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3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
I'm not entirely sure about how I feel about this book. There was a lot to process and sometimes I felt lost when it jumped between characters. I guess I never really connected with this book. None of the main characters grabbed me and the characters I did like best never got much more than a role in the scenery. It was well-written and impressive, but just didn't really do it for me.
Way better than many "postmodern" novels. Yes, the plot is meandering, but the characters are finely drawn and the language is poetic.
baseball. divorce, new york. whatever. just read it.
Underworld, an already evocative title for a novel, is made more so when coupled with its cover's depiction of the covered-with-clouds Twin Towers approached by a bird in flight angled in an eerily airplane-looking way (this book came out in 1997). Not to mention several passages regarding the Twin Towers which read with new resonance after 9/11. But that isn't really what the novel is about; it's an opportune accidental feeling carried throughout the book. I digress.
DeLillo begins Underworld with pages describing Bobby Thomson's walk-off home run (afterward called The Shot Heard 'Round the World). DeLillo places the reader at this game in the crowd at the legendary Polo Grounds in New York; you needn't enjoy baseball to be subsumed by DeLillo's brilliance at placing you in that setting. Thomson's home run, which clinched the 1951 National League pennant for the New York Giants, erupts an emotional fanbase into pandemonium. A young fan, Cotter Martin, who sneaked in to watch the game, eventually snags the incredibly historic home run away from another fan he'd just befriended. DeLillo (and history) describes this game as the same day the Russians tested a nuclear bomb. The Cold War has commenced, and the baseball takes the reader through time (the years between 1951 and 1997), as it passes through the hands of various owners. The narrative explains the American experience of Russia vs. America while mingling fictional characters with various heroes and villains of cultural history (Frank Sinatra, J. Edgar Hoover, Lenny Bruce among others). Underworld covers the conflict in close detail and from a street-level perspective. It's definitely a novel for anyone fascinated by global politics, media, and culture.
Klara and Nick, the main characters, meet up in an Arizona desert in the 1990s and meander back in time as the story jumps chronologically through them and others until the early 1950s. Big events play out on the national stage, and each character's motivations and circumstances are shown, hinting that each life story shares synchronicity; the snapshots of the characters slowly intertwine into each others' lives.
The baseball is viewed by many of the characters as an object with a history; by simply owning the ball they feel they'll also get the history that comes along with it. A preacher in the book discusses how history's found in the most common of places -- only that it's hidden where few think to look. By learning the history of objects the characters become more focused on themselves and society. Some characters deal in various types of waste: human waste, nuclear waste, garbage, etc. Every product, package, wrapper, or explosion has a consequence. This is the core of Underworld -- it is the waste that humankind feverishly tries to hide away like a secret. But it's always there, and eventually, we're forced to confront the waste we create and the fears that we hide behind, holding us back from true desires.
Sure, the chronology is a bit jumbled, but it all ties together in the end. The rewards of persevering through this dizzying novel are endless. The dialogue-driven narrative means that good listeners will enjoy this book. Reading DeLillo (any novel, especially White Noise) before Underworld will help an intimidated reader, but is not a necessity. In brevity, Underworld finds the roots of today in the small moments of the past.
Postscript: DeLillo has said that the inspiration for Underworld was the October 4, 1951 front page of The New York Times (look it up). Essential reading: the Lenny Bruce comedy routines about the Cuban Missile Crisis in the novel. If, AND ONLY IF you can't make it through the entire book, read the first section about the baseball game, and then the Lenny Bruce routines which are found on pages 504-9, 544-8, 580-6, 590-5, and 623-33. They are remarkable in context of the novel but are able to be read independently of the story with great results. Upon finishing the novel, these were the areas that I shuffled back to immediately.
DeLillo begins Underworld with pages describing Bobby Thomson's walk-off home run (afterward called The Shot Heard 'Round the World). DeLillo places the reader at this game in the crowd at the legendary Polo Grounds in New York; you needn't enjoy baseball to be subsumed by DeLillo's brilliance at placing you in that setting. Thomson's home run, which clinched the 1951 National League pennant for the New York Giants, erupts an emotional fanbase into pandemonium. A young fan, Cotter Martin, who sneaked in to watch the game, eventually snags the incredibly historic home run away from another fan he'd just befriended. DeLillo (and history) describes this game as the same day the Russians tested a nuclear bomb. The Cold War has commenced, and the baseball takes the reader through time (the years between 1951 and 1997), as it passes through the hands of various owners. The narrative explains the American experience of Russia vs. America while mingling fictional characters with various heroes and villains of cultural history (Frank Sinatra, J. Edgar Hoover, Lenny Bruce among others). Underworld covers the conflict in close detail and from a street-level perspective. It's definitely a novel for anyone fascinated by global politics, media, and culture.
