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elijah1370 's review for:
Underworld
by Don DeLillo
I rated this book five stars because I genuinely think it deserves it. It is one of the best examples of postmodern American literature ever written.
That being said, Underworld does suffer from being very long. Having researched the book and learned about Don DeLillo, I don't think the book's length is because of portentousness. I really just think DeLillo felt like this was the length of the story he was telling. However, the book is a heavy task for the reader. It has the same pace at page 200 as 700.
Reading Underworld felt highly reminiscent of James Joyce and the longer works of Faulkner, like Absalom! Absalom!. In fact, reading Underworld felt a lot like reading Dubliners: a decentralized collection of interconnected stories that help paint a unified picture. In Dubliners it was, of course, Dublin. In Underworld, the portrait is of Cold War America, ranging from the 1950s to the 1990s. I do not think any other book has captured this subject matter better than Underworld. Approaching this book as a collection of stories instead of a single narrative will help make the story easier to digest. Like Joyce, DeLillo also changes writing style depending on the chapter, usually reflecting the era or context he's writing about. The scenes of Arizona and California in the 80's and 90's feel like the surrealism of Thomas Pynchon, the 70's scenes of New York feel a bit like Tom Wolfe's energized prose, and the scenes of 50's the Bronx have an earthy, grounded, nostalgic feel.
Even though the reader will probably be exhausted at the end, I also felt like the ending was brilliant and that DeLillo absolutely nailed it. Reading this book in 2023, his observations about the internet felt absolutely prescient.
In the wake of Infinite Jest, I'm glad that writing books this long and convoluted has become unfashionable. That being said, I really enjoyed this book and think it marks the end of an era, both literally and in a literary sense. DeLillo handles it extremely well, and his reflective and emotionally deep retrospective make the book a rewarding read.
That being said, Underworld does suffer from being very long. Having researched the book and learned about Don DeLillo, I don't think the book's length is because of portentousness. I really just think DeLillo felt like this was the length of the story he was telling. However, the book is a heavy task for the reader. It has the same pace at page 200 as 700.
Reading Underworld felt highly reminiscent of James Joyce and the longer works of Faulkner, like Absalom! Absalom!. In fact, reading Underworld felt a lot like reading Dubliners: a decentralized collection of interconnected stories that help paint a unified picture. In Dubliners it was, of course, Dublin. In Underworld, the portrait is of Cold War America, ranging from the 1950s to the 1990s. I do not think any other book has captured this subject matter better than Underworld. Approaching this book as a collection of stories instead of a single narrative will help make the story easier to digest. Like Joyce, DeLillo also changes writing style depending on the chapter, usually reflecting the era or context he's writing about. The scenes of Arizona and California in the 80's and 90's feel like the surrealism of Thomas Pynchon, the 70's scenes of New York feel a bit like Tom Wolfe's energized prose, and the scenes of 50's the Bronx have an earthy, grounded, nostalgic feel.
Even though the reader will probably be exhausted at the end, I also felt like the ending was brilliant and that DeLillo absolutely nailed it. Reading this book in 2023, his observations about the internet felt absolutely prescient.
In the wake of Infinite Jest, I'm glad that writing books this long and convoluted has become unfashionable. That being said, I really enjoyed this book and think it marks the end of an era, both literally and in a literary sense. DeLillo handles it extremely well, and his reflective and emotionally deep retrospective make the book a rewarding read.