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/lit/ - Literature

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18302255 No.18302255 [Reply] [Original]

What did you think of this /lit/?

>> No.18302267

>>18302255
My favorite book by my favorite novelist.

>> No.18302454

Good but I prefer IJ

>> No.18302535

where to start with DeLillo?

>> No.18302566

>>18302267
Can you rank all his books from favorite to least favorite?

>> No.18302607

>>18302255
It's really good, but probably 200 pages too long. Delillo is a top 5 writer for me, but Underworld isn't one of my favorite books of his.

>> No.18302609

>>18302607
what are your favs?

>> No.18302611

Part 2 of Whote Noise is the worst thing I have ever read

>> No.18302641

I'm not really a fan of Delillo at all so I didn't really like it too much.

>> No.18302676

>>18302609
The Names and Ratner's Star are his best novels by far imo. End Zone, Great Jones Street, Libra, and Players are also top-tier.

>> No.18302682

>>18302641
You don't have to be a fanatic to like a book.

>> No.18303155

>>18302255
Loved it. Couldn't put it down and finished it in less than 2 weeks.

>> No.18303469

it's a bloated and disorienting masterpiece with some impeccable prose weaved with unpredictable language (balanced between colloquial and obscure, sometimes both)
there's a great breadth of atmosphere, from arcane to destitute to traumatic
highly recommend, especially if you like delillo's wordplay

>> No.18303711

>>18302255
Without spoiling, can you share what is this about please?

>> No.18303801

>>18303469
I can tell you have been practicing writing, I really like this review. Keep it up fren.

>> No.18303827
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18303827

>>18303469
Like a breath of fresh air after a long winter. Beautiful and cruel, and brutal, too. I don't want to spoil it, so suffice it to say this is the real deal: dense with characters, stories, visions, and settings, with overtones of the supernatural. And yet it's also a brilliant historical novel.

>> No.18305545

>>18303801

It's about a lot of things. Waste, geography, family, art, baseball, race, nuclear weapons.

Sort of like Infinite Jest in so far it's long, criss crossed with the narratives of different characters. Probably earthier, less pretentious, more pessmistic than IJ.

>> No.18305566

This Delillo fellow, what's his "thing"?

>> No.18305586

>>18305566
Post-war America

>> No.18305606

I thought it was okay. The prologue was the high point, so everything felt downhill after that. I remember liking the serial killer subplot as well. There isn’t too many things I remember about it actually. I thought Libra and Mao II were much better. I’ve always felt that Dellilo was a huge influence on DFW. Their writing style is similar

>> No.18305807

>>18302535
white noise

>> No.18306013

Opening is kino, don't bother with the rest

>> No.18306057

>>18302255
i don't read

>> No.18306059

>>18302255
Amazing introduction, drops off pretty hard and then picks back up.

>> No.18306065

>>18302255

In the early 1990s, the British rock band Underworld started experimenting with electronic music. Following a brief experiment known as the "Screen Gemz", the band's key members reorganized as an electronic music group, keeping the name Underworld. One of the band's first songs was "Mmm Skyscraper, I Love You". Some of the art which was released by "Tomato", the group's associated art collective, shows that they had the Twin Towers of the old World Trade Center in mind when recording the track.

Later, circa early 2000s (after the towers fell, I believe), the action film "Underworld" was produced in association with a company known as "Screen Gems". I don't know the exact date that the Delillo book was published (and I'm not going to look it up before posting), but my first memory of seeing it in a bookstore was also in the early 2000s. Of course, the book cover has a picture of the twin towers.

Coincidence? I say no!

>> No.18306100

I saw this book at an op shop but thought it wasn't meant to be good so didn't buy.
Saw people online saying it was actually good so I went to an op shop again and by some miracle they had a copy of underworld for $1.
Still haven't read it after 6 years though.

>> No.18306309

>>18302255
Liked it. A bit shaggier than White Noise, but nothing wrong with the extra girth.

>> No.18306329

>>18305566
Consumerism and detritus.

https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1998/2/23/baseball-and-bombs

>> No.18306792

>>18306100
nuclear grade heathen shit here

>> No.18306916

>>18302682
That's true. I think you deliberately misinterpreted the meaning though since that is a common expression.

>> No.18308168

>>18305566
glows

>> No.18308279
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18308279

Posted this in another thread but hopefully can get a better response here:
>Delillo
Just read "The Body Artist" yesterday (rec from a /fit/izen of all things) and was wholly unimpressed. Did I just pick a bad place to start with Delillo? I've heard people saying it was his worst work and honestly after the first 2 chapters it seemed like 100 pages (thankfully with large type face) of nothing much. The piece about the exhibition at the end was interesting I guess. Also a lot of shitting going on for some reason?

>> No.18308285

>>18308279
I never read it, it seems like a minor Delillo. Should have started with Mao II or Libra. I don't even think White Noise is a good place to start with him.

>> No.18308478

>>18308285
I'll look into those, thanks

>> No.18309322

>>18302535
Panasonic

>> No.18309812

>>18305807
I liked White Noise the best

>> No.18309866
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18309866

could have used more editing i hear

>> No.18309911

>>18302566
gladly. I think his later work is underrated, and his early work is consistently okay but not great.

Underworld
Libra
Mao II
White Noise
Point Omega
The Angel Esmeralda
The Names
Zero K
End Zone
The Silence
Cosmopolis
Running Dog
Great Jones Street
The Body Artist
Ratner's Star
Americana
Players
Falling Man

I haven't read his plays.

>> No.18310642

>>18302676

Ratners Star is based, aboriginal wizards spinning themselves out of existence

>> No.18311755

>>18310642
Sounds amazing

>> No.18311905

Libra is great.

>> No.18312006

I've had "sand-grain manyness of things" knocking around in my head for a decade now. I remember thinking about it once with this girl I used to know. We were in the city in spring and just the rush of life and being there with her. It's just a very quiet memory. She's gone now, and I've been writing posts like this on and off for all those 10 years.

>> No.18312934

>>18302255
Nothing too stellar.

>> No.18314395

>>18302255
Pretty meh.

>> No.18315798

>>18302535
Either White Noise or Underworld. Personally, I prefer the latter but both are pretty kino desu

>> No.18317192

I like garbage

>> No.18317284
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18317284

>>18306013
This, the prologue was great. And then there's the rest of the book. It's the apex of midwit """literature."""

>> No.18317333

Underworld is excellent and every HBO series rips it off in some way. Fuck the haters. The prologue isn't the best part of the book at all.

>> No.18317393

>>18317333
>dude... advertising... bad(?)
>also I really like baseball :)

Wow so deep Mr. Delillo thanks for sharing

>> No.18317411

>>18305566
crowds

>> No.18317418

>>18317393
we all know the glows HATE delillo

>> No.18317420

That cover is from 1997. Really ominous in retrospect.

>> No.18317423

>>18302255
pretty good, different that white noise but not in a bad way, like an 8/10

>> No.18317427

>>18302255
I have a strong distrust for him following his Trump comments.

>> No.18317429

>>18317420
DeLillo's fifth novel, Players (1977), features a woman who works in a grief management firm high up in the newly finished World Trade Center: "the towers didn't seem permanent", she thinks, but then, "Where else would you stack all that grief?" The same novel also depicts a cabal of terrorists who want to blow up the Stock Exchange.

>> No.18317475

Delillo is basically peak boomer lit. Boomers for some reason think it's peak intellectualism and devastatingly profound to point out that advertising is kind of shallow and manipulative and that people buy things they don't need sometimes.

Maybe for boomers it really was profound, but it comes off as kind of naive and quaint now. It just feels dated, whereas the works of his contemporaries that had a little more going on upstairs than just the "consumerism bad" meme all really stood the test of time.

I think it's time we just admit Delillo was basically riding a literary fad and never actually contributed abything of value to literature or culture.

>> No.18318105

>>18317429
there's also characters who see a plane flying near the WTC and think it's about to hit it

>> No.18318108

>>18317475
take your meds, maul