"subdued and codified", simplified into parallel structures. But writing can also be a recovery or articulation of "ancient things, secret, reshapable." In this second type of writing, the mystery of the world is retained. In The Names it is a child, the narrator's son Tap, who most purely practices this type of writing. Unlike Owen, for whom "correctness" in speech is very important, Tap's writing is full of lively misspellings, prompting his father to look at objects in a new way. Politics The theme of control is also visible in the discussion of politics carried on throughout the book. Politics is where the element of control reveals itself most visibly: as in Empire; in the United States' relations with other countries; in the activities of corporations; in the relationship between men and women; in the behavior of terrorists. Nonetheless, the relationship between the "stronger" and the "weaker" is not simply reducible to "oppressor" and "oppressed". Sometimes the weaker force is complicit with, or distorts the nature of, the stronger. Reception In The New York Times, Michael Wood dubbed DeLillo an author of “extraordinary verve and wit” and described The Names as "a powerful, haunting book, formidably intelligent and agile", but wrote that "it also feels a little blurred, its insights scattered rather than collected." Wood argued, "It is true that American fiction is full of people stranded between plotlessness and paranoia, between making no sense of their lives and making too much, and it would be a good defense of Mr. DeLillo to say that he has dramatized this dilemma strongly. But it would only be a defense, and 'The Names' is still a hard book to hold in the mind.” Jonathan Yardley of The Washington Post strongly praised the depiction of the community of Americans in Athens, writing that "his portraits of individual members of the community are sharp and true, his depiction of a world on the brink is wittily clinical, his dialogue is crisp and interesting". However, Yardley also wrote that the novel "takes on too many themes and wanders in too many directions to find a coherent shape", describing Axton's observation about language on the Parthenon as appealing but also arrived at "by so circuitous a route that many readers probably will lose patience along the way." Yardley referred to The Names as "the work of a writer of clear if chilly brilliance", and argued that