A Flag for Sunrise

[Richard Romeo]

Not so much w/ Mr. D himself, I suppose, but seems like lots of young 
writers are either dropping his name as the current standard or in some 
cases, imitating him, the hipster dialogue, the cool detached automaton, 
hardly any plot to speak--aimless ramblings. the media has caught up with 
him, too.

go back and read some of delillo's works: it's all sort of obvious now what 
his insights are since much of it presaged events/ notions, what have you 
today.  I've gone back and read some of the works and the feeling I have is 
despite the great use of language, I feel I've sucked up everything from the 
books. I/m not faulting DeLillo here, it's just me, that once the insights 
sets in, what's left, if one cares naught for his characters--I liken it to 
all those old Sabbath albums I used to listen to, half out of my head.  
Approaching forty now, the more ubiquitous DeLillo is for me akin to really 
learning the words to all those Stones songs u couldn't make out. 
Something's missing and we change.
I feel like some sort of traitor, but I'm no longer an ascetic, either.

I'm finding more worth in WG Sebald's or John Banville's works at the 
moment.

I wonder if it's a not such a bad thing that Pynchon/Gaddis are not so loved 
as DeLillo

Rich


>From: MalignD at aol.com
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: A Flag for Sunrise
>Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 12:41:58 EDT
>
><< P.S.  Anyone else a little worried about DeLillo's increasing 
>popularity?
> >>
>
>Why worried?
>
>(And I might have added in the previous post that, despite unfavorable
>comparisons to Robert Stone, Denis Johnson does write awfully well, 
>sentence
>by sentence.)


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