Rating: 
Summary: Read Infinite Jest instead.
Review: I held off commenting until I actually finished the book, but how could I know it'd take me five months, on again off again, to finish it? I liked the first 3rd or 4th of the book all right, but then it fell into this unending cycle of basically trivial accounts of unconnected (and worse, uninteresting) peoples' lives. Who cares about Klara anyway, or Sister Edgar, or etc? The book never gives us enough of these characters to get involved. Manx Martin was kind of intriguing, but he's the exception that proves the rule, if you ask me. And the one cool idea was nuking garbage. Ultimately disappointing. My advice is to read Underworld, by all means, but then (if you haven't done so already) go read DF Wallace's infinitely superior "Infinite Jest" and have a real good time. Infinite Jest covers a lot of the same territory (tv, nuclear dread, drugs, etc), but much more intelligently (and entertainingly) and with characters you actually care about.
Rating: 
Summary: This "novel" is not only ABOUT garbage; it actually IS.
Review: The only reason I finished this monstrosity is that I was listening to its abridgement on tape and there was nothing good on the radio. To those who read the complete novel on paper--I bow my head to you people! Okay, let's be more specific. First, it's not really a novel, in the sense that it has no coherent plot, no compelling characters, historical or otherwise, no fresh ideas, no engaging dialogues, no conflict, no movement, no resolution. Nothing. What is it then? Well, perhaps a collection of loosely connected unfinished short stories that read like dull documentaries. I at least expected some new insights into the Cold War, since that is what the book is supposed to be about--but De Lillo did not deliver. Apparently, De Lillo fancies himself so magnanimous a writer that he considers such concerns as story-line, pacing, suspense, humor-- to be utterly insignificant attributes of pulp fiction. I kind of got that impression from reading White Noise--another grossly overrated book with dull, black-and-white characters and no engaging story--but Underworld gives a whole new meaning to the word "UNREADABLE." Let me briefly say that I actually like descriptive novels that are not too obviously plot-driven. I enjoy stylistic writing. But listening to Underworld, every 10 minutes I would ask myself: why are you telling me this? why would this be important or relevant to the story? what is the story, for crying out loud? Every time I had to put in the next tape, I underwent a mental struggle, vasillating between wanting to bring this to completion and wishing to find a better use for my time. The only redeaming quality (the reason I didn't give it the rating of 1) is his writing texture. He can certainly describe mundane objects and events with unusual words, and bring out subtlety where few other writers could find it. But in the case of Underworld, this is wasted, and in effect makes the "novel" all the more cumbersome to read. I find it ironic that the &quo! t;novel" concerns itself with garbage, for it certainly belongs there.
Rating: 
Summary: Annoying.
Review: I feel compelled to finish Underworld, since I slapped down the $27.50. I find it one of the most unbearable books I've ever read. Wait for the paperback edition (or get yourself a wagon, like I did) because you're going to be lugging this loser around a long time.
Rating:
Summary: I must not be smart...
Review: I found this to be the most boring book. In fact, I gave up at page 224. Perhaps it really took off on page 225, but by that point I was already brain dead. My neighbor Terri made it all the way through. I am not sure how many months that took, but she is a stud. By the way her husband Tom made it all the way to page 300. Apparently, everyone on our street is just stupid to understand this great literary masterpiece. Anyone got any extra copies of Daniel Steele.
Rating: 
Summary: For lovers of DeLillo, it doesn't get better than this.
Review: Beginning in the golden 1950's, specifically Ebbett's Field and the instant of "The shot heard round the world," DeLillo weaves an intricate tale of interconnected people, events and places. With no apparent concern for chronologic sequence, the reader is taken to New Mexico nuclear testing sites, the burned-out South Bronx, J. Edgar Hoover's hotel room and massive New Jersy landfills. The themes of lost innocence, the unforgiving nature of technology and--above all-- the power of hope resonate throughout. As in his other works, DeLillo's characters range from banal to bizarre, with dialogue that is as fascinating as it is believable. This book is not easily forgotten.
Rating:
Summary: All justice is local justice...
