that structure the novel's world.

Plot Devices

Patterned Violence

The central plot device is the series of murders committed by the cult, each victim's initials matching the place of death. This device literalizes the novel's preoccupation with language, pattern, and the human need for meaning. The violence is both random and systematic, a parody of the search for order that animates the characters' lives. The device is foreshadowed by the cult's obsession with alphabets and inscriptions, and its revelation is structured as a detective story, with Axton and Brademas piecing together the clues.

Expatriate Community as Microcosm

The novel's structure is built around the interactions of the expatriate community, whose dinners, arguments, and affairs mirror the larger forces of history and power. The community is both a refuge and a site of conflict, its members bound by shared experience and mutual suspicion. The narrative moves fluidly between personal and political, domestic and global, using the community as a lens for exploring the complexities of modern life.

Language as Theme and Structure

Language is both a subject and a structuring device in the novel. The characters' struggles with Greek, their use of codes and jargon, and the cult's obsession with alphabets all serve to highlight the power and limitations of words. The narrative itself is self-reflexive, looping back on itself, interrupting stories with commentary, and foregrounding the act of storytelling as a means of making sense of the world.

Narrative Fracture and Multiplicity

The novel is composed of multiple narratives—Axton's, Brademas's, Tap's—each with its own style and focus. The use of letters, novels within the novel, and extended dialogues creates a sense of multiplicity and fragmentation. The structure mirrors the characters' search for pattern and meaning, as well as their inability to achieve closure or certainty.

Foreshadowing and Irony

The narrative is rich in foreshadowing—references to violence, mistaken identity, and the dangers of language recur throughout. The irony of the expatriates' attempts to manage risk, only to be undone by forces beyond their control, is a central motif. The novel's ending, with its meditation on ruins, language, and the impossibility of understanding, is both anticipated and subverted by the events that precede it.

Analysis

Don DeLillo's The Names is a profound meditation on language, violence, and the search for meaning in a world marked by displacement and uncertainty. Set against the backdrop of the Mediterranean and the Middle East in the late 1970s, the novel explores the lives of expatriates—businesspeople, archaeologists, artists—whose attempts to impose order on chaos are mirrored and mocked by a cult that enacts ritual murders based on the logic of the alphabet. Through its intricate structure, shifting perspectives, and self-reflexive narrative, the novel interrogates the power and limitations of language, the allure and danger of pattern, and the human longing for connection in a world of contingency. The cult's violence is both a parody and a fulfillment of the characters' own obsessions, exposing the thin line between structure and madness, meaning and annihilation. Ultimately, The Names is a novel about the fallen wonder of the world—the beauty and terror of ruins, the cry for pity in the face of loss, and the hope that, through language and memory, we might find a way to yield, to cross over, and to speak.

Last updated: May 24, 2025