17 books by DeLillo and wrote, "Challenging and cerebral, the central question of the novel concerns how far context and words go towards shaping perception and, therefore, reality?" Paul Petrovic, Fran Mason, and Eileen Battersby have claimed the novel to be underrated, with Battersby writing, "Richard Ford conveys what America sounds like, how it thinks. But DeLillo explains how it fears; he describes America’s communal dread." Interpretation Michael Wood interpreted the language cult as representing "the arbitrary, the meaningless not as chaos and confusion but as heartless, pointless pattern,” noting one character's view that they "mock our need to structure and classify, to build a system against the terror in our souls." Film adaptation It was announced on April 7, 2015 that American writer-director Alex Ross Perry has optioned The Names for a film adaptation. Theater adaptation On July 2018, at the Festival d'Avignon, french theater company Si vous pouviez lécher mon cœur created a play based on three novels by Don Delillo : Players, Mao II, The Names. References 1982 American novels Novels by Don DeLillo Alfred A. Knopf books Novels set in Greece