Underworld by Don DeLillo SPOILERS

I was actually really enthralled by the Texas Killer storyline. How DeLillo'd describe someone in line at the grocery store and there'd be a news story about another victim and then we'd go back to the desert and we'd be on the highway.

It has been quite a few years since I read it, but DeLillo made me feel like I was there sometimes. He has been blamed in trying to write, one of those, the ultimate American Novel, but it hardly felt like that for me. I loved the way we kept coming back to the baseball and how the father stole it from his son and kept trying to sell it.

I live in daily fear for the single reason that Paul Thomas Anderson has bought the rights from the novel and will make some ghastly MAGNOLIA like adaption from it.

[QUOTE=Mr. Brown]I was actually really enthralled by the Texas Killer storyline. How DeLillo'd describe someone in line at the grocery store and there'd be a news story about another victim and then we'd go back to the desert and we'd be on the highway.

It has been quite a few years since I read it, but DeLillo made me feel like I was there sometimes. He has been blamed in trying to write, one of those, the ultimate American Novel, but it hardly felt like that for me. I loved the way we kept coming back to the baseball and how the father stole it from his son and kept trying to sell it.

I live in daily fear for the single reason that Paul Thomas Anderson has bought the rights from the novel and will make some ghastly MAGNOLIA like adaption from it.[/QUOTE]

The way the father took the baseball and then sold it, those parts, were almost too painful to read. But so well done. I love how the father sees the baseball out in the open, his son sleeping, and gets annoyed that his son didn't bother to [I]hide [/I]it and takes it. It broke my heart.

UNDERWORLD was the novel that started my 'first page' rule. The first page rule is as follows, if I'm in the bookstore and I see a novel that intrigues me for some reason, like the title, or the author, or hell, even the cover and I open it and start reading it and I read the first page and I actually turn it over to the second. Then, I just get it. It happened on UNDERWORLD. I was in the bookstore like a Thursdaynight and checking out the ENGLISH section and there the white/grey softcover was. And without knowing anything about DeLillo I caught it and bought it.

I'd done taught myself.

Oh! One thing that I will say before I make a proper post when I finish it later this week-

When you read the prologue bit, go online and find the actual radio broadcast. You really get the sense of the atmosphere if you listen to that while you read.

[QUOTE=mikandrewz]Oh! One thing that I will say before I make a proper post when I finish it later this week-

When you read the prologue bit, go online and find the actual radio broadcast. You really get the sense of the atmosphere if you listen to that while you read.[/QUOTE]

Would you be so kind as to provide a link?

I'm going to reread the prologue anyway. I love how it dashes back and forth. And I'm not even a fan of baseball but when the announcer loses it and starts yelling (even though his throat hurts and he's sick as a dog) "[I]The Giant's win the pennant[/I]", I got goosebumps.

[QUOTE=mirka]I did a search and there was a thread about this book two years ago so I'd like to start a fresh discussion.

This book troubles me. I'm in awe. I think it's a tremendous accomplishment and I enjoyed reading it. The epilogue practically brought me to tears. I smiled while I read it, reread certain passages and was totally absorbed and enthralled reading it.

SPOILERS BELOW

So, my issues with it, not issues so much, but nagging, unresolved thoughts.
-What the hell happened to the Texas Killer storyline?
-Who was Amy that had the abortion?
-How did Nick and Marion ending up marrying? Why would he marry this woman? The vignette of her at 25 wanting to marry him didn't resonate/ Did he drift into it based on her will and desire?

I loved the character of Klara even though I disliked her as a character. I thought her stories of parties on the rooftops in NY and her seeing the Eisenstein film, her friend Miles, all that was written so vividly and lovingly and yet I couldn't stand her at all.

His characters and his dialogue are just amazing in this book. I got sucked into every story. I did hate the use of repetition with the god damn recycling. How they separate the colored glass from clear, how they don't tie the bundles of newspaper with twine. I'm glad he didn't use that as a device for the rest of the book and the other characters. I was VERY dismayed when it came up again at the end. I just thought it was terrible. What was he trying to accomplish with this? All it did was yank me out of the story and irritate me.

ahaha. Oh and I laughed out loud during that bit when her friend Acey asks some guy at a party what men want from women. He says "blowjobs" and she tells him "you can get those from men".[/QUOTE]

I don't know that I can even make up some of the answers here, on account of loose ends in the book itself. I don't recall the Texas Highway Killer being caught or killed, so I assume he's still out there, for instance. But it's been a while since I read the book.

