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wolfdan9 's review for:
Cosmopolis
by Don DeLillo
“There are dead stars that still shine because their light is trapped in time. Where do I stand in this light, which does not strictly exist?”
Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo is a post-9/11 work of some DeLillo-esque absurdity, nestled within a seemingly harsh capitalist/“modern society” critique, nestled within a largely absurd framework. The story takes place in one April day, largely inside of a multi-billionaire’s limousine, as he goes on a petulant quest for a haircut across town.
It seems like a story like this would be largely dialogue-driven, but in fact, there are a number of meaningful events that occur. The problem with Cosmopolis is not that it lacks a story, but that its story and characters are so clearly vessels for DeLillo’s ideas, which are largely vague, anyway. So, I think that, for many, the story is a frustrating one.
But, immaculately, DeLillo writes sentences capable of observing things that all of us have observed, but have never put words to. This preternatural giftedness is so seamlessly ingrained within the text and, if anything, might be a drawback for DeLillo, because his brilliance can’t possibly be represented within so many different characters. And yet, somehow it is. DeLillo offsets this by creating an entirely absurd framework for these characters to exist within, so that questioning their hyper-intelligence as the reader seems unfairly critical of DeLillo’s intentions.
And most of what I’ve described just now applies pretty neatly to many of DeLillo’s stories. But Cosmopolis succeeded for me because it is a powerful distillation of not only DeLillo’s best qualities—which are his magical ear for dialogue, although he does tend to exaggerate how often people speak wittily—but he does certainly capture it in a realistic and meaningful way.
His sentence-level prose, which, despite there being maybe thirty or forty gorgeous sentences in the book—sentences that are not just aesthetically beautiful in their rhythm and tone and texture, but in their lucid meaning of the world around us and within us — catches us off guard with how neatly he incorporates them into the narrative.
So while DeLillo’s story beats merely represent the lily-pads he’s jumping from to express some vague, critical notions about futurism and capitalism, they succeed because they’re so well-written, they’re undefiably interesting, and they are truthfully quite thought-provoking.
DeLillo’s antihero Eric Packer is an ultimately evil, but self-aware and nonchalant sort of evil, billionaire who transforms from indirectly destroying society to directly killing someone within the narrative. But the casualness with which DeLillo discusses his flippancy, violent urges, and sexual obsessiveness seems to embody the worst qualities of capitalism itself. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the story is anti-capitalist as much as it is anti-individualist. Even that may be a stretch — it’s even quite easy to sympathize with Packer at certain points of the story, especially within the absurd world he occupies. But the underpinning implication that Packer and his ilk have engendered this absurd version of reality strips away and sympathy points. Yet there are no alternative solutions to capitalism and nothing constructive that can be pulled from the thematic framework. DeLillo crosses a nihilistic line that turns me off a bit.
Even the limousine which Packer is confined within for the majority of the narrative clearly represents his isolation from others. And yet, everyone outside of the limousine is portrayed as chaotic. Citizens and people are regularly paralyzed in traffic or otherwise being attacked, attacking, or running chaotically. The crowds in Cosmopolis are regular people but almost zombified in a sense. They run amok and seem to have lost consciousness. This is portrayed all throughout the novel, including in an interesting rave scene where one of Packer’s security guards abandons his job to join the crowd.
Even the limousine which Packer is confined within for the majority of the narrative clearly represents his isolation from others. And yet, everyone outside of the limousine is portrayed as chaotic. Citizens and people are regularly paralyzed in traffic or otherwise being attacked, attacking, or running chaotically. The crowds in Cosmopolis are regular people but almost zombified in a sense. They run amok and seem to have lost consciousness. This is portrayed all throughout the novel, including in an interesting rave scene where one of Packer’s security guards abandons his job to join the crowd.
Ultimately, Packer is an outsider, but the destruction that he embodies has long infected society’s people. Cosmopolis shows a world in collapse at every level—from Packer’s inner life to his outer life to the people directly related to him, and to all the people stuck in his “game.” As I said, DeLillo’s critiques are vague, but I believe Cosmopolis speaks to an inevitability of destruction that capitalism and actors like Packer catalyze. But the framework of capitalism and its principles are really not targets of DeLillo’s ire, as far as I can see, and we are left with a (perhaps purposeful?) sense of incompleteness.