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3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
I read this book for the first time about ten years ago, and started (then abandoned) a reread more recently. Here's a short review & summary:
The plot centers around the events of the "shot heard 'round the world," Bobby Thomson's late-game home run that won the 1951 National League Pennant for the Giants, and the fate of the baseball Thomson hit, which has never been found. In UNDERWORLD, DeLillo speculates on the history of the baseball following the game in characteristically surreal fashion. The first chapter, which details the events of the game, is one of my favorite pieces of writing of all time. It was originally published as a short story, and every word, every sentence is just perfect. If you see how long the book is and you're like "no," fair enough, but consider reading the first chapter anyway, as a standalone story. It is 100% worth it.
The plot centers around the events of the "shot heard 'round the world," Bobby Thomson's late-game home run that won the 1951 National League Pennant for the Giants, and the fate of the baseball Thomson hit, which has never been found. In UNDERWORLD, DeLillo speculates on the history of the baseball following the game in characteristically surreal fashion. The first chapter, which details the events of the game, is one of my favorite pieces of writing of all time. It was originally published as a short story, and every word, every sentence is just perfect. If you see how long the book is and you're like "no," fair enough, but consider reading the first chapter anyway, as a standalone story. It is 100% worth it.
Ha la stessa valenza epica di Guerra e Pace, questo capolavoro assoluto di Don DeLillo, lo stesso respiro, la stesa profondità dei personaggi, solo meno speranza, un fine che non è lieto, nonostante si concluda con la parola Pace, e una violenza tesa, costante, sfolgorante anche quando è sotterranea.
Da inserire nei cicli periodici di rilettura, per esplorarne tutti i meandri.
Da inserire nei cicli periodici di rilettura, per esplorarne tutti i meandri.
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I actually miss this monster of a book. I have a lot of complicated feelings about it that I may never work through completely.
DeLillo exemplifies the high-literary, late twentieth-century White American Male style to which I aspired, at the peak of my ambitions twenty years ago, but I find that I can barely stand it today. Most prominently, the pretentious, faux-everyman dialogue that was uniformly spouted by the characters irrespective of the decade in which they were supposed to be speaking left me in a permanent state of eye-roll. I was only able to get all the way through the book by keeping a running tally of the ratio of "instances of clueless bigotry" to "moments of transcendent writing." Unfortunately, the final score was 66-32. I had resolved that a losing score of this sort would mean a one-star rating, but at least I can say that some of the characters grew on me over the course of these very long 827 pages, enough to bump it up to two stars.
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Eh. 2.5, I think. The writing is fine, but the story is wandering and just not that interesting.
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes