Crowds, conspiracies, consumer society, and futile attempts to thwart despair -- these are the trademark features of the work of Don DeLillo, a prolific American novelist at the edge of contemporary trends. DeLillo is undoubtedly an ironist, as his characters relentlessly...
[more]Crowds, conspiracies, consumer society, and futile attempts to thwart despair -- these are the trademark features of the work of Don DeLillo, a prolific American novelist at the edge of contemporary trends.
DeLillo is undoubtedly an ironist, as his characters relentlessly mock their relation to the superficial simulacra that surround them. But there's something else happening here as well. There is death, the persistent dread of mortality. These undifferentiated, dark forces crack open DeLillo's ironically constituted identities, exposing them to what their sardonic wit cannot control and inspiring frenzied flights from the confines of their meticulously constructed worlds.
DeLillo was born and raised in New York. His writing reflects his early exposure to urban living: he has an acute eye and ear for salient images and sound bytes, the savvy sense of a child of the city. His words flow quickly, tense and concentrated. He is not, like many of the writers with whom he is associated (Pynchon, Gaddis), a lover of long sentences. He uses clear, minimal images, and articulates his principal ideas in brief, charged pronouncements that sound like deadpan punch lines.
DeLillo is recognized principally for his "White Noise," a dark comedy about domestic, middle-American life. Here we encounter a world of supermarkets and toxic events, of children who at times supercede the intelligence of their parents, of images that have usurped the reality of their referent and insinuated themselves into every alcove of American life.
After "White Noise" came "Mao II," arguably his best book. At the center of the novel stands Bill Gray, a secluded writer who, after concealing himself from the press all his life, at last surrenders to the image, gives up writing his final book, and disappears. Although DeLillo might be lamenting the impotence of the written word in the face of the omnipotent visual image, his writing nevertheless moves with the quick elegance of film.
His latest novel is the enormous "Underworld," which once again confronts us with his privileged theme: the ironic individual facing the undifferentiated abyss. This time our narrator quite literally delves into it: he is a waste management man, concerned with the proper disposal of trash. This is DeLillo's portrait of life in the wake of the Cold War, where all that remains is waste. At the same time, it is his most autobiographical novel, bringing us back to his childhood on the streets of the Bronx.
DeLillo's work as a whole is characterized by this combination of irony and sincerity, this vacillation between cold wit and earnest wisdom. His books are a modulation of mood, capturing the fleeting, fumbling, and seeking that is the essence of Postmodernity.
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