Underworld par Delillo

And I loved White Noise, Libra and bits of Running Dog. In Underworld, DeLillo really doesn't seem to be addressing any themes he hasn't amply covered in these novels, and probably also in the books I haven't read.

Gravity's Rainbow is better... oops!

colin do you have 'the body artist', can i borrow it?

Yeah the serial killer stuff is dynamite. fucking incredible.

Cozen!

This may be my favorite novel ever, and the only reason I doubt myself is because I've only read it once. But the things I love:

(1) Well, all the American popular culture stuff, of course. I realized recently that I gravitate toward novels that have some element of social history and/or cultural criticism in them. (Somewhat predictably, my favorite books of this decade have included White Teeth, The Corrections, Middlesex, and The Fortress of Solitude. I love how DeLillo weaves baseball with the Bomb with avant-garde film, etc. And then it's fun to see how he incorporates some of his broader recurring themes -- like "waste" -- into each of these cultural contexts.

(2) The structure. I really dug the jumps in chronology. I loved how you'd meet a minor character in, say, 1974, and then 100 pages later, after you'd almost forgot about him, he'd get his own story in 1955. With a totally different POV. Then again, I've always really liked fractured narratives, which is maybe why I rated the film 21 Grams more highly than some others.

(3) Along those same lines, I loved the huge cast of characters. I made a chart while I was reading the book to track who was related to whom, and the progression of the baseball from one person to another. I totally understand the obsessiveness of sci-fi and fantasy fans with regard to the intricately structured, populated worlds of their narratives -- I've just never been much interested in those environments. But here!

(4) DeLillo is one of the most gorgeous stylists I've ever read. Like I said, I haven't re-read the book in its entirety, but occasionally I'll open it up to random pages and marvel at how easily I'm able to find incredible sentences. Part of it's just the sound of the words (random sentence: "an extracurricular jitter in his body lingo" [that's Lenny Bruce]). But he also has a way of writing that's simultaneously descriptive, poetric, free-associative, and conversational. And to me that's absolutely compelling.

I've read and loved The Players, Mao II, and (like we all)White Noise. Been meaning to read Libra for ages, too.

Is Endzone the 'college football = subconscious prep for warfare' one? I'd like to read that.

x-post Yes, read White Noise, it's good. My dad didn't like it; gave up on it when he got to part 3. I think he's crazy, to be honest; it's a clever novel.

this was my first delillo except for a staging of valpariso (sp?) i saw which i thought was bad. so right now i think he's pretty lame. should i give white noise a try before i give up on him?

Mao II seemed like DeLillo on autopilot to me.

I'm really quite anxious over how the rest of the book will stand up for me now.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0425055/

Apparently it's premiering at Sundance this week.

Because us Mets fans need something to help us re-live our past glories. The way things look, it could be 86 years before the Mets ever win it again. This should just serve as a reminder for you Chowds for how sweet it really is to finally shake off that ridiculous "curse".

Michael Hoffman's "Game 6" is a written picture, by which I mean that the dialogue must be attended to as in a stage play. It's the first and only screenplay by the novelist Don DeLillo, with Michael Keaton as a successful playwright, Griffin Dunne as a writer who is falling to pieces, and Robert Downey Jr. as a critic of great eccentricity. Because the principal characters are writers, they talk like writers, with specific and evocative word choices. Mostly what they talk about is the collapse of the Boston Red Sox in 1986. Game 6 of that famous World Series unfolds during the movie, as the men find a metaphysical connection between themselves and their team. DeLillo's dialogue allows for a complexity and richness of speech that is refreshing compared to the subject-verb-object recitation in many movies.

I never posted as follow-up to my Underworld angst upthread. No, nothing stood up to the intensity of the Pafko section, but it was still wonderful. I'd like to read it again to get a better handle; I get so caught up in the language that the details tend to pass me by. I'd like to find Libra, too, to compare the narratives, as recommended.

xpost- I went really slowly through to pg. 300 or so, but then started to steam on through once I hit the section about the graffiti artist using subway cars as canvas, etc. The Clara Sax section, I think it was.

Three or four years later for me, but yeah.

xp

xp

ive met many people in real life as well as online who talk about giving up after that. it's almost become a meme!

i'm reading "cosmopolis" now and am getting the same sense. it feels like an extended gimmick.

the names, mao 2, underworld, white noise, great jones st. - in order, in terms of enjoyment, for what it's worth - although it's been a while for most of those.

while i generally find him overly cold and analytical, no author's language gets in my head like his. and i can just read him and read him - generally a short affair when i pick up one of his books.

I'm at an impasse where I either start reading this now because I just finished pretty much all my schoolwork for the year and have a whole summer off, or whether I just dedicate the next 4-6 weeks reading something else.

"if you don't get it by the first half.. you probably won't ever get it."

i don't agree.
i'm reading it now (been reading somewhere around 60% of it), and i think it's getting better if only because it takes time to get used to the somewhat scattered style/revolving aroung the themes, and pieces like the one's about moonman and the Eisnestein movie are brilliant.

i would say though, the book would benefir from a good editor.

this was kind of his last big novel, right? everything since has been like 100 pages long.

anyway, bough this, never did read it, getting rid of it because it's just sitting on a shelf staring at me.

u could read it first? it's pretty rad

A friend of mine got nabbed at customs -- he and a girlfriend from 15 years earlier had a baby, mutually decided to go their separate ways, but didn't do it on paper -- and spend his jail time reading this.

he did an offset
xxpost

pretty depressing thing to read in jail

Keeps you from having to make eye contact with anyone for a few days, though.

xp to Zeno's first post

but did you like the first half? I agree about the Eisenstein stuff and think the Better Living Through Chemistry is the highlight of the book, but if someone were to tell me they didn't like the first half very much I'd be surprised if they found that the second half really turns it around

yeah i agree w/ this

What was he banged up for, Eazy? I don't understand!

If the book suffers from anything, it's having an extended lull in the second and third(?) long sections - the 'Klara Sax & planes' bit and the 'Big Sims' bit anyway - the Pafko bit is so easy, and it picks up again once you get to the fourth long bit, but it's a lot of work to get there. It's totally worth it though.

i liked it to a certain degree, my problem was (is?!) the writing style, which is sometimes unfocused/masturbating with words (intentionally probably), and also, i have to say, ive never been a big fan of post modernism in literature - a matter of taste.

than again, after awhile - i think i got the point and from that moment on - the book looks much better.

i agree that if someone didnt like it at all - theres no point going on.
xxpost

zeno have you read other delillo?

yeah, white noise, and it was great (and better)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/66/Pafko_at_the_Wall.jpg

I want this now, just for its beautiful cover.

What was he banged up for, Eazy? I don't understand!

He got arrested at the border for not paying child support, even though the baby-mama never wanted him to.

Crikey, I didn't realise that was worth jail time.

That was B.O. (not Obama), right?

Why, yes!

I remember that from TAL.

Oh, I didn't know he talked about it on there; was directing a show of his when it happened.

This episode, looks like.

http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Underworld_DonDeLillo_Spread232-1200.jpg

I recently spoke to DeLillo, via fax

ha ha
i love it

I can't link directly to the image, but from the Times last month (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/11/06/style/tmagazine/first-editions-second-thoughts.html), glossing "He speaks in your voice, American, and there's a shine in his eye that's halfway hopeful":

First sentence of the novel is the last sentence I wrote -- a final addition to what I'd previously considered a complete manuscript. Took me a ridiculously long time to decide on the final wording.

Sorry, that last post was superfluous (I didn't at first see that you could click through to Schlump's link).