The Jewel of P-listers' library/DeLillo

[Ya Sam]

Thank you for the extended answer. From DeLillo I've read only 'White 
Noise', and I will definitely read the 'Undreworld' for I really liked the 
beginnig with the description of one of my favourite canvases 'The Triumph 
of Death'. I do hope it's not the only good place in the book. I do agree 
that DeLillo is not of the same calibre as Pynchon (who is?) As for his 
'shyness', well, that's very strange that he can still consider himself 
'shy' or persuading others of it, as, for example, there is an 
audio-interview wih him available on the bookworm (in two parts!)

http://www.kcrw.com/find/find_results.php3?words=DeLillo&exclude=%2Fpl%2F&restrict=&any_desc=DeLillo&search_keywords=DeLillo&AllOrAny=all&search_archives=on&show_code=bw&radiodate=button_fixed&past_shows=all&start_date=&end_date=&sort_order=AirDate&order_type=ReverseOrder&search_static=on&x=54&y=9

Also, what I have noticed from some reviewers, as Underworld and M&D 
appeared the same year, there is a tendency to pit them  against one 
another, sometimes to the detriment of the latter. For example in my 
Britannica's 'Year in Review' M&D is described as less successful than 
'Underworld' (initially).

"Mason & Dixon, Thomas Pynchon's long-awaited novel set in the pre-Civil War 
U.S., took centre stage for a time, though the massive 700-page volume, 
which included cameo appearances by Ben Franklin and George Washington and 
was peppered with Pynchon's signature wit and song lyrics, received a mixed 
response from critics. The initial reception of another huge novel, 
Underworld, Don DeLillo's 800-page-plus exploration of American life at the 
advent of the Atomic Age, was much more positive."


So I would say, yeah, there is a tendency to show that DeLillo and Pynchon 
are playing in the same ballpark...not that I agree with it, but I still 
have to read Underworld.


>From: "Tore Rye Andersen" <torerye at hotmail.com>
>To: takoitov at hotmail.com, pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: RE: The Jewel of P-listers' library/DeLillo
>Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 15:37:17 +0200
>
>
>
>
>>From: "Ya Sam" <takoitov at hotmail.com>
>>To: torerye at hotmail.com, pynchon-l at waste.org
>>Subject: RE: The Jewel of P-listers' library
>>Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 15:32:24 +0300
>>
>>
>>What hath DeLillo done to deserve thine ire?
>
>It's hard to put into words, even though I've tried to do so previously on 
>the P-list. This is what I replied to The Great Quail when he recently 
>criticized DeLillo (sorry to those of you who've read this previously):
>
>"Boy, is it great to hear someone finally speak out against 'the Great 
>DeLillo'. His novels just raise my hackles (with the possible exception of 
>Libra), or - alternately - leave me completely cold. I don't agree with 
>everything Leslie Fiedler says, but his take on DeLillo (from an interview 
>at Salon.com) is deadly accurate: "In some ways, he never seems committed 
>to me to what he is writing. Very nice surfaces, but he's got nothing 
>underneath." - There's just no passion at all in his writing. The single 
>most riveting sentence in Underworld is "Oatmeal bubbled on the stove" (p. 
>236). After that, it's all downhill. Furthermore, it's as if DeLillo always 
>wants to be one step ahead of his reader. He wants to show (a vice he 
>shares with Paul Auster) that he grasps every profound implication of what 
>he's writing, and doesn't really trust the reader to make his or her own 
>connections. Underworld takes the idea from Gravity's Rainbow that 
>"everything is connected", but where Pynchon us that everything is 
>connected, DeLillo just tells us - over and over again - that that is the 
>case. Pynchon's long novels are long because Pynchon has a lot he wants to 
>tell us. Underworld is long because DeLillo consciously set out to write a 
>masterpiece. I've tried to convince my friends that 'the Great DeLillo' is 
>in fact pretty minor, but he does seem to have his devout followers. 
>Sometimes, however, I wonder whether they really love great literature, or 
>whether they merely love the IDEA of great literature."
>
>....yeah, something of a rant, I know, but DeLillo kind of annoys me. With 
>Pynchon's novels, you sense a human being behind the brilliant verbal 
>surface - with DeLillo's novels you sense a machine programmed to write 
>nice sentences. In the end it's all deeply subjective, of course, and a 
>matter of taste, but Leslie Fiedler's comment about DeLillo's lack of 
>commitment sounds just about right to me. And I even think DeLillo feels 
>the same way, at least a little bit. There's some telling stuff in 
>'Underworld' about Nick's emotional distance from his surroundings:
>
>"I've always been a country of one. There's a certain distance in my 
>makeup, a measured separation [...] that I've worked at times to reduce, or 
>thought of working, or said the hell with it.
>    I like to tell my wife. I say to my wife. I tell her not to give up on 
>me. I tell her there's an Italian word, or a Latin word, that explains 
>everything. Then I tell her the word.
>[...] The word that explains nothing in this case is lontananza. Distance 
>or remoteness, sure. But as I use the word, as I interpret it, hard-edged 
>and fine-grained, it's the perfected distance of the gangster, the 
>syndicate mobster - the made man. Once you're a made man, you don't need 
>the constant living influence of sources outside yourself." (Underworld, p. 
>275)
>
>In light of his cold writing it's hard not to read this as a description of 
>DeLillo himself - as an oblique self-critique.
>One final thing I can't really stand about DeLillo is his attempt to 
>emulate Pynchon's exile from the public sphere. Was I the only one who 
>found it a little bit pathetic that DeLillo still handed out his 
>pre-printed "I don't want to talk about it"-cards at the National Book 
>Award ceremony in 1997? (He gave Tom LeClair a card just like it when 
>LeClair visited him in Greece in 1982, but LeClair of course got his 
>interview anyway). DeLillo constantly tries to pose as an outsider, as a 
>literary rebel, and the media are lapping it up: most of the many 
>interviews DeLillo give are still prefaced with the information that "the 
>shy DeLillo rarely gives interviews". It's hard not to be a bit sceptical 
>about this assertion when, for the umpteenth time, it is accompanied by a 
>large color photo of a smiling Don DeLillo, ne?
>Well - I hope this kind of answers your question.
>
>

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