Don DeLillo

Eric Packer, 28 year-old billionaire hedge fund manager, is about to have a really, really bad day. As he wakes up one spring morning in April 2000, the massive currency carry trade (i.e., short Japanese yen, long U.S. equities) on which he has staked his firm’s entire future is inexplicably going against him. Further, there have been several threats on his life from an unspecified source. Seemingly worst of all, his heiress wife of only a few weeks has so far refused to sleep with him.

So, show more what does Packer do? In his own version of Bloomsday (i.e., Leopold Bloom’s celebrated single-day wandering around Dublin in Ulysses), he decides he wants a haircut! Crossing mid-town Manhattan from the East River to the Hudson River in his customized limousine, he stretches that simple errand into a dizzying array of activities, including three meals with his wife, several casual sexual encounters, conducting his business affairs in a mobile office while getting a medical exam, getting caught in a protest demonstration, attending a funeral, becoming an extra in a movie production, and, yes, stopping in for a haircut. And none of that ends up being the most significant thing that happens to Packer that day.

This is the second time I have read Cosmopolis and I have to confess that I did not like it much when I encountered it upon its publication in 2003. Coming off a string of profoundly thought-provoking novels (e.g., White Noise, Libra, Underworld), I guess I expected nothing short of perfection from Don DeLillo. In fact, given that this was his first novel following the cathartic events of September 11, 2001, I suppose I thought Cosmopolis would be the author’s statement that helped put everything that had happened into perspective. Instead, what I found in the novel at that time was a tersely written, post-modern diatribe against global capitalism that featured one of the most unlikeable protagonists in recent memory. To make matters worse, the story was set a year-and-a-half before that terrible Tuesday and dealt with the threat of terrorism in an unsatisfyingly vague way.

What a difference a decade makes, however, at least to this reader. Given the global financial collapse in 2008—which can be viewed as terrorism of its own kind—as well as the resulting Occupy Wall Street protest movement, what once seemed like a missed opportunity on the part of the author now appears to be nothing short of a visionary statement. While it was not the book I wanted at the time—DeLillo got around to addressing the 9/11 tragedy a few years later in Falling Man--it was the story the author seems to have wanted and needed to tell. Time has shown that he made the right choice. If this was a novel you did not like (or even avoided) the first time, it might be worth a second look. show less

Each story in this collection justifies the purchase of the whole. Yes, they’re that good. Each is quintessentially DeLillo — his distracted, sometimes muffled, realism creating an almost deadpan delivery. Yet the range is astonishing. Perhaps not, given that these stories where originally published over the course of more than thirty years. But compare the Hemingwayesque style of an early work like “Creation” (1979) with the almost absurdist technique of “Hammer and Sickle” show more (2010). DeLillo never surrenders to his own competence. He always challenges himself.

It would not be playing favourites to find “The Angel Esmeralda” to be the best of the bunch. Presumably DeLillo thought so too, choosing it as the title for the collection. It presents a harsh cityscape in which the nuns, the elderly Sister Edgar and the younger Grace, perform their acts of charity. Sister Edgar is old school, grammatical in her adherence to the metaphysics of indulgence. Grace is more demanding that what she sees in front of her is real. The tension between them is visceral but it is Edgar who succumbs to the very possibility of angelic visitation, convinced that the image appearing sporadically on an advertisement hoarding is none other than the little girl, Esmeralda, so recently murdered in the Bird (a desolate no man’s land of building ruins and despoiled autos).

I also especially enjoyed “Midnight in Dostoevsky” in which two undergraduates at a liberal arts college embellish their drab days with a kind of competitive fictionalization. And the conflict, when it comes, turns inevitably on whether the world is all that is the case. Brilliant!

Highly recommended. show less

The Silence by Don DeLillo is a compact and sparse meditation on our digital connections, both to the world at large and our fellow human beings.

This is the type of book, really more of a novella than a novel, that will be hit or miss with most readers. It consists largely of monologues, delivered to others who may or may not be listening. That aspect alone will turn some readers off, there is nothing going on, well, except for the fact the world seems to have gone quiet, at least show more digitally.

Like many of DeLillo's books this one has as many ways into it as there are readers. Ignore those who like to make freshman type comments of "all of his books are the same book." It isn't that the statement is entirely wrong, it is that it means nothing. If one misses or chooses to ignore nuance, then yes, they are the same. But that is true of about 98% of fiction writers, so the point has zero actual meaning other than posturing. All you need to understand from that kind of comment, similar to the juvenile "bro-lit" comment, is that these readers didn't like the book. Those comments add nothing beyond that. Don't get me wrong, I think there are plenty of things that could turn a reader off of this book. Being supposedly the same book as all his others or the even more asinine bro-lit outlook aren't explanations, they mean little to nothing about this book, they speak far more about those readers and who they think they are or who they try to pass themselves off as being.

This is not my favorite of his books but it is definitely one of the more meaningful to life as it currently is. I actually bumped my rating up because over the couple days since I read it the first time, I kept thinking about the world within the work. And how I, or people I know, might act if we suddenly had no connection to the outside world with no explanation. Any book, fiction or nonfiction, long or short, that makes me ponder what is and what might be has succeeded on a level well beyond whether it is a "good" book. It is an impactful book, far more valuable in my world than simply a good book.

I do recommend this book to just about everyone. It is short, so even if it doesn't appeal to you it is only an hour or two of your time and it may still make you think even if you don't enjoy it. Among my friends, I will likely recommend to the vast majority, skipping those I know who would find it either boring or too full of talking that appears to go nowhere. For others, it will likely reward their two hour investment even if they might not really like it.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less

Stylistically, this deviates a bit from standard DeLillo fare. It exists out of place and out of time, creating a universality to the teenaged experience. It starts off describing a lovely scene, but the stark language sets you up for the bleak somewhat tone this takes on. There’s a beauty to DeLillo’s recollection with this story, he clearly holds a certain nostalgia for his youth, but he can acknowledge uniquely teenage problems. It ends on the line, “They see what their life show more together is going to be like,” which feels less like the bookend to a lovely romance, and more a specter of what adulthood has in store for them. If I know anything about DeLillo’s perspective on American existence, these kids are not going to have fun. show less