The Jewel of P-listers' library/DeLillo

Tore Rye Andersen torerye at hotmail.com
Thu Sep 21 00:35:18 CDT 2006


>Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:28:52 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Chris Broderick <elsuperfantastico at yahoo.com>
>Subject: RE: The Jewel of P-listers' library/DeLillo
>
>The operative words here being "adopt a tone".  One
>never gets the sense with DeLillo that his characters
>are independent from the narrator.  He's a very witty
>and often pretty (in an austere way) writer, but I
>often think of him as being like Otto in the
>Recognitions, at cocktail parties thinking up bon mots
>after the fact that he'll end up shoehorning into his
>narrative.  The best drawn characters in all of
>DeLillo's works are famous people like Jedgar &
>Oswald.
>
>It seems self-evident that he came from a background
>in advertising copywriting, where one is specifically
>concerned with having your words make a tangible
>effect on the reader, with branding.  DeLillo's a lot
>more concerned with elegant sentences than he is with
>inhabiting characters or telling stories.
>
>For the record, this criticism comes from someone
>who's read & enjoyed a lot of DeLillo.  White Noise &
>Libra and pieces of Underworld were quite good.  But I
>certainly understand why some would find his stuff too
>clever by half.
>
>- -Chris

Well put! I think it was Zadie Smith who at one point said that all the 
characters in a Don DeLillo-novel sound just like Don DeLillo.
And your comparison with Otto from 'The Recognitions' is deadly accurate! 
Otto is one of the best characters in that novel, but you wouldn't want him 
lurking around at the edges of your parties, would you? Might DeLillo even 
be wearing a fake sling for his arm, do you think? That would certainly 
explain some of his cramped style.





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