First off, let me just say, I loved White Noise: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition). Wonderful book, and you certainly are a fine fine writer.
This is not in dispute.
I am now 3/4 of the way through Underworld: A Novel, and I have one message for you:
You need an editor. Or … you probably had an editor. Right? So then you need to LISTEN to your editor.
The opening of that book, the 1951 playoffs game, is one of the most stunning sequences of writing I have ever read. I could not believe my own eyes … I was EXCITED by it. I felt PUMPED.
6,000 pages later, I am exhausted.
Why am I supposed to care, again, about Bronzini, the chess teacher? He disappeared from the book for about 800 pages, and now he’s back … and I can’t even remember why he was important in the first place.
And what about all of those old planes out in the desert? Are you ever gonna write about THOSE again? Because that was pretty dern cool. But that was on page 70. It made me feel, then, like this book might be … oh … you know … important. And judging from all the press you have received, this book IS important.
But I’m telling you one thing:
The “Delete” key is your friend. Your editor is your friend.
Your. Book. Is. Too. Long.
And I have now put three stupid months of my life into this thing … and now I’m PISSED that the next chapter is one that stars Bronzini, the chess teacher, and I feel exhausted, and unwilling … but I have put so much damn TIME into this book … that now completing it feels like a duty and a chore.
I do not want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, my friend. You are a stunning writer. You know how to turn a phrase. There are startlingly beautiful passages. Sadly, the book is so long I can’t remember what they are right now, where they are located, and why I thought they were startlingly beautiful.
There is no main character. Okay. So that’s probably your point. Some random point about Americans during the Cold War … a generational thing, a look at our country at a certain time … a cross-section of people … yadda yadda.
And so, even though that opening, Mr. DeLillo … that OPENING … the OPENING of your book … is pretty much beyond compare …
the rest of the book just don’t hold up.
I am gonna finish the damn thing, because now I’m pissed. I can’t leave the last 200 pages unread, after the commitment I made to the rest of it …
but I just think you should know, Mr. DeLillo, that this one reader is annoyed and exhausted by your masterpiece.
I’m not a person who needs books to be short. I can read long books. Sure, man, no problem. But at this point? In your magnum opus? I look back longingly on the days of White Noise because THAT BOOK IS SHORT. BLESSEDLY SHORT.
Thanks for listening.
Best,
Red
Ha. I thought it was just me.
did you finish the book?
I feel compelled to finish it – just cause I’ve already spent so much time with it.
My copy of ‘Underworld’ has been taunting me for years now. I’ll get around to reading it – eventually.
Dan …
The opening is so brilliant that it will sweep you away. Especially as a baseball fan. You won’t believe it. He totally GETS what baseball means – to people who love it.
I’m in the midst of reading White Noise right now and I must say I’m enjoying it. I’m about a third of the way through.
My friend recommended it to me. He felt I needed to read some Don Delillo but I remember him mumbling something about Underworld being too much for me to start with and he suggested I get White Noise.
I think I may have some idea of what he was talking about now. I’ll probably pick it up one of these days, though, and tackle it.
wow, what a disappointment. after you shared the opening of the book with me at jfk while we waited to board the plane for our irish adventure, i was sure it was something i wanted to read. now, i have had three different people say the same thing…..that it goes on and on and doesn’t seem to have a direction or any kind of narrative structure. i mean, i’m as much a fan of novel writing styles as anyone, but there has to be some sort of underlying structure, right? anyway, it looks like i may be taking underworld off my “to read” list.
Allison – if you just read that prologue, the one I was so blown away by at JFK, you won’t be sorry – but you don’t have to slog through the rest of the book. The opening is as good a piece of writing as I have ever seen.
Disappointment, indeed.
The Body Artist is even shorter than White Noise. Just so you know. I gave up on Underworld about halfway through, and like Dan, I am taunted.
Sounds like I got the best of Underworld without getting stuck in the rest, though of course I will finish it some day.
I just read Cosmopolis, his newest, which is very short, intermittently brilliant, and so very strange that I’m not sure why any of it happened at all. Flimsy, inconclusive, and deeply twisted inside, and fascinating for all that. I wouldn’t recommend it per se, but I wouldn’t slag it either. If you’re likely to read it, you will.
My favorite of his is Mao II, which is short and extraordinary. It has all his twitches and largely evades the obsessions. In fact now I want to read it again, because the details have faded over the years. The opening is brilliant and is set in a stadium, which is what he likes.
The beginning had me hooked, too. And then I tried to keep going and just couldn’t. I still haven’t had the guts to pick it up again.
shannon:
Sounds like there are a lot of us out there … maybe we should form a support group or something.
I am DAMNED if I’m gonna leave that book unfinished. I could not care less about ANY of these people now … the most sympathetic character to me is now J Edgar Hoover … but I MUST finish it. I started it in November! This is ridiculous.
But still – that opening! Having just gone through the most incredible playoffs season I’ve ever experienced – and being a Red Sox fan – he SO GETS what that’s all about. He GETS it.
But the rest of it? Good God. LET. IT. END.
Anyone frustrated with DeLillo’s meandering, smug prose will likely enjoy BR Meyers’s “A Reader’s Manifesto.” The contempt Meyers has for the muddled ramblings of today’s self-satisfied literary giants can often be a little over-the-top, but he has enough valid points to warrant giving the book a read.
Red – I’m listening to Underworld on tape as I drive to and from work and many times since the Prologue I have screamed at the cassette player – “Don, you are BORING me!!!” and “GOD, this is boring!” and “I can’t believe anyone published this!!!”
I mean there are some passages that are like lightning they are so beautiful, but then there are these loooooooong conversations that are so DULL they make my teeth ache. And you KNOW he knows the difference so my bet is that he was paid by the page!
Ah, Red –
I’m a great quitter. I have more than one book I couldn’t slog through. Another notorious one is Prague by Arthur Phillips.
I’ll be the first to admit that there are things in novels that sometimes just ZOOM over my head (or through it), but that book in particular just seemed to have so many instances where the writer was being, well, too writerly. As if Phillips was impressed with his own skill. Underworld seemed to have a lot of the same thing going on.
Which is really annoying to hacks like me.
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