Klara and Nick, the main characters, meet up in an Arizona desert in the 1990s and meander back in time as the story jumps chronologically through them and others until the early 1950s. Big events play out on the national stage, and each character's motivations and circumstances are shown, hinting that each life story shares synchronicity; the snapshots of the characters slowly intertwine into each others' lives.
The baseball is viewed by many of the characters as an object with a history; by simply owning the ball they feel they'll also get the history that comes along with it. A preacher in the book discusses how history's found in the most common of places -- only that it's hidden where few think to look. By learning the history of objects the characters become more focused on themselves and society. Some characters deal in various types of waste: human waste, nuclear waste, garbage, etc. Every product, package, wrapper, or explosion has a consequence. This is the core of Underworld -- it is the waste that humankind feverishly tries to hide away like a secret. But it's always there, and eventually, we're forced to confront the waste we create and the fears that we hide behind, holding us back from true desires.
Sure, the chronology is a bit jumbled, but it all ties together in the end. The rewards of persevering through this dizzying novel are endless. The dialogue-driven narrative means that good listeners will enjoy this book. Reading DeLillo (any novel, especially White Noise) before Underworld will help an intimidated reader, but is not a necessity. In brevity, Underworld finds the roots of today in the small moments of the past.
Postscript: DeLillo has said that the inspiration for Underworld was the October 4, 1951 front page of The New York Times (look it up). Essential reading: the Lenny Bruce comedy routines about the Cuban Missile Crisis in the novel. If, AND ONLY IF you can't make it through the entire book, read the first section about the baseball game, and then the Lenny Bruce routines which are found on pages 504-9, 544-8, 580-6, 590-5, and 623-33. They are remarkable in context of the novel but are able to be read independently of the story with great results. Upon finishing the novel, these were the areas that I shuffled back to immediately.
I'm a slow reader in general, and especially slow when I'm not enjoying a book. So, make it over 800 pages and it will take me a while to get through it. With multiple story lines (I'll be generous) and different time periods, this book takes some work to read. DeLillo's writing always impresses me, but the overall structure of the novel just didn't work for me.
Picked up a used hard cover copy of this and it was beautifully set in the Electra typeface. It was the first used hardcover I’ve bought that was worn. Internally in portions you could see the pages come apart, probably from someone setting the book upside down for long periods of time. I envisioned a previous reader setting the book aside for weeks at a time due to life getting in the way of their reading adventure.
The book is simply amazing and the most coherent post-modern novel I’ve ever read, though the author apparently refers to this work as a response to post modernism. I would recommend it as the post-modern book to read if you’re going to read only one. It has the narrative structure of a post-modern novel without frivolously difficult vocabulary. This makes it a very accessible novel to read.
The book is not too long. It’s just right.
The book is simply amazing and the most coherent post-modern novel I’ve ever read, though the author apparently refers to this work as a response to post modernism. I would recommend it as the post-modern book to read if you’re going to read only one. It has the narrative structure of a post-modern novel without frivolously difficult vocabulary. This makes it a very accessible novel to read.
The book is not too long. It’s just right.
The only reason I read this -- make that attempted to read this (gave up at about the half-way point) -- is because a couple of the blurbs on David Mitchell's Number9 Dream compare him to Don DeLillo.
That comparison is fair insofar as inventive use of language, but that's about it.
Perhaps I should have known better when I read the 60 page prologue that seemed to function more as a set piece than as integral to the story's set up. This is a novel absolutely swimming in back story featuring characters I could care less about. At the 450 page mark I would have thought I'd be invested in at least one of the cast of multitudes, or curious to see whether the seemingly disparate strands of the story come together, but instead it was oh, so easy to kick this (heavy) sucker to the curb. Sad thing is, I like meaty novels and really, really wanted to like this one.
I would add that if you're the kind of reader for whom telling little observations and clever writing are more important than plot and characterization, you might really enjoy Underworld.
That comparison is fair insofar as inventive use of language, but that's about it.
Perhaps I should have known better when I read the 60 page prologue that seemed to function more as a set piece than as integral to the story's set up. This is a novel absolutely swimming in back story featuring characters I could care less about. At the 450 page mark I would have thought I'd be invested in at least one of the cast of multitudes, or curious to see whether the seemingly disparate strands of the story come together, but instead it was oh, so easy to kick this (heavy) sucker to the curb. Sad thing is, I like meaty novels and really, really wanted to like this one.
I would add that if you're the kind of reader for whom telling little observations and clever writing are more important than plot and characterization, you might really enjoy Underworld.
Don DeLillo's "Underworld" is a very modern novel. The thing is, I despise modern novels. I have no interest in baseball. I couldn't even remember the character's names partway through this.... I just found it so very dull. I didn't care what happened to the baseball, who got killed and why or about Marian and her husband's martial troubles.
I know this novel has received heaps of acclaim and praise... so I'm sure it's wonderful if you're into these types of books, but this one definitely wasn't for me.
I know this novel has received heaps of acclaim and praise... so I'm sure it's wonderful if you're into these types of books, but this one definitely wasn't for me.