Also, even when DD ties up stories, he tends to do it in non-traditional ways, like having the two Edgars as celibate lovers when Sister Edgar is killed. And I don't think Nick believes even the mobster about his Dad not being murdered, so it's sort of resolved for the reader (I find the mafia guy credible) but not for the character.

Not to mention the baseball. There's intentional continuity gaps there, for one thing because there's a couple of 'authentic' balls, and who knows where it went after Manx sold it? And as heartbreaking as it is to see Manx sell his kid's ball, Cotter couldn't have established is origin[I] sans [/I]ticket stub, being a black kid from Harlem who was playing hookie that day. The one guy who could vouch for it would probably kill him on principle.

I thought the recycling bit was a good chorus device, cluing you in to who is narrating and how waste defines his existence, maybe all of our existences. That's a common theme with DeLillo, it comes up in 'Cosmopois' 'Where does your waste go?' and 'There are books about shit.' (the later probably a reference to 'Underworld.') In 'Mao II' there's a bit about how Bill Gray's life is a story of excrement and secretions. Etc.

But then, some of the 'fact' stuff in 'Underworld' is flat-out bullshit. I'm guessing that DD did more research into waste disposal than to have the honey-buckets dumping distilled sewage (or going from port to port shrouded in mystery, only to revive the memory of what's-his-name - Marvin? - about his trip into the U.S.S.R. and how is shit stunk worse the further east they went, probably the funniest scatalogical narrative I ever read). But sewage that's been reduced to its final remains actually gets pelletized and used in orchards and whatnot. Grosser in some ways than dumping it legally 110 miles out or illegaly less than 110 miles out. But it figures, he also mentions the neutron bomb, which doesn't exist.

As far as Nick and Marion goes, why does anyone marry anyone? Not a happy union to be sure, what with her smoking H and doiking a colleague of his. And he knows before he knows, because he gets pissed off at her flirting at a party, the line about how he has a congenital Sicilian disorder, self-respect.

But he drinks his soy milke and runs the metric mile, another chorus device. I didn't know there was actually a track event called the 'metric mile' before I read the book, I thought it was a DD coinage, because he seems to like contradictory terms.

Another DD theory I have is that 'Underworld' is the monster book Bill Gray has been working on his whole life in 'Mao II.' The terrorist guy who tells Bill he needs a word processor, I think 'Underworld' might be DeLillo's original book, pre-'Americana,' but that a novel of the scope of 'Underworld' eluded him until he had a world processor. I don't know that he even uses one, but it would make the editing process on a monster like that considerably easier. And some of those sections could have been writtin int he 1970s and 1980s and interwoven with stuff from the 1990s. For that matter, maybe the honey-bucket anachronism is a hold-over from decades-out-of-date research.

[QUOTE=mirka]Would you be so kind as to provide a link?

I'm going to reread the prologue anyway. I love how it dashes back and forth. And I'm not even a fan of baseball but when the announcer loses it and starts yelling (even though his throat hurts and he's sick as a dog) "[I]The Giant's win the pennant[/I]", I got goosebumps.[/QUOTE]

Yup, that's the one. Here it is-

[url]http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/exhibits/online_exhibits/1951/1951_story.htm[/url]

[QUOTE=Chixulub]I don't know that I can even make up some of the answers here, on account of loose ends in the book itself. I don't recall the Texas Highway Killer being caught or killed, so I assume he's still out there, for instance. But it's been a while since I read the book.

Also, even when DD ties up stories, he tends to do it in non-traditional ways, like having the two Edgars as celibate lovers when Sister Edgar is killed. And I don't think Nick believes even the mobster about his Dad not being murdered, so it's sort of resolved for the reader (I find the mafia guy credible) but not for the character.

Not to mention the baseball. There's intentional continuity gaps there, for one thing because there's a couple of 'authentic' balls, and who knows where it went after Manx sold it? And as heartbreaking as it is to see Manx sell his kid's ball, Cotter couldn't have established is origin[I] sans [/I]ticket stub, being a black kid from Harlem who was playing hookie that day. The one guy who could vouch for it would probably kill him on principle.

I thought the recycling bit was a good chorus device, cluing you in to who is narrating and how waste defines his existence, maybe all of our existences. That's a common theme with DeLillo, it comes up in 'Cosmopois' 'Where does your waste go?' and 'There are books about shit.' (the later probably a reference to 'Underworld.') In 'Mao II' there's a bit about how Bill Gray's life is a story of excrement and secretions. Etc.

