Americana (Contemporary American fiction)

Rating:
Summary: White Noise?
Review: A strange novel. The first hundred pages detailing the minutiae of office life including tedious office meetings and the bizzare but highly literate memos of the mysterious 'Trotsky' are by far the most engaging. Here Delillo, charting similar waters to those which Bret Easton Ellis would later navigate in American Psycho is at his highly amusing best in depicting the insanity of the US media environment in the Nixon Era. The tragedy of 'Americana' is that had Delillo only maintained this standard (and premise) throughout the whole novel it would now undeniably be regarded as an American literary classic ranking alongside the best of Salinger or Roth. Instead the main character embarks on a tedious journey across the American continent, which today sadly, mostly comes across like so much dated sixties sub-Kerouac claptrap. Some enjoyable later biographical episodes aside this is thus a generally disappointing work, but I'd recommend it for the superb opening chapters alone.

Rating:
Summary: Definately not DeLillo's best
Review: At the outset of "Americana," David Bell has fairly succeeded in securing his place in the power-driven world of Manhatten advertising. At 28, he is prosperous, good-looking, and bereft of that certain purpose and emotional substantiality one must possess to be classified as a fully sensible human being. Although I am a huge fan of Don DeLillo and his deft way of weaving sentences together to produce picturesque settings, I found myself lost in the interminable stretches this book relentlessly thrust upon me. Though DeLillo's story of a man who suspends his conventional life to seek out the American Dream within the desolate wastelands of the barren midwest is an interesting and potentially good idea, the novel falls short within its cornucopia of meandering passages, causing the reader to constantly drop out of the narrative and be reminded that they are in fact reading an overly erudite author; one who spouts bombastic sentiments that may seem a bit gratuitous on occasion. If you are a DeLillo fan, and curious about this novel (since it is his first; the main reason I was compelled to read it) then go for it, but do not expect the brilliance and penetrating qualities of his later works, such as "Mao II" and "Libra." If you are new to DeLillo and unsure of where to start, stay away from this novel, because it will possibly turn you off from an otherwise prodigious talent who has thenceforth transcended the shortcomings of "Americana" to become one of the great contemporary American writers.

Rating:
Summary: Definately not DeLillo's best
Review: At the outset of "Americana," David Bell has fairly succeeded in securing his place in the power-driven world of Manhatten advertising. At 28, he is prosperous, good-looking, and bereft of that certain purpose and emotional substantiality one must possess to be classified as a fully sensible human being. Although I am a huge fan of Don DeLillo and his deft way of weaving sentences together to produce picturesque settings, I found myself lost in the interminable stretches this book relentlessly thrust upon me. Though DeLillo's story of a man who suspends his conventional life to seek out the American Dream within the desolate wastelands of the barren midwest is an interesting and potentially good idea, the novel falls short within its cornucopia of meandering passages, causing the reader to constantly drop out of the narrative and be reminded that they are in fact reading an overly erudite author; one who spouts bombastic sentiments that may seem a bit gratuitous on occasion. If you are a DeLillo fan, and curious about this novel (since it is his first; the main reason I was compelled to read it) then go for it, but do not expect the brilliance and penetrating qualities of his later works, such as "Mao II" and "Libra." If you are new to DeLillo and unsure of where to start, stay away from this novel, because it will possibly turn you off from an otherwise prodigious talent who has thenceforth transcended the shortcomings of "Americana" to become one of the great contemporary American writers.

Rating:
Summary: Even the best have bad days
Review: Delillo is possibly the most talented living writer (with Thomas Pynchon in hiding he is for sure), but this book is evidence that even the masters need practice. While Americana is filled with salient and beautiful gems of observation and many vignettes could be used to teach creative writing style, there is no novel here. There is only a disjointed series of experiences in the life of a lost soul, David Bell. Perhaps Mr. Delillo is trying to show us that any perception is fragmented and loose and that only by trying to stitch these fragments together do we begin to get to the truth. I read that Delillo is intentionally obscure and "challenging" in his fiction because he believes that in this world of info-glut the truth is hard to come by and should feel that way. That may be the case, but he accomplishes far more with this idea in White Noise, Running Dog and Underworld (to name those that I am familiar with) than in this one. Delillo is an amazing talent, but in this world of so much information, I would read one of his other works and leave this one for another time.

Rating:
Summary: Delillo's first masterpiece
Review: Don Delillo is an amazing writer. His prose, and the ideas contained in his novels, are so powerful they sometimes make me stop and catch my breath, and that's not hyperbole. I can't think of another contemporary author that moves me so much, with the possible exception of Saul Bellow. Reading his novels is pure joy, it's a wonder on every page, it's magic. I don't say that often.