Review: If you were raised within 50 miles of the Bronx, read the book! Just read the book. Simply. Nevermind far flung opinion-class reviewers from Boston or worse, who would to be the one to tell you that the literary King of New York is not wearing any clothes, that he is over-rated, hyped and cynically touted as someone to believe. Judge for yourself. With all due respect to those who didn't like Underworld (likening it to "the English patient" or "mental masterbation"), they will never get it anyway, like oily-haired chess players in Harvard Square, sitting in the sun on a 98 degree day, pounding their timers after making their moves, fully buttoned-up in their green wind breakers. Go read the first 50 pages of Underworld and weep. Of course, you might not; But if you don't, best to keep your windbreaker close this summer; you never know. And Oh yeah... enjoy your Updike and Roth.
Rating:
Summary: DeLillo's Jazz Cathedral
Review: Somebody once said about Thomas Mann's "Doctor Faustus" that it proved that a great work of art could be full of faults and yet still worth ten- thousand petty "successes". You have to give "Underworld" a score of 10 -- if only to indicate that it belongs in that realm where success and failure are beside the point. It is not a difficult read. The book is divided into six sections, which are like separate novellas. Within each section, the individual chapters are like discrete short stories. DeLillo just drops you into the most diverse and unlikely settings, hangs around long enough to convince you that he's got the details exactly right, and then jump-cuts to the next location. The challenge, of course, lies in trying to piece it all together. But is it worth trying to distill some harmony from the fragments of this book? Is "everything connected in the end?" And how exactly should we "connect" things? In "Underworld" DeLillo takes us to Watts Towers in Los Angeles, and remarks on the artist who dreamed up and constructed them: "His work is a kind of swirling free-souled noise, a jazz cathedral". DeLillo gives enormous freedom to his readers. You can try to piece "Underworld" together -- you might find a cathedral. Or you can bask in the individual fragments themselves, the set-pieces and improvisations, the swirling free-souled language of this great monster of a book.
Rating:
Summary: Another DeLillo Masterpiece
Review: I fell in love with DeLillo when I read Libra. And I'm still a fan -- Underworld is postmodern (for lack of a better descriptor) fiction at its best.
Rating:
Summary: Life is too short...don't wast your time.
Review: ATTRITION. The first 60 pages go well - the rest is an unrelenting death march of humorless pretention, and pompous self indulgence. I would like to know who "edited" this book - it EASILY could have been cut to 300 pages. All the aimless circumlocution does not disguise the fact that the book really has nothing important to convey. INDIRECTION. The title - Underworld - is completely misleading. Delillo seems completely unaware of the underworld that goes on around us, and is not creative enough to imagine his own. Although a capable stylist, Delillo shows no interest in developing characters and controlling dramatic tension. A competent editor would constrain him from pointless self-indugent meandering, and goad him to focus more on his characters and his readers. HYPE. The unwarranted praise for this book is cynical, pompous, and self-congratulatory. Don't be fooled. Underworld is no Gravity's Rainbow (and if you don't like Pynchon - trust me, it's much worse). Treat yourself, don't read Underworld.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece of trans-epic proportions.
Review: The "underworld" of Delillo's magnificent novel is the accumulated waste produced by Americans during the forty-some years of the Cold War. Delillo weaves the story of Nick Shay, a waste management consultant, through the troubled times and disturbing locations of Nick's life during the Cold War. Like the film director Robert Altman, Delillo richly creates vignettes for all of his characters, even if they only have a loose connection to Nick. At its core, this book is about belief. Can nuclear waste really be contained? Can we authenticate sports memorbilia? Can we trust the relationships we have established over the course of our lives. Nick and his brother disagree over their beliefs on the exact reason that their father disappeared when they were children. These divergent beliefs seperate the brothers. In "Underworld", Don DeLillo has written the American masterpiece of the late-20th Century. He paints with language like a European Master (Kundera comes to mind), and yet he writes poignant tales of honestly lived lives and not just of University people and alcoholic writers. If you are not in a book club, join one because "Underworld" is definitely a novel to be discussed.
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