But then, some of the 'fact' stuff in 'Underworld' is flat-out bullshit. I'm guessing that DD did more research into waste disposal than to have the honey-buckets dumping distilled sewage (or going from port to port shrouded in mystery, only to revive the memory of what's-his-name - Marvin? - about his trip into the U.S.S.R. and how is shit stunk worse the further east they went, probably the funniest scatalogical narrative I ever read). But sewage that's been reduced to its final remains actually gets pelletized and used in orchards and whatnot. Grosser in some ways than dumping it legally 110 miles out or illegaly less than 110 miles out. But it figures, he also mentions the neutron bomb, which doesn't exist.

As far as Nick and Marion goes, why does anyone marry anyone? Not a happy union to be sure, what with her smoking H and doiking a colleague of his. And he knows before he knows, because he gets pissed off at her flirting at a party, the line about how he has a congenital Sicilian disorder, self-respect.

But he drinks his soy milke and runs the metric mile, another chorus device. I didn't know there was actually a track event called the 'metric mile' before I read the book, I thought it was a DD coinage, because he seems to like contradictory terms.

Another DD theory I have is that 'Underworld' is the monster book Bill Gray has been working on his whole life in 'Mao II.' The terrorist guy who tells Bill he needs a word processor, I think 'Underworld' might be DeLillo's original book, pre-'Americana,' but that a novel of the scope of 'Underworld' eluded him until he had a world processor. I don't know that he even uses one, but it would make the editing process on a monster like that considerably easier. And some of those sections could have been writtin int he 1970s and 1980s and interwoven with stuff from the 1990s. For that matter, maybe the honey-bucket anachronism is a hold-over from decades-out-of-date research.[/QUOTE]

That's interesting that you found the chorus of the recycling well done. I found it too much of a "device" in that it took me, the reader right out of the story. It didn't serve any kind of purpose for me, it just made me grit my teeth.

Do you suppose the loose ends in the book, the parts that aren't resolved or follwed are intentional or did DeLillo just lose control of the monster of the book?

I didn't get the marriage of Nick and marion based on the story of Marion at 25. She's lazy and self involved and at that point Nick doesn't want to marry or have a family..so how does that change based on her character (lack of, really). Or is that a point that DeLillo is making, the one you mention..why does anyone marry anyone?

I'd liketo read Mao II next, but I think I need a break to digest this one a bit first.

P.S. Thanks for the link Mik!

[QUOTE=mirka]That's interesting that you found the chorus of the recycling well done. I found it too much of a "device" in that it took me, the reader right out of the story. It didn't serve any kind of purpose for me, it just made me grit my teeth.[/QUOTE]

Any device can end up that way I suppose, I can see how it would strike you that way but it didn't strike me so.

[QUOTE=mirka]Do you suppose the loose ends in the book, the parts that aren't resolved or follwed are intentional or did DeLillo just lose control of the monster of the book? [/QUOTE]

I hope it's intentional, since it's something that happens in his shorter works too. The risk with nonlinear stories and loose ends is if the reader doesn't connect with it, it feels unresolved. But since life is unresolved, I can see a post-modernist case for presevering feedback loops. I guess like setting a story in an office, you have to make sure reading it doesn't feel like a day at the office...

[QUOTE=mirka]
I didn't get the marriage of Nick and marion based on the story of Marion at 25. She's lazy and self involved and at that point Nick doesn't want to marry or have a family..so how does that change based on her character (lack of, really). Or is that a point that DeLillo is making, the one you mention..why does anyone marry anyone?[/QUOTE]

DeLillo is no marriage booster. In 'Americana' he gives his protagonist an ex-wife who lives in the same building and still sleeps with him; in 'Cosmopolis' he gives Eric Packer an heiress wife who wont' sleep with him, in 'Great Jones Street' he gives Bucky a defacto wife (girlfriend) who dies and Bucky doesn't seem to care, in 'End Zone' he gves Harkness a girlfriend with nothing to recommend her except she takes up space, lots of space... So yeah, I guess the 'why would anyone do that?' theme is a likely explanation. The decision to marry someone is pretty irrational, and I don't think most people can be talked off the ledge once they've decided to do it.

