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3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
"You have a history," she said, "that you are responsible to."
"What do you mean by responsible to?"
"You're responsible to it. You're answerable. You're required to try to make sense of it. You owe it your complete attention." (512)
A remarkable novel and a breathtaking experience. DeLillo is a master wordsmith who always seems to have exactly the right word, the right phrasing, the right...je ne sais quois, but the way he captures the granular density of everyday experience, his thoughtful reflection that calls to attention the real but hard to pin down thoughts and feelings which surround us daily... It's uncanny. DeLillo shifts fluidly between scenes, and like oil and water things briefly intermingle before separating into distinct, unmixed wholes. Lingering on the small scraps of everyday experience, DeLillo exhorts us see them for more than what they are. To breathe purpose into them, to fan an ember of life here and there, to build a stronger flame with limited fuel.
"We took junk and saved it for art. Which sounds nobler than it was. It was just a way of looking at something more carefully. And I'm still doing it, only deeper maybe." (393)
The thing that strains credibility is that everyone is extremely clever, or wise, or profound. The book exalts common things by making them anew, reimagined, exaggerated in gracious caricaciture, stylized. It gives things meaning, and DeLillo is so sure and so sage-seeming that I want to believe him. Imagine walking around just knowing, knowing in your very soul, that things have meaning. That things have significance, importance, and purpose. DeLillo seems confident, but I've got my doubts.
"Reality doesn't happen until you analyze the dots." (182)
This is the story of America, the story of hidden histories, the story of the lives we lead and the parallels we don't, the story of the stories we tell ourselves. It's about growing up, growing old, looking back, wondering what it's all been about in the end.
"You feel sorry for yourself. You think you're missing something and you don't know what it is. You're lonely inside your life." (170)
This is the story of a nation in sudden shocking freefall, a land of myths now turning historyless, where every tale we tell crackles with new significance because it is we who tell it.
"That particular life. Under the surface of ordinary things. And organized so that it makes more sense in a way, if you understand what I mean. It makes more sense than the horseshit life the rest of us live." (761)
This is the story of absent fathers, the greedy and selfish who set wheels in motion then depart, and the story of those left behind and the ways they try to make some meaning of it all.
This goddamn country has garbage you can eat, garbage that's better to eat than the food on the table in other countries. (767)
This is the story of things we do, and the trash we leave behind.
A strew of lost and found and miscellaneous things that were stored here not for future use but because they had to go somewhere. (769)
5 stars. A book of haunting melancholy, pregnant with meaning and full of emotion.
I can definitely appreciate the effort and complexity of this book. It manages to be admirable, but also seems self-indulgent.
The experience of the book is one of being suffocated by the author's direct perceptions, while not telling a strong enough story to really show you how he might have come to these perceptions. And this was interesting to me, because I usually greatly enjoy these perceptive observations in books, especially when they carry the kind of interesting prose that DeLillo's do. But, it was too much. It was like having an overbearing mother-figure insist that you will experience society, your country, your life this way. His use of words, which is unique, becomes disappointingly commonplace as the book goes on, which feels like the reader is being robbed of the freshness of the experience.
His characters were lacking a dimension, as well. So, though the book is touted as balancing the intimate with the panoramic I don't think he pulls off the intimate as well. I would have liked it if he had selected a few less story lines to weave and gone deeper.
Even more interesting was that there seemed to be a clear "message" or intent of the book-which he pulls together in a speech about waste and nuclear energy/threat, but it really generated a sense of apathy in me, despite the manic energy of the text.
I didn't mind that there weren't really any surprises, but at least some sense that these people were impacted would help. Finally, despite its great length, the last 10-15% seemed rushed. I thought, "Okay, here comes some resolution, or even (and I usually like this better) some profound lack of resolution, and there was neither.
On the positive side, I enjoyed many of the historical/cultural references and appreciate the research that must have gone into this. J Edgar Hoover having a masque made for himself to wear to a party . . . the shot heard around the world . . . Lenny Bruce . . . etc.
And, hey, this book inspired me to write the longest review that I've ever written. Perhaps the hidden genius will continue to reveal itself to me.
The experience of the book is one of being suffocated by the author's direct perceptions, while not telling a strong enough story to really show you how he might have come to these perceptions. And this was interesting to me, because I usually greatly enjoy these perceptive observations in books, especially when they carry the kind of interesting prose that DeLillo's do. But, it was too much. It was like having an overbearing mother-figure insist that you will experience society, your country, your life this way. His use of words, which is unique, becomes disappointingly commonplace as the book goes on, which feels like the reader is being robbed of the freshness of the experience.
His characters were lacking a dimension, as well. So, though the book is touted as balancing the intimate with the panoramic I don't think he pulls off the intimate as well. I would have liked it if he had selected a few less story lines to weave and gone deeper.
Even more interesting was that there seemed to be a clear "message" or intent of the book-which he pulls together in a speech about waste and nuclear energy/threat, but it really generated a sense of apathy in me, despite the manic energy of the text.
I didn't mind that there weren't really any surprises, but at least some sense that these people were impacted would help. Finally, despite its great length, the last 10-15% seemed rushed. I thought, "Okay, here comes some resolution, or even (and I usually like this better) some profound lack of resolution, and there was neither.
On the positive side, I enjoyed many of the historical/cultural references and appreciate the research that must have gone into this. J Edgar Hoover having a masque made for himself to wear to a party . . . the shot heard around the world . . . Lenny Bruce . . . etc.
And, hey, this book inspired me to write the longest review that I've ever written. Perhaps the hidden genius will continue to reveal itself to me.
A professor told me this book would be a bear to read, and it was. It took me almost 2 months...but it was worth it. A masterpiece of post-modernism.
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Nuclear war + baseball + waste management + art + "we're all gonna die" = an incredibly rewarding, if sometimes difficult, reading experience. DeLillo is the master at connecting themes and stories and people over years and ideas and even inanimate objects (like a baseball). You won't remember everything when you're finished - but DeLillo's prose is often gorgeous, and it's enough to remember how fondly you enjoyed it while you were reading it.
Also, everyone is right: The prologue - about the Giants vs. Dodgers game in 1951, in which Bobby Thompson hits the "shot heard 'round the world" and "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" is some of the most lucid, vivid writing you'll ever read - not just about baseball, but period.
Also, everyone is right: The prologue - about the Giants vs. Dodgers game in 1951, in which Bobby Thompson hits the "shot heard 'round the world" and "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" is some of the most lucid, vivid writing you'll ever read - not just about baseball, but period.
Good stuff. Unfortunately, I found the middle sections of this to be somewhat of a slog, and my dwindling interest was perhaps exacerbated by the proximity to the pure literary mastery DeLilo exercises in the novel's prologue. The rest of the novel is quite good, sure, but it never quite retains the charm and cohesion of its initial section - there are dozens of incredible moments, and far more sections of brilliant prose or wordplay, but they are disseminated among content I found somewhat uninteresting. Then again, perhaps I would have found the length justified if I cared for the main cast of characters in the same way that I adored the protagonist of the first section. Quite the worthwhile read, yet one that reaches its peak far too early for my liking.