NP DeLillo

[Gabriel Jones]

Ha - Ratner's Star remains my favorite of DeLillo's and is still one
of my favorite novels of the last 50 years.  So, tastes differ.  And I
can understand why some people might not like it, but to describe it
objectively as a 'stinker': well, golly, I'm told there are folks who
think Gravity's Rainbow is a failure too.

There is a consistent sense of claustrophobia to his work, yes, as a
way to search out how discourse shapes consciousness - what it makes
possible, what it limits, and the awareness of what's been left out by
our discourse systems that we can't quite comprehend.  Ratner's Star
is the most extreme form of this - it's a much richer novel than I can
do justice to in the 2 minutes I have here, but there's a lot going on
re: language and scientific knowledge & how they shape our perceptions
and relations.  This stands as an odd contrast to the detachment that
his style also reflects - that we are both part of and outside of
discourse.  There's a lot on language games, on phenomenology, on
consciousness.  I also think it's hysterically funny.

it reminds me a lot of Dr. Strangelove in both examination of systems
(of society, of consciousness, of technoscience) in all their
dysfunction and pathology as well its remarkable black sense of humor.

'Great Jones Street' I thought was quite good too.

'White Noise' strikes me as pop DeLillo - nifty, breezy, clever, radio-friendly.

The first section of 'Underworld' (published separately as 'Pafko
Against the Wall') I would put in any time capsule to say to future
civilizations say: look at what we were able to do.  The rest of the
novel, not so much.

His last two left me cold, especially 'Cosmopolis.'