Rating: 
Summary: not as good as I thought
Review: I expected alot more from Delillo after reading the many great reviews of his latest book. But I find myself disappointed at this long, fragmented prose. The story lacks any coherent flow, it is merely a good paragraph here and there but that doesn't make it a great book.
Rating: 
Summary: Not worth the effort of wading through the 800-plus pages
Review: When I first picked up DeLillo's monster, I thought it was great. One of those books that you can't seem to put down. Then, after I read about 300 or so pages, it became harder and harder to pick it up, until finally I put it down permanently after close to 500 pages. I experienced a great sense of loss at the fact that I had wasted a lot of precious time that I could have devoted to one of the classics. If you like repetition, though, you will enjoy this book. DeLillo tends to repeat certain passages over and over, which in a sense is why the book seems so long and drawn out. Close to 500 pages into it and I couldn't possibly see how or when he was going to end my misery, so I did by turning it back in to the library.
Rating: 
Summary: DeLillo -- The American Tolstoy
Review: This is a terrific book!Norman Mailer has been spouting off for years about writing The Great American Novel and Don DeLillo has gone ahead and done it with "Underworld." Having read "Underworld," I plan to read ALL his work, he's that good. DeLillo makes me think deeper and feel deeper. By which I mean, he helps me communicate with what's outside and all that's within. Like DiMaggio, he makes it look easy. ("A hundred years," paisan!)
Rating:
Summary: Boring and in need of a good editor
Review: I was tricked into buying this book by the good reviews it got in the literary press. Actually it is overly long and mostly a bore. It is said to evoke the atmosphere of the US in the cold war period. Actually I don't think DeLillo knows anything more about this than he got from looking at the pictures in old issues of Life magazine and the attempts at evocation through long stretches of purple prose beg for the red pencil.
Rating: 
Summary: An important novel for the end of the millenium
Review: This is an important novel. It is not a cheerful one,it's realistic and scary, yet profoundly revealing of our society and values. It's a summary of who we have become, of our culture, or at the very least a well-educated view of the last half of this century. There's a lot of images here, a movie in words, the places and people come alive under the author's pen. Amongst all the descriptions and dialogues, you will find little sentences that are worth re-reading often. I was especially touched by the epilogue, a brilliant overview of Us,now. One thing did annoy me at one point, the jumping in time parts were sometimes dizzying. Still, it was a book where I learned, felt conflicting emotions and that willl stay within for a long time.
Rating: 
Summary: Detritus in the Bronx
Review: Remember the vacant lot in the Bronx where everything and anything might be found? I present that image as the missing theme of this text -- a dumping ground of old items and events designed to pluck momentary, however pithy, recollections and memories from the reader which are then immediately thrown back onto the pile because in the end it's still junk.
Rating:
Summary: a very important book
Review: To discover Don Delillo with this book is to feel a pang of awareness that yes, indeed, you have been missing out on something all along. The author's prowess is evident in the first two pages - as is his daring - and the challenge is for you to try those two pages without wanting to read the other 825. Cinematic (and I mean this in the most positive manner) in structure, there is not a dull page to be found within the covers. In scope, Underworld stands with Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow yet the writing style employed by Delillo in this venture is leaner and more sharply honed. Delillo's capacity for writing simultaneously on levels macro and micro, personal and societal, contemporary and eternal is impressive, accurate (to these eyes) and yet not in the least daunting. Even after the thousands of words that precede it, the power of the book's ultimate word is astounding.
Rating:
Summary: A great book about American life
Review: Don Delillo writes a brilliant historical novel that finds history not in the surface of popular culture but in the lives that all Americans live. The prose is excellent many sentences left me breathless at their pure beauty.Dellilo has a comical eye for conversation. Sometimes I actually thought that the conversations between characters was some of the better written stuff in the book. I am only seventeen years old but found many fascinating ideas and views in this book. I loved it's gentle grace and the way that everything and everyone in the end connected in some soincidental way. In a large way life is coincidence and I found this book reflected that.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding story of the past half-century in America.
Review: Don Delillo has written about the heart of America in the past half-century, since the end of World war 11. Delillo's words paint a picture that begins with the home run of Bobby Thompson at the Polo Grounds iin Harlem New York. The home run results in the New York Giants defeating the Brooklyn Dodgers for the National League Championship. Those two teams are now in California, which reflects the changes in America in the past 50 years. Delillo shows so well the changes: toxic waste; the militatry industrial-complex; corruption; assassinations; racial-ethnic hatred; marriage-divorce; changing ethical and moral standards,in politics religious groups,in relationships, and in business. As long as the book appears in size, my wish was that it would not end. My friend, a Chaplain at a Veterans Home on Long Island, and this writer consider Don Delillo's , UNDERWORLD, the best book of the 90's. Delillo is a GREAT STORYTELLER.
Rating:
Summary: Read Ulysses first.
Review: I picked up Underworld because I was struggling through James Joyce's Ulysses and I needed something less perplexing. Had it not been for that juxtaposition, I would have abandoned Underworld. But, reading Joyce liberated my reading style and I was able to just enjoy the ride DeLillo took me on. Much of it felt like I was eavesdropping. I didn't always know who, what, when, and where, but it certainly was fascinating. This book is not about the last page, it's about all the pages. Relax and enjoy.
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