[QUOTE=mirka]
I'd liketo read Mao II next, but I think I need a break to digest this one a bit first.
[/QUOTE]

I'd definitely give some space between DeLillo books. 'Mao II' is one of his better ones in my view, but I'd never try to read his books back-to-back. Any highly stylized writer suffers from that kind of saturation, and if you just finished his magnum-opus, you're already in overdose territory.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]I hope it's intentional, since it's something that happens in his shorter works too. The risk with nonlinear stories and loose ends is if the reader doesn't connect with it, it feels unresolved. But since life is unresolved, I can see a post-modernist case for presevering feedback loops. I guess like setting a story in an office, you have to make sure reading it doesn't feel like a day at the office...

Ok, I can see that. I haven't read anything else by him so I was unsure what was intentional. The book was so full and rich that it didn't exactly feel unresoved, I just wanted to make sure I hadn't missed something.

Again, you have the advantage, you can recognize a theme or recurring subject that is lost on me and bewildered me. This was a major artifice in the novel for me. I didn't see the leap to marriage [I]especially [/I]to that girl/woman. Later when their marriage survives and is even stronger, [I]that [/I]made sense in terms of the affair and their shared history, children a grandchild..age. But the marriage, their initial connection, no.

[QUOTE=mirka]
I just read his magnum-opus?! I alway hear people rave about White Noise and thought I should hold off on reading that until I'd read some other DeLillo..that whole saving the best for last. Whoops.

I really loved this book though, I'll be reading some more DeLillo soon.[/QUOTE]

Well, as far as I can tell 'Underworld' is his longest book by about double. 'Americana' was a bit under 500 pages if memory serves, and 'Cosmopolis' is downright short. They even issued the opener of 'Underworld' as a freestanding novel.

But 'White Noise' is the book he won the National Book Award for. I have given up making sense of literary awards, it's a good book but not his greatest IMO. All of which is subjective: I hated 'Body Artist' and I've seen others suggest it as a good introduction to him. And I don't think a new author coming along today with a book like 'Americana' would even find a publisher. It's got some serious issues and is probably a book reserved for hardcore DeLillo fanatics. Sometimes I feel like his other books are a way of trying to get what he was trying to say in 'Americana' right.

'Libra' is one of his more interesting novels, an interesting historical novel and deconstruction of the JFK assassination. I think part of the appeal of it is like with Pynchon's 'Mason & Dixon,' these postmodern types have such a tendency away from traditional structures that a basis in historical events gives the reader an anchor.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]Well, as far as I can tell 'Underworld' is his longest book by about double. 'Americana' was a bit under 500 pages if memory serves, and 'Cosmopolis' is downright short. They even issued the opener of 'Underworld' as a freestanding novel.

But 'White Noise' is the book he won the National Book Award for. I have given up making sense of literary awards, it's a good book but not his greatest IMO. All of which is subjective: I hated 'Body Artist' and I've seen others suggest it as a good introduction to him. And I don't think a new author coming along today with a book like 'Americana' would even find a publisher. It's got some serious issues and is probably a book reserved for hardcore DeLillo fanatics. Sometimes I feel like his other books are a way of trying to get what he was trying to say in 'Americana' right.

'Libra' is one of his more interesting novels, an interesting historical novel and deconstruction of the JFK assassination. I think part of the appeal of it is like with Pynchon's 'Mason & Dixon,' these postmodern types have such a tendency away from traditional structures that a basis in historical events gives the reader an anchor.[/QUOTE]

I'd like to read a few more books of his and then check your theory about Americana. The thing is, regardless of what I didn't like or understand about Underworld, I couldn't put it down. When I [I]had [/I]to put it down, it was on my mind. I was just in awe. I personally love big complicated books with lots of characters and story lines (John Irving, Dostoevsky, Gabriel Garcia Marquez) and this book satisfied that in a huge way.

Thanks for the tip, I skipped through some spoilers. I am stopping to buy this book on the way to my next appointment.

The Cult. Learn more here by accident than anywhere else by design.

[QUOTE=mirka]I'd like to read a few more books of his and then check your theory about Americana. The thing is, regardless of what I didn't like or understand about Underworld, I couldn't put it down. When I [I]had [/I]to put it down, it was on my mind. I was just in awe. I personally love big complicated books with lots of characters and story lines (John Irving, Dostoevsky, Gabriel Garcia Marquez) and this book satisfied that in a huge way.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, good literary fiction can grab you like that. It's almost mystical when it works, when you find yourself reading without even needing plot to drive it. Of course when it doesn't work it's miserable reading. I think that's why people have such strong reactions to DeLillo, Toni Morrison, Pynchon, and so on. Even Hempel, who I can't see ever writing a five page paragraph or even doing a novel-length piece, cruises on style alone at times.