I read somewhere that "The Names" was his first great novel, so I picked up "Americana" expecting to read the work of a budding author showing only flashes of brilliance. I found the writing and ideas expressed in "Americana" to be as fresh, brilliant, and moving as in any other book of his I've read. Delillo writes beautiful, highly intelligent novels that are also page-turners, and that's a rarity. He is, quite simply, a completely original American novelist, and "Americana" is a wonderful first novel.

Delillo should win the Nobel prize for literature some day, and I'd be very disappointed if he doesn't.

Rating:
Summary: Easy to tell its his first
Review: Don DeLillo is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors (even though I have only read Americana, Mao II, and Libra). But this book lacked something his other books did not - it just didn't feel like it was going anywhere or saying anything of importance. I suppose for a first stab at novel writing it is good (I would not know, not having published anything myself :) I reccomend you read this book - but NOT before reading some of his others. I reccomend checking out Mao II first, and i hear White Noise is very good as well.

In summary: Good for fans, bad for newcomers.

Rating:
Summary: Delillo's first masterpiece
Review: Much to the protests of the DeLillo fanbase, I decided to undertake his first novel. And what an undertaking it was. It's been a long time since I had to actually work myself to get to the end of a chapter. While I held out as long as could, wading through endless trite observations and self-congratulatory manic-depressive episodes, the fact is these characters have no substance whatsoever. I'm sure his fans will contend that is exactly the point of the novel, but I'd rather learn that lesson from a read with an actual story. This novel was one meandering paragraph after another. I couldn't shake the overwhelming feeling that I was witnessing a bad reading from an old college writing class. It's the non-violent, deficient love-child of "On The Road" and "American Psycho". In the simplest terms, this is an extremely boring read. Some people can't cross the barrier between different types of writing, nor should they. Americana is an excellent case in point.

Rating:
Summary: A must for fans
Review: This was DeLillo's first novel, and it feels like a first novel. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. The imperfections and inconsistencies found in a novelist's first attempts at long fiction often let the reader steal a peak into the writer's thought process before the writer has learned how to mask that process.

That said, this is a book where the seams show. DeLillo's prose is always fun to read--although intentionally disorienting at times--but this book doesn't hold together as well as his later masterpieces like the "Names" or "White Noise." Certain scenes are brilliant. Others just sort of linger in the narrative seemingly without a reason for being.

The meat of the novel, wherein David Bell constructs his anti-film about image-driven modern America, is pure DeLillo bravura. However the reader of this part may get lost in--among other distractions from which the novel suffers--DeLillo's obsession with Godard. (At one point he practically rips one scene right out of "Masculine/Feminine".) DeLillo seems to have thought he was writing this part of the novel with a camera in hand rather than with the novelist's traditional weapons (e.g. a pen or a typewriter). In this, it is misguided.

"Americana" is not a great book, but DeLillo is a great American author and I encourage anyone new to his fiction to start with "White Noise" which seems to be the easiest route into the DeLillo mindset. After that, I'd recommend "The Names" or "Great Jone Street" or "Underworld."

Even so, any true fan would be remiss to ignore "Americana."

Rating:
Summary: Good, but diminished by time and imitation
Review: this was the first book of his I read. It's a good novel but compard to today's world of Ellis and Palahnuik. I could see the impact it had back when is first came out, since it was a few years after "Easy rider" and has the same counter culture feel
the style and nuance of the book were greatly influtential to ninties independant cinema. the protagnist seems indifferent and at times boring. Delillos has writen fantastic novels, and this is him cutting his literary teeth

Rating:
Summary: a rotten piece of "Americana"
Review: To make sure my brain wasn't orbiting the outer limits of literary comprehension, I took a look at the one-star reviews of Don DeLillo's recent "Underworld" and found that many echoed my sentiments about "Americana" exactly. This is the type of book you can only use big adjectives to describe, like, "incredible", "stultifying", "infuriating", "ridiculous". It's a book you should quit reading immediately once your brain clicks on and says, "this isn't going anywhere and isn't going to GO anywhere." It is easily the worst, most time-wasting novel I've ever read. It plays out like an upper-class "On the Road" (which was a pitiful book in and of itself), where a vapid TV executive named David Bell (who could be Patrick Bateman's evil, boring twin) and a gaggle of vacant sycophants go for a drive across America, filming the residents of small towns for a movie. That's the go-nowhere plot, in a nutshell. The thing that irritates me the most is that "Americana" could have been good, but DeLillo is too insistent on churning out wooden dialogue and pointless description that before long, render the book a laborious chore to read. Never mind the fact that DeLillo doesn't seem to put a moment's thought into a single line within these 377 aching pages. In spite of my own anger toward this travesty of literature, I masochistically pushed through it, knowing it would end in even more abiguity and unfunny, self-conscious "irony" than it began with. Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk can be considered disciples of DeLillo's style, but one thing sets them apart--they can actually WRITE, and maintain an audience for the duration of a novel. Read "Americana," put it on your bookshelf, so when having a get-together, you can reveal to your friends the most pathetic work ever published. Thank you.