Rating: 
Summary: Great Prose but Pretty Dry
Review: I should profess that I have never read a novel by Don DeLillo before diving into "Cosmopolis." Sure, I have heard of "White Noise," "Underworld," and "Libra" before, but decided to start with this new, short novel about a billionaire stock tycoon and his trip through the wilds of New York City. DeLillo seems to possess many fans in the literary world, rabid readers who devour everything this guy decides to pass off on the public. I usually see him associated with people like Pynchon or Gaddis, post-modern writers who create sprawling works of endless complexity and dubious quality. Since my experiences with the post-modern genre are slight at best, all I have to go on is my experiences with this book.The plot seems simple enough. Eric Packer, a twenty eight year old Wall Street whiz, decides he wants to get a haircut. Moreover, he sets out on his excursion in a giant, cork lined white limousine with his bodyguards, advisors, doctors, and drivers in tow. Along the way, Packer undergoes a physical examination of a most personal nature, runs into his new wife at various places, witnesses an anarchist protest, gets attacked with a cream pie, becomes emotional about a rapper's funeral, and discovers someone is stalking him with a view to causing serious injury. There is little that ties these events and encounters together, as even the quest for a haircut often drops into the background when Packer bogs down in New York City traffic. Surrounded by computers and an endless flow of information, the billionaire spends most of his time waxing philosophic about the state of the world, the state of his mind, and the state of his attempt to make a killing off the Japanese yen. Ultimately, that is all this novel seems to do: throw out endless noodlings about the emptiness of life in the high tech, over stimulated information age. DeLillo's writing style is the best thing going for "Cosmopolis." Infused with deep cynicism and a measurable detachment, it still crackles with crisp, short sentences that convey much with little ado. The problem comes when the language puts too much out there, when the reader starts to bog down under the endless litany of Packer's mental ramblings. Although this book is extremely short and can be finished in a day, it still seems too long at times. If there is any point to this tale, or at least where the point seems to assume clarity, it is when Packer and his "advisor on theory" discuss the meaning of the ticker boards with their endless scroll of information and the implications of self-immolating oneself to protest capitalism. Eric's accumulation of information threatens to overwhelm his existence because all he possesses is random bits of information. He cannot seem to tie it all together into any relevant meaning other than making money. There seems to be a germ of hope for him towards the end of the story, but most of the book is merely cerebral gymnastics. The message of "Cosmopolis," about a man who has everything but wilts under his own inflated ego and goes off on a rampage, is definitely familiar. Bret Easton Ellis did something similar in "American Psycho," and he did it better. Eric Packer and Patrick Bateman are blood brothers, albeit relatives separated by about twenty years. When will these Wall Street archetypes' meltdowns have finality to them? Probably when the capitalist system finally collapses. In the meantime, we have people like Ellis and DeLillo dutifully reporting the carnage of undreamt of riches on the souls of humanity. Many people out there are quite knowledgeable about DeLillo's body of work and the philosophy that powers them. I can draw no firm conclusions about this author from reading just one of his books. But I strongly suggest thinking twice before plunging into "Cosmopolis." It takes too much effort for too little return.
Rating:
Summary: Slow but not exactly sweet...
Review: Right about the time I polished off "Underworld" for the third time, this new tome by the same author comes along. At just over 200 pages, I figured this would be a quick way to get some more DeLillo under my belt before I tackled any of his early works. I figured wrong. "Underworld", for all it's brilliance, contained numerous dull passages, often of a rather lengthy nature, many of them made dull by seemingly motiveless characters who wandered around performing inexplicable acts of minimal consequence, all in the name of some presumable Big Statement that never coalesced. BUT, and it's a big but (note the caps!), there were a superior number of masterful plot threads that were successfully brought to fruition, and it was these latter threads that not only saved the novel but made it one of the best published in the last ten years (I say this, of course, not having read much genre fiction, but if that's your bag you're probably not reading this review anyway). The problem with "Cosmopolis" can be summed up rather succinctly: it contains all of the drawbacks of "Underworld" without any of the payoffs. The lead character, Eric Packer, never clicks with the reader, even though all the Big Statement elements inherent in this plot are telegraphed way in advance (hell, the stretch limo on the cover just about says it all, and considering DeLillo is no minimalist that's not a good sign). The symbolism of having a disenfranchised ex-executive plotting to assassinate Packer also seems a bit obvious a ploy for someone as skilled in sketching out characters as Delillo. "Cosmopolis" is further burdened by a long laundry list of non-events that make up the plot and offer little resolution; a scene toward the end where Packer bursts into tears at a rapper's funeral seems to come out of nowhere, and nothing in the narrative up to that point has sufficiently illustrated the kind of growing remorse that leads to the inexplicable final quarter of the book. Nonetheless, believeable or not, once it's been made clear that Packer has growned disillusioned with his world to the point of self-destruction, the novel's denouement seems not only obvious but inevitable. All in all, not one of Delillo's finer works. In fact, this is exactly the type of book where you can get a good idea of it's quality from reading reviews. You can never agree with any one critic 100% of the time, but when a universal cross section of write ups all point to the same pros or cons of any given work it's about as good advice as you're going to get prior to reading the book for yourself. Which is indeed recommended, but in the case of Delillo and "Cosmopolis" do yourself a favor and save this one for last.
