DeLillo article & Pynchon mention

[Doug Millison]

http://www.salon.com/people/bc/2001/10/23/delillo/index.html

"[...] His literary peer Thomas Pynchon has applauded DeLillo for "a voice
as eloquent and morally focused as any in American writing." In light of
the events of Sept. 11, Don DeLillo's America may assist many readers in
making sense of a newly uncertain world. [...]  In interview he expresses
little concern for his posterity, and he zealously fights his cult fame:
public appearances are kept to a bare minimum, he will likely never appear
on TV or film and he speaks admiringly of the example set by his enigmatic
forbear, Thomas Pynchon. Nonetheless, he remains active today, having
released on the heels of 1997's "Underworld" both the play "Valparaiso" and
a slim novel, "The Body Artist."  DeLillo is ultimately exceptional for his
strident convictions, his unflagging defense of the promise of art in times
of conflict or malaise. In the face of all that cheapens human experience,
or renders it disempowering, there are availing things that still matter.
As a character in "Underworld" ponders, "What's the point of waking up in
the morning if you don't try to match the enormousness of the known forces
in the world with something powerful in your own life?" Over time his
fiction has imbued Pynchon's distraught and fearful proclamation in
"Gravity's Rainbow," that "everything is connected" with an unforeseen
hopefulness in the connections of language itself.