[QUOTE=Chixulub] Even Hempel, who I can't see ever writing a five page paragraph or even doing a novel-length piece, cruises on style alone at times.[/QUOTE]

ha, that's interesting because I think Hemple cruises on style ALL the time, that she is style incarnate. I can admire her writing, but I have never been yanked into one of her stories, I'm always aware that I'm reading something meticulously crafted.

[QUOTE=mirka]ha, that's interesting because I think Hemple cruises on style ALL the time, that she is style incarnate. I can admire her writing, but I have never been yanked into one of her stories, I'm always aware that I'm reading something meticulously crafted.[/QUOTE]

Well, she does plot, she just doesn't do it all the time. If you want to know what she'd read like with no plot at all, check out 'Why I Ever' by her pal Mary Robison. It's like a cranky, speed addicted Jack Handy.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]Well, she does plot, she just doesn't do it all the time. If you want to know what she'd read like with no plot at all, check out 'Why I Ever' by her pal Mary Robison. It's like a cranky, speed addicted Jack Handy.[/QUOTE]

Well, when she's not plotting she's dotting her I's and crossing her T's as far as I can tell because all I get from her is style and form.

I will check out that story. I've always wanted to make Jack Handy fortune cookies!

[QUOTE=mirka]Well, when she's not plotting she's dotting her I's and crossing her T's as far as I can tell because all I get from her is style and form.

I will check out that story. I've always wanted to make Jack Handy fortune cookies![/QUOTE]

I see what you're saying about Hempel, I just meant a story like 'Al Jolson' contains rudiments of plot, as much as you can expect for someone who writes in halftone dots, where 'Housewife' and 'Animal Shelter' are so short they convey nothing you could define as a plot with a straight face.

I hear Robison's earlier works aren't as extreme. 'Why I Ever' is published as a novel, but it's so extremely nonlinear I got bored and frustrated. Clever turns of phrase are nice, but it got to where it seemed forced, and there was a frustrating lack of coherence. I thought the picture would become clearer, to use the halftone analogy, as I got through more dots but instead I was increasingly confused. If she'd written each one-to-five paragraph section on the insides of cigarette wrapers, bar napkins, phone bill envelopes and Post-Its, then scattered them around an apartment, you could read 'Why I Ever' in whatever order you found the bits and it would read about the same. As an intellectual curiosity that's fine, or if you just like the poetry of it (I don't know where Robison is from but she seems a very 'Southern' writer), but it ended up angering me.

I think part of the beauty of Hempel is she'll limit it to a single sentence if necessary, but how much fatigue can you work up in 100 to 2,000 words? Wait, isn't this a thread about Don DeLillo's 'Underword?'

Yep, sorry I digressed. But it brings up an interesting aspect of DeLillos style. The writer I relate most closely to DeLillo is Pynchon, but Pynchon is hit and miss. I love 'Mason & Dixon,' but I have never been able to get past page 50 of 'Gravity's Rainbow' before I start making lip-farts and wondering why I'd care and if he ever tires of talking dogs. DeLillo dedicated one of his books to Gordon Lish, which gets me off the hook a bit I hope for devolving around Robison and Hempel, at least the latter of which is definitely a disciple and I'd bet $27.15 Robison is too and that's how they know each other.

DeLillo is more accessible than Pynchon, in part because he uses some of the same techniques you find in other Lish-heads. Chorus devices, for instance, you mentioned not liking the recycling one, but I love the 'he went out for cigarettes and never came back' chorus. So much pain in that, and the numerology developed related to the ball game and the abandonment, the symbolism of the Lucky Strike pack design, etc. And humor, too, because you start to realize he'll never get it, never realize what his Dad really was, that he can't let himself realize it because it would mean invalidating too many years of mourning and idealizing the bum.

When DeLillo founders, it's also on those minimalist technique things. 'Body Artist' failed for me in large part because I have an autistic daughter and I felt like he didn't do his due diligence in researching what the hell he was writing about. That and a lack of sympathetic characters, but I think I might have survived that if I didnt' feel like he was talking out his ass as an author (lack of 'head authority' I guess).

I think it's ok to go off on tangents. I found your observations about Hemple pretty interesting and I'm really glad you elaborated on the Robison book because it would have angered me for the same reasons. I don't like fiction that relies on the "whatever it means to the reader" and pretty sentences. I like to know that the author has made an effort to tell a story.

The only chorus that I liked was Lenny Bruce's "[I]We're all gonna die[/I]." And I'm not sure if that is an example of a chorus or if it's an actual part of Bruce's routine.