Rating: 
Summary: A Yen is not just a unit of currency.
Review: The dismissive reviews I read of Cosmopolis made me hesitate to buy it. After reading a library copy, I bought Cosmopolis to read a second time. I figure buying the book is the best vote cast in its favor. Cosmopolis is not a facile entertainment. It requires work on the reader's part. Delillo is exploring territory that, by its nature, eludes description. The mind has well-evolved strategies for perceiving and reacting to the world; non-rational strategies largely inaccessible to waking consciousness; strategies that worked for millennia, now effectively shunted aside and concealed from view - even while they operate continuously in clandestine ways. How do you view or talk about this hidden stuff? You can't name it because language by nature is rational and this, by its nature, is not. Delillo gives us a metaphor. Cosmopolis. It is incongruous. It doesn't match our world or its usual fictionalized portraits. The reader tries to fit the world s/he knows with the metaphor - it can't be done, it's incongruous. But in trying, the reader starts to sense an opening into something that is neither our world nor its metaphor Cosmopolis, something rising out of the tension between them. The book is an exploration into the tension between the normal surface of things and an animating underworld we know is there but hardly know. Reading, rereading Cosmopolis, thinking about it is like opening a door in the mind that leads to rooms not often visited.
Rating:
Summary: It's DeLillo, but...
Review: I was fortunate to read End Zone in the year of publication. Great Jones Street, et al - I've been on board. Even attended the Underworld book tour appearance in Los Angeles. Plus he's Italian. The voice I hear in his latest, is Don DeLillo's chronological one; not that of a 28-year old. Not even close. Another poster has made the comparison to Bret Easton Ellis; I too felt his shadow fall on these pages (despite the dedication to Paul Auster). I would recommend the reading of this book. It's only that you are getting the up-to-date DeLillo. Similar to the great improvisers of jazz, a musician peaks, levels-off and 'the sound of surprise' is 'ner more.
Rating:
Summary: Slow but not exactly sweet...
Review: Right about the time I polished off "Underworld" for the third time, this new tome by the same author comes along. At just over 200 pages, I figured this would be a quick way to get some more DeLillo under my belt before I tackled any of his early works. I figured wrong. "Underworld", for all it's brilliance, contained numerous dull passages, often of a rather lengthy nature, many of them made dull by seemingly motiveless characters who wandered around performing inexplicable acts of minimal consequence, all in the name of some presumable Big Statement that never coalesced. BUT, and it's a big but (note the caps!), there were a superior number of masterful plot threads that were successfully brought to fruition, and it was these latter threads that not only saved the novel but made it one of the best published in the last ten years (I say this, of course, not having read much genre fiction, but if that's your bag you're probably not reading this review anyway). The problem with "Cosmopolis" can be summed up rather succinctly: it contains all of the drawbacks of "Underworld" without any of the payoffs. The lead character, Eric Packer, never clicks with the reader, even though all the Big Statement elements inherent in this plot are telegraphed way in advance (hell, the stretch limo on the cover just about says it all, and considering DeLillo is no minimalist that's not a good sign). The symbolism of having a disenfranchised ex-executive plotting to assassinate Packer also seems a bit obvious a ploy for someone as skilled in sketching out characters as Delillo. "Cosmopolis" is further burdened by a long laundry list of non-events that make up the plot and offer little resolution; a scene toward the end where Packer bursts into tears at a rapper's funeral seems to come out of nowhere, and nothing in the narrative up to that point has sufficiently illustrated the kind of growing remorse that leads to the inexplicable final quarter of the book. Nonetheless, believeable or not, once it's been made clear that Packer has growned disillusioned with his world to the point of self-destruction, the novel's denouement seems not only obvious but inevitable. All in all, not one of Delillo's finer works. In fact, this is exactly the type of book where you can get a good idea of it's quality from reading reviews. You can never agree with any one critic 100% of the time, but when a universal cross section of write ups all point to the same pros or cons of any given work it's about as good advice as you're going to get prior to reading the book for yourself. Which is indeed recommended, but in the case of Delillo and "Cosmopolis" do yourself a favor and save this one for last.
