I don't want to talk about it. I just want to boast that I finished it. 830 pages. The longest book wot I ever read. It's actually incredibly good. It has no plot, as such, so there's never a sense of the plot sagging. It's just 800 pages of the most beautifully observed scenes, covering every angle (ish) of 20th century America. The dialogue is the best thing. I am going to steal so many DeLillan dialogue tricks. All the dialogue basically plays out as a poem - rhythm and repitition being the most important features.
Anyway. Anyone read it? Started it? Stared at it? Used it as a doorstop?
Joe
Brooklands | November 17, 2006 - 12:38
I meant 21st Century America. I've always found that confusing...
josiedog | November 17, 2006 - 14:19
Did start it, got waylaid and never got back to it. It's still sitting there waiting.
However, I do remember the baseball scene at the beginning as wonderfully written.
You've given me the push to return to it soon, i think.
ggggareth | November 17, 2006 - 17:23
I find it helps me reach the other far more interesting books on the upper shelves. His "White Noise" was an absolute classic, and a much more civilised length.
Sniper | November 19, 2006 - 12:01
Loved it - especially the long opening section at the ball game and the Bronx scenes. Christopher Bigsby carries an interview with him in 'Writers in Conversation - Volume 1' (recommended read, people), in which DeLillo says: "When I started work, I had no idea I was writing a novel. I didn't know WHAT I was writing - a short story (!), a long story or a short novel, and when I began to draw near the end it occurred to me, finally, that perhaps this piece of writing, which was bringing me quite enormous pleasure, wanted to extend itself into a much longer narrative. I then followed it where it took me.... It emerged slowly, gradually, and what may seem obvious to the reader often struck me with the force of enormous revelation. When I started writing Part One of the book, the part that immediately follows the prologue, I started it on the day after the ball game ends. The prologue is an extended description of the ball game itself, so I was still in 1951 when I started work on Part One, on the novel proper, and I realised, after three to four weeks, that while I was not exactly making a drastic mistake I WAS following convention. It then struck me that perhaps I needed to do something radical and what I did was to allow the narrative to leap forty years into the future, into the early 1990s, and this, in turn, led me to work backwards. In other words, I was writing a novel, creating a structure, a piece of architecture, in which the narrative would move from the 1990s back to the very beginning of the book, which is 1951."
The whole interview is a fascinating insight into method - and into the initial inspiration for the novel: two juxtaposed newspaper headlines.
BTW, Spack - you did mean 20th century America. The novel was first published in 1997. Carries many resonances into this century, though.
How about 'A Suitable Boy' now? Or 'Clarissa'?
ggggareth | November 19, 2006 - 20:42
Now "A Suitable Boy" was FANTASTIC! I read that when I was a newbie graduate in a temporary job. They spent all day ignoring me, so I decided to repay the compliment. I was about 20 pages from the end when they finally noticed I hadn't done any work for a month. I finished the book on the bus after they sacked me.
Brooklands | November 22, 2006 - 00:08
4G - have you read the book?
ggggareth | November 22, 2006 - 00:33
YES!!!! I loved it. It was a soap opera in a novel - I just wanted to know what happened next all the time!
Brooklands | November 23, 2006 - 15:37
What?
Are we talking about Underworld?
It was a "soap opera of a book"?!
ggggareth | November 27, 2006 - 14:35
Sorry Spack - got tempted to talk about A Suitable Boy instead.
I started Underworld and got very bored very quickly. Even the famous baseball beginning I found dull. I had a lot more time on my hands then than I do now, so I don't think there's any chance of me ever reading it.
I can see that he was trying to do, but I just don't think I want to spend that much time on a novel.