I think you're right about Nick's dad and his feelings for him, what's the point in accepting that his father left them after all these years, why invite the pain? Just idealize the bum, it doesn't hurt anyone, really.

I think for my tastes I prefer an emphasis on head authority. I don't enjoy so much marveling technique while I'm reading, but after, when I'm through with the book. So the use of chorus's in this book were a little too precious for me. I find it really interesting that different people will disagree about what suffers or works in a book yet come to the same conclusion regarding the overall success of the novel.

[QUOTE=mirka]I think for my tastes I prefer an emphasis on head authority. I don't enjoy so much marveling technique while I'm reading, but after, when I'm through with the book. So the use of chorus's in this book were a little too precious for me. I find it really interesting that different people will disagree about what suffers or works in a book yet come to the same conclusion regarding the overall success of the novel.[/QUOTE]

Yes, well, there's subjectivity for you. Why does a guy like Megadeth and not Metalica? Or the other way around, since to a casual observer who's a fan of neither they are practically the same band.

And I think the head authority angle is a great point. The Lenny Bruce material you mention liking, that's verifiable and it's pretty easy to expect that many readers are familiar with Lenny's schtick. The baseball element in the opening, to use so many famous people and verifiable events, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it can be verified that Herbert Hoover attended that game with Gleason and Sinatra, though of course the likelihood is that DeLillo simply made it up, knowing the three would have been aware of each other, have had adequate mobility to have attended the game if they wanted to (money and travel not being an issue), and maybe there's evidence that all three were baseball enthusiasts. It reads almost like a documentary, except Cotter Martin is a fictional character.

One of the common elements in all of DeLillo is he deconstructs urban myths and cultural phenomena. Lenny Bruce, downwinders, mafia controlled waste management, everything in 'Underworld' is something that could either be true or be believed to be true by the person telling you, and probably none of it could be proven.

Which I guess gets into a whole other area, I won't mention a certain author and the subject of deconstruction...

Hey Rod,

I don't know if you ever saw this, but DeLillo emailed the cult a few years ago. It just makes me like and respect him even more after reading his notes to Dennis.

Dennis added him to the recommendations page and let DeLillo know. This was his reply:

Original news threads here:

[url=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=248]DeLillo original contact [/url]

[url=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=284]DeLillo Follow up[/url]

I remeber seeing something along those lines, though I dont think I'd read the verbatim transcription. I don't know if I would have connected DeLillo and Palahniuk on my own, though in 'Great Jones Street' there's a writer trying to crack the market for child pornography written for children. That's something that would fit in a Palahniuk novel.

I just ordered [B]Mao II[/B].

I read [B]White Noise[/B] a few months ago. You're right Rod, you can't read DeLillo back to back.

[QUOTE=mirka]I just ordered [B]Mao II[/B].

I read [B]White Noise[/B] a few months ago. You're right Rod, you can't read DeLillo back to back.[/QUOTE]

Mao II is one of my favorites of his. He was really on his game with that one, makes more than a little fun of himself. And Pynchon, who I'll bet is pals with DD on some level.

When he's good, he's amazing, when he loses me, I wonder how he gets this stuff published... Which I guess makes me one arrogant little cuss.

I wanna check out AMERICANA by him, it somehow seems perfect for me. And what was that serial killer novel of his called again?

[QUOTE=Chixulub]Mao II is one of my favorites of his. He was really on his game with that one, makes more than a little fun of himself. And Pynchon, who I'll bet is pals with DD on some level.

When he's good, he's amazing, when he loses me, I wonder how he gets this stuff published... Which I guess makes me one arrogant little cuss.[/QUOTE]

I know, I ordered it next based on your recommendation earlier in the thread.

I also ordered [B]Infinate Jest[/B], so you all may not see much of me in the next couple of months.

[QUOTE=Mr. Brown]I wanna check out AMERICANA by him, it somehow seems perfect for me. And what was that serial killer novel of his called again?[/QUOTE]

Americana dragged for me. I think maybe he started with a good idea, but it was his first novel and I think he may have been feeling his way there. Kind of like the way Great Jones Street fell apart on me.

Serial killer, I'm trying to think. He has serial killer characters, like the Texas Highway Shooter in Underworld. He has sociopath/megalomaniacs like Eric Packer in Cosmopolis. And Gary Harkness (End Zone) would probalby think a serial killer lacked ambition, he's into nuclear war.

I haven't read Names, Ratner's Star, or Players. Which is nice, I feel like I have something to look forward to there.