Rating:
Summary: A Pastiche of Fascinating Set Pieces
Review: DeLillo's latest novel continues his tradition of being more interested in the ideas his characters represent than in the characters themselves. This is not necessarily a criticism; it just means that one must come to his novels with different expectations. DeLillo is a master of writing brilliant scenes, and often likes to lead off a book with a particularly wonderful set piece. In Mao II, it was a Moonie mass wedding; in Underworld, it was the fateful baseball game in 1954 which decided the World Series and which occurred simultaneously with the explosion of the Soviet Union's first H-Bomb. Cosmopolis does not lead off with such a set piece, but contains many wonderfully executed scenes, such as the anarchist riot, the funeral cortege for a dead rapper named Brother Fez, and the movie shoot involving hundreds of naked people lying in the street. But for all the brilliance of these individual scenes, the whole is somewhat unconvincing; characters talk to each other in abstractions, their actions not always believable. In particular, the scene where Eric Packer shoots another character in an off-handed, impulsive manner did not fit the person who in other scenes shows compassion, for example, for his limo driver. That scene in particular felt like the author's hand forcing the action out of a desire to derive delicious irony from it, but without regard to whether it fit what the character would actually do. Yet despite these faults, this book is so compelling in some of its scenes that it is definitely worthy of reading and reflection.
Rating:
Summary: Simple, it isn't a novel
Review: As a novel it fails in every possible way: plot, characterization, dialogue etc.
If you consider Cosmopolis a prose poem it works a lot better. DeLillo should have gone all the way and write directly in verse. Cosmopolis could have been compared to The Dunciad, The Age of Anxiety, the 'dramatic monologues' of Robert Browning, The Vanity of Human Wishes, The Prelude, Byron.
In poetry the greatest possible meaning has to be expressed in the smallest possible space, and I think it works (to a point) in Cosmopolis.
The dialogues don't have to be naturalistic - just meaningful. The characters don't be to well rounded - they are just human types. The plot doesn't have to hang togheter - it has to illustrate the morality of the story.
The writing of DeLillo, in this way, is quite beatiful and his description of the effects that ridicolous wealth and power can have on people (both the rich, the hangers-on, the others) feels right.
And I don't really think that Cosmopolis is dated. A lot of things have changed after 9/11: among them not the lives of people like Eric Packer. Frankly I don't understand people who thinks that people like him are uninteresting or not important. Rich and powerful people are always interesting and important and no, they don't have to be sympathetic or human to command obedience, respect and even affection.
Of course, a real novel would have been better. Underworld is much better and important. Cosmopolis is an interesting attempt.
Rating:
Summary: delillo, up to a point anyway
Review: cosmopolis is wanting in many ways. if you have come to appreciate the remarkable humour in an average delillo book, this will, no doubt, disappoint. certain touches are fantastic: delillo's exploration of the car itself (yes, in some sense, the one on the cover) is quite good, and the way in which the relationship between the protagonist and his wife plays out is also something to hold on to, but otherwise the book was, for me, non-engaging. the alternate naratives were, i thought, poorly executed and served little purpose in the end. one would have expected a brilliantly sharp moment of insight, an epiphany of sorts, yet instead the story ends up (essentially) fizzeling (fizzing? fizzle-ing? fizzling?) out with the end result nearly forcing the query: where's the ingenuity? instead try on underworld, white noise, ratner's star, or mao II. they all do an excellent job of showcasing delillo's writing style and his true talent, talent you might not notice if you restrict yourself to cosmopolis.
Rating: 
Summary: Even my favorites let me down once in a while
Review: Bottom line: This is not one of DeLillo's best, and close to one of his worst. While it started out with promise, the promise was unfulfilled. To me the pacing was interminable. While this book is almost one-quarter the length of UNDERGROUND, it took me three times longer to read. Part of the issue was the utter contempt I had for the main character, Eric Packer. You're not supposed to like him, I know, I know. But there are thousands of characters in literature that you aren't supposed to like but they are interesting, at least. Not this guy. The other issue I have with the book is that it seems so dated. While it takes to task the materialism of the '90s (which seem so far away since 9/11 and the market crash just before it), the flavor really smacks of the Walter Gekko-greed of the 1980s. There's nothing wrong with that but even the dated nature would have seemed extra-dated just five years ago. A long time ago I learned that even your best buddies can let you down. The same goes, it seems, for your favorite writers.
Rating:
Summary: Some sentences worth reading; whole book is not
Review: I went to see DeLillo read from this at the Steppenwolf in Chicago and left half way through. A friend who had attended the reading with me had bought a copy of the book. He read it then passed it on to me. I thought I'd try to read because I've like DeLillo's earlier books (except End Zone). The characters don't interest me, they're flat. All in all, the book has the quality of a take myself too seriously TV series and a shock-fest like American Psycho. This one seems to borrow too much from the saccharine world of Bret Easton Ellis but I don't think that DeLillo really lives in this kind of world (thank heaven's for that). Easton's work is overwrought and it seems as of late that he's written himself out. Compared to other DeLillo works, this is lackluster. He's such a fantastic writer, the sentences he contructs are fantastic. Such a shame to waste that talent on a tale such as this.
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