Rating: 
Summary: Underworld is masterful
Review: I strongly suspect that the reviewers who didn't like _Underworld_ just didn't get it, and that made them mad. This was the first DeLillo book that I have read and it will not be the last. It is a wonderful novel, broad yet completely connected, written in stunningly beautiful prose. This book will please anyone who is willing to make the journey. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: WHY? WHY? WHY?
Review: I have read a great number of novels in my short 24 years, but none thusfar have left me scratching my head more than underworld. The only consolation that I have is the fact that I only paid 7.99 for this book new at B&N.I agree with the reader who stated that the first 50 pages or so were delicious, however the rest of the book to me was almost completely undigestable. This is perhaps the only book by DeLillo that I will subject myself to. These are only my opinions, but I feel that over 800 pages are a far-sight too many to go through only to be let down. I STRONGLY RECOMMEND NOT BUYING THIS BOOK. IF YOU MUST CHECK IT OUT, GO TO THE LIBRARY, AND SAVE YOUR HARD EARNED DOLLARS!
Rating:
Summary: I just don't get it!
Review: The first 80-odd pages were intriguing. But the further I read, the more disappointed I became. The book has some stunning imagary and keenly observed set pieces, but there seems to be little substance beneath. To me it was like going down a hill on a go-cart with four flat tyres - you expect it to hit pace at the next turn, only for it to continue to limp along and eventually grind to an embarrasing halt.
Rating:
Summary: Underworld is special
Review: It's a year now since I read Underworld and of all the books on my shelf, it is the one I most continue to ponder. Underworld is no easily digested airport novel, more a banquet that continues to satisfy long after the final page. I can understand how some might feel dislocated by the way DeLillo skips from place to place ,one time frame to another and from character to character without introduction but surely all the great books demand the reader's full attention. This is a big book in so many ways but I love the fact that when I talk with others about it's subtle connections, subplots and metaphor, new and different interpretations continue to unfold. It's many faceted structure denies the reader the easy path to discovering it's ultimate depth and one gets the uneasy feeling that the full truth of the story is somehow shrouded. You believe you know what's going on, but never enough to overcome that sense of obscurity. True, it's not every one 's cup of tea but if you want to be challenged by writing style, content and structure, then make the effort - you'll be wondering what it all means for a long time to come. This guy can write.
Rating: 
Summary: Underworld puts you to sleep
Review: The book's style is rambling and hard to follow. You don't get the sense that there's a story. Reminds me of Pynchon's style which I find ambiguous, elliptical prose.
Rating:
Summary: ex - cruci - ating
Review: Delillo is a keen and insightful observer; this populates his book with brilliant phrases, sweet cadences. He also happens to be in love with his style; this has removed any sense of balance or proportion from this tome. Here we have an author who flogs a good idea to death and then one more. In his world, if drinking tea is pleasant, it would be even more so to grind on the leaves. I read someone comparing him to Pynchon. Ha! This book is a smudge compared to the brush-stroke of "Gravity's rainbow". Not recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Many moments of brillance, but a slog in the end...
Review: good thing I was on a three-week vacation or else I would have put it dow
Rating:
Summary: Really awful
Review: First ~50 pages are outstanding CHARACTERS: poorly conceived and incompletely drawn PLOT: needlessly complicated and confused STYLE: impressive at times, but rendered pompous/pretentious by the context EDITING: unforgivable. This should be a 400 page book or a collection of short stories. Instead it's a ponderous, 800 page, incoherent mess Aside from the first 50 pages or so, I can't think of a reason that anyone would want to read this book, and I'm even more confused that anyone could LIKE it. But what do I know....
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Summary: excellent postwar existentialist novel!
Review: In a world of hype over Hannibal and deserved praise for Wolfe , I suggest you take a trip into the Underworld for the true 1990s literature.
Rating:
Summary: A Melvillian romp in pursuit of the white mushroom cloud
Review: Possibly THE post-modernist classic, Underworld is written with exceptional grace and confidence, and held this reader rapt even through the most obscure turns (and it takes them early and often). Its greatest strengths are the inventiveness of its narrative structure - moving at once into the future as it delves the past; lethal dialogue that could break every screenwriter's heart with envy, and the insinuating hold of a story-line that (seemingly at random) connects the public and private realms of a culture that over the last half century has become increasingly unhinged by its inability to distinguish between the two. Its principal flaw is its stubborn unwillingness to reveal itself in full pictorial coherence; the reader sees threads that appear to lead nowhere and only later (if you're alert) do they tie into the bigger picture. The situation (if it can be reffered to as such) never really resolves itself in a literal sense. Ambiguities are left for the reader to sort out as best one can - much as the characters must do. In that sense, Underworld is more like day-to-day life than literature. Before cracking Underworld open earlier this summer, I had read a piece in which DeLillo says that all post-modern writers must deal with the imposing presence of Pynchon. I found that while DeLillo can sling irony with the best of them, he has more appeal for me in that he also has a generous empathy that Gravity's Rainbow lacks. I'm not much of a post-modernist reader, but Underworld really affected me deeply. And as a result, I'm motivated to take a stab at Mason & Dixon to see if Pynchon has grown in humanity these past 25-30 years.
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