Underworld (AUDIO CASSETTE)

Rating:
Summary: Often genius
Review: This large volume by Don Delillo is a great book, placing Cold War American life under the microscope. Though events often seem choppy or meaningless to the story, this book reaches, at times, the high expectations that its author aims for. The prologue, as long as it is, remains the best and most powerful section of this book. I could easily see it being extracted for large college anthologies for 20th Century Literature. This wasn't the best book to come out of 1997; John Banville's The Untouchable was. However it's one of the best, along side Philip Roth's American Pastoral and Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon.

Rating:
Summary: Mother Hoover's cuddled runt.
Review: The hell with plot and length, I enjoyed the hell out of this book. I couldn't put my finger on why this book succeeds, but you'll find... great prose, hilarity and an uncanny ear for dialogue. You got a set of cunones, Mr. Delillo. Underworld is both an audacious and bold effort.

Rating:
Summary: A Hmmm Dinger!
Review: De Lillo lays open the causuistry of fact and hyperbole that is the late twentieth century. A discourse between competing parts of the mind for the finest interpretation of history, with a Le Jazz Hot sensibility and total disdain for the overweening (and dare I say overpreening) paradigmatic intellectualism of our own fin-de-siecle.

Rating:
Summary: Can't put it down!
Review: This book sat on my shelf for 2 months. Kept looking at it, thinking "Underworld? Do I really want to read about mobsters or whatever?" Well, I got to tell you...this book is terrific! Not at all what I thought it would be like. For three days I've stopped cooking dinner because I can't put it down! I'll write more when I finish (and after I start cooking again).

Rating:
Summary: Pretentious, written for effect, not readers
Review: DeLillo has created a tour de force. Unfortunately, it is a legend in his own mind. Artfully presented, the prose is heavy and dense, the characters are built up at a glacial pace and the plot is still relatively remote after 300 pages. This, combined with the incessant time-hopping chapters, made for a most unpleasant experience.

Rating:
Summary: So, the body is growing cold?
Review: Extraordinary. Again. And that cover photo of the twin towers from broadway over the church with the greenest grass in town. Very funny, like the book itself. Had to go long, huh jerky? 800 pages, like it was plucked off'a grave, out of that greenest graveyard. A most revealing tomb, offering every reason in the book to leave town. Like cold calling around the corner. Nice try tough-guy. But we are here for the long hawl, long after BFI, Balthizar, and all these stinking cars go electric, at least until we all get those long awaited picture phones. We don't need no badges, right?

Rating:
Summary: Cold war era ennui
Review: Delillo, in his fashion, has written a vaulting piece of historical hyperbole. Perhaps his opus, the best of this novel is in the mordant descriptions, the evocations of family life, and the volleying conversations. However, there is little of a standard plot, and the rewards of a thorough reading may only come for those with an interest in the craft of fiction.

Rating:
Summary: A riveting, mind-bending reading experience.
Review: It took six weeks to plow through the 800+ pages of DeLillo's magnum opus UNDERWORLD, and every turn of the page offered another glimpse into the collective subconscience of late-twentieth century America. The novel's mystery lies within the complexity of the curious cast of characters and contrasting locations. A typical problem with a work of fiction that is so immense is the seemingly arduous task of keeping up with so many personalities. DeLillo employs subtle visual techniques to jog the reader's memory; one can instantly identify who is being spoken about by the very recurrence of these images (e.g. The "pack of Lucky Strikes", which serves to resurrect Jimmy Costanza in the reader's mind). Personally, I didn't feel that the book was too long. This common criticism of the novel can only be countered with a musical comparison: The Beatles' "White Album" has simultaneously been lauded as a masterpiece AND an over-indulgent, long-winded colle! ction of fragments. Take your pick! I happen to love the album...this novel wasn't so bad, either.

Rating:
Summary: Tough to read, but well written
Review: Make sure you have time to sit and read this in a timely manner. It took me well over seven months to get through it, putting it down for months and coming back, which is not the way to keep track of the numerous characters and time frames. The plot is (intentionally perhaps?) pretty lackluster, but the language was magnificent. This is definitely not a lighthearted vacation novel to take to the beach, but it is worth the time to read if only for the prose and descriptions and not the story.

Rating:
Summary: Magnificent beginning, then peters out
Review: The first section is a tour-de-force and it propelled me forward with great delight and expection. But from there the barely-existent narrative just sort of ambles along, almost aimlessly. De Lillo's prose is terrific, and almost owrth the read in itself. But, if youre like me, you also wish for a story that has some momentum to it. Post-modern in every sense of the term, both good and bad.