Books that would be better if they weren't so long

[Anonymous No.14537188]

Just finished pic related, wish I spent the time reading something shorter by him

[Anonymous No.14537197]

>>14537188
all books would be better if they weren't so long

[Anonymous No.14537200]

One of those writers who is very good and very bad at the same time.

[Anonymous No.14537212]

>>14537200
What do you mean by this?

[Anonymous No.14537233]

>>14537200
Yea, I like him, and read cosmopolis and the body artist. I saw underworld was supposed to be his masterwork and disagree!

I'll still prob give white noise a shot down he road

[Anonymous No.14537260]

>>14537212
He can write very good prose, but it is often obscured by his tendency toward pretentiousness. A good review of a different book which explains this:

https://newrepublic.com/article/62353/black-noise

>what, except a kind of pomposity, is gained by the quasi-profound diction, with its bogus air of massive anthropological expertise?

The review nicely points out his strengths and weaknesses.

[Anonymous No.14537697]

What’s his best novel?

[Anonymous No.14537709]

There is literally no work of fiction longer than 50 pages worth reading. Not even meming.

[Anonymous No.14537718]

>>14537709
Plato's Republic is longer than 50 pages

[Anonymous No.14537723]

>>14537718
It's also not fiction, dumbfuck.

[Anonymous No.14537729]

>>14537697
Probably White Noise or The Names. Both are quite different though. A shorter intro book would be End Zone.

[Anonymous No.14537732]

Start with the Greeks

[Anonymous No.14537790]

Yes, Underworld was a huge disappointment. It felt so hollow and shallow and boring. Did DeLillo have any idea of what to write about? I feel like he just spat whatever thought cross his head into the page and then tried to impose a non existent narrative on it all. Reading this book is like walking in circles

[Anonymous No.14537882]

>>14537260
yeah maybe it points out some of his broader strengths and weaknesses, but only by using one of his worse books.
>>14537790
I think he had a clearer idea of what he was writing about than most recent novelists. The narrative was postwar America, not a non-existent thing at all.

[Anonymous No.14537947]

>>14537188
Great instance. Lolita's an example; the second part is especially too long. A book isn't too long if one's sorry when it ends- for me War and Peace and even ISOLT were not too long.

[Anonymous No.14538004]

>>14537882
>post-war America
So? That's a setting. What's the narrative there? What does DeLillo mean? That every American was rendered incapable of holding an actual conversation with another American after the Cold War?
There's no story. There are ideas thrown here and there that might have evolved into interesting plots had DeLillo chosen to pursue them. But no, everytime something was getting remotely interesting he had to go back to the verbal bukakefest and add another 100 pages of pretentious crap. There's no narrative whatsoever. It felt a waste of time to me.

[Anonymous No.14538093]

>>14538004
It's a setting and a topic. History books are written about 60s America (for example) all the time. He's creating a certain sort of vision of that reality: a collection of numerous fragments of American life. I've never really liked reading literature for meaning but there's a pretty obvious option for Underworld, one that Delillo I think has affirmed: it's about how the history of a culture and society is reflected and moved forward in the teeming millions of people who constitute that society. like he writes near the end, after Nick *accidentally* shoots George, "a number of young men stood near the car, some he knew well and some in passing, and they watched him closely and gravely, thinking this was a kind of history taking place, here in their own remote and common streets."

[Anonymous No.14538189]

>>14537188
I thought Underworld was fantastic, granted, the first half was a lot better, though some bits of part 5 and 6 were a little tiresome but it had some of the best prose I've ever read bar none and I think the scope of it is really something to grapple with, something that's too big to really consider as one whole without getting overwhelmed. In any case, I'd like to read it again one day and I don't feel that way about very many books.

[Anonymous No.14538218]

>>14537697

Libra

[Anonymous No.14538735]

>start reading this book
>immediately about baseball
He's lucky white noise was fantastic otherwise id burn this shit here and now

[Anonymous No.14539372]

>>14537188
Though I liked Dead Souls it's being unfinished is a positive.

[Anonymous No.14539406]

Journey to the End of the Night and Death on Credit great as they are could use a bit of trimming. I remember being a bit bored in the middle of the first and feeling that the second got a bit repetitive at places

[Anonymous No.14539948]

Dhalgren would’ve been way better if trimmed down a bit.