Underworld (AUDIO CASSETTE)

Rating:
Summary: A staggering, beautiful book
Review: No words that I write in this small box can truly wrap their arms around the might of 'Underworld'. It is a staggering, beautiful book. As William Boyd says, DeLillo's writing 'gets' the human condition. I read it and I don't quite know how he achieves this, but he does, deeply. It has been said that collage is the art-form of the twentieth century, and 'Underworld' is one great big collage, full of telling juxtapositions, disparate fragments of life on earth which are all acutely homogeneously connected. As an account of our times, and what it is to live in them, there is so much to contemplate here - as prose, it is staggering, his use of words starkly economic yet extraordinarily beautiful. It appears to be a big, foreboding book, but it's actually very accessible and its riches are endless. How you go about writing something like this, I have no idea. I wonder where DeLillo will go from here.

Rating:
Summary: Unreadable
Review: I can't tell you how many times I've picked up this book and become bored and confused. This book is unreadable and uninteresting. It's the kind of book that, once you put it down, you can't pick it up. Don't bother. This book ranks in unreadability with Mason & Dixon.

Rating:
Summary: kaleidoscopic prophetic prose
Review: I've been lugging this bible (and I do not use that word lightly)of a book around with me since early December, and I am relieved and yet saddened to say that I have finally finished Underworld. This novel is a masterpiece. Difficult beautiful reading, fragmented experience rehashed circularly, thematically enormous - I confess that not until about 600 pages into it did I comprehensively understand what the book is about, though everything along the way taught me more than any history class or textbook about America, about the threat and terrifying beauty of nuclear war, garbage and waste management, what it was like growing up in the bronx in the 50s and 60s, the fanatic obsessive religious significance that baseball used to have in people's lives. This book reveals in startling clarity and precision the subversive effects of a nation's history on our own personal narratives. This book almost ruined me as a writer. The pressure to continue. Imagine what it must have been like to write it.

Rating:
Summary: creamy, dreamy and drugged
Review: Once again, Don DeLillo has outdone himself, this time both in length and sheer reading pleasure. Sure, the common complaints are the fact that this is quite a hefty novel with little interconnection between the plot or myriad characters, but we don't read DeLillo simply for the story. His writing is masterful, self-assured, and simply wonderful, making the reader feel "creamy, dreamy and drugged," paralleling Edgar J. Hoover's sensations when first trying on his leather mask. If the length bothers you, it is quite feasible to read other books in between, as this book, written in sections, can be easily read in the same way. Although not as directly forceful as White Noise, there are truly beautiful moments in this book that will really make you glad that you read (and finished) it.

Rating:
Summary: what happens while the world is at work
Review: if anyone is expecting neat and tidy closure you will be disappointed. life doesn't work that way and neither does this book. it does however it does however bring us into the lives of several Americans during the Cold War. The lives of these people is the Underworld and we live there too.

Rating:
Summary: One of the all-time best books I've read.
Review: Don DeLillo has created an epic of post-cold war America. The writing is intelligent and subtle. The underlying theme of connectedness between seemingly disconnected characters keeps the reader diligent and not skimming over any of the 800 plus pages. Told in reverse order, the reader is taken through the development of characters after becoming familiar through the author's well painted canvas. Not a one-night or even one-weekend read, but well worth the effort.

Rating:
Summary: When you get it you get it...
Review: But when you don't, you don't. There are some fantastic episodes in here--moments of brilliance and insight into the way people interact with each other and their part of the world. But it does not tie together. This very masculine novel leaves a lot of pieces hanging. There are moments I want back and still think about, but were never resolved. For example, the nurses who ran the 4 blocks to their homes, their method of watching out for each other, there was nothing but this beautiful description. What does this mean? There are links and themes working through this book but they are difficult to find. Read the introduction and don't waste your time with the rest.

Rating:
Summary: DeLillo
Review: DeLillo, in Underword, shows he is the American Master of writing the sentence. Man can he write a sentence. The book isn't bad either. It probably is a bit long-winded but DeLillo's hard-edged prose makes it worth while. His keen insight solve historical questions that are finally coming to light. It could be called post post-modernism. Better, post-Cold War history written with an elegant austere edge.

Rating:
Summary: When will it end?!
Review: I'm 200 pages shy of completing this novel, a feat that has spanned over MONTHS. To put it simply - and without boring anyone with ten dollar words - this book is not worth the time. Classics like Moby Dick and Ulysses are read in schools across the country. I doubt this book will ever reach such high standards, and expectedly so. I'm lost, confused, I've had enough of the baseball pity. What do all the other people have to do with the story? If they're all intertwined, then someone explain to me HOW! I'm forcing myself to finish this novel, only because I'm hoping that at the very least, the last or penultimate line will reveal the secrets and explanations behind all the dead air.

Rating:
Summary: very long and boring
Review: I bought the hype and got the hardback. At best this is a used paperback read. I kept waiting for it to get entertaining. It did in parts, but not nearly enough to make it an enjoyable read, This was one of the most painful reads I've went through. I finished, which is better than quitting, but it took a long time to do it. I read several other books in between.