Favorite Passages: "soccer in history"

Another humorous yet insightful comment from DeLillo about the world's most famous sport and its relationship with America.

I thought about soccer in history, the inspiration for wars, truces, rampaging mobs. The game was a global passion, spherical ball, grass or turf, entire nations in spasms of elation or lament. But what kind of sport is it that disallows the use of players' hands, except for the goalkeeper? Hands are essential human tools, the things that grasp and hold, that make, take, carry, create. If soccer were an American invention, wouldn't some European intellectual maintain that our historically puritanical nature has compelled us to invent a game structured on anti-masturbatory principles?

-- "Hammer and Sickle,"
The Angel Esmeralda

DeLillo Book Reviews: The Angel Esmeralda

This summer, I wrote a review of DeLillo's The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories for Goodreads. Given the nature of the site, the purpose of the review is not so much to analyze the work, but rather to get readers who are unfamiliar with DeLillo to be interested in him.

Here's the link: Review of The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories

I've also reproduced the review below.

Enjoy!

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THE PERFECT INTRODUCTION TO DON DeLILLO

Don DeLillo is currently my favorite writer, and I've been on a quest to read all of his works over the past few months. Whenever anyone asks me about DeLillo and to recommend a book by him, my response has usually been something like this: 

"I think he's an amazing writer, but I also recognize that he's certainly not for everyone. My suggestion is to read White Noise, since it's relevant, easy to find, and highly accessible, and then decide for yourself." 

After having completed The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories, however, I revoke this past statement of mine. It's not that White Noise is a bad book with which to expose yourself to DeLillo; it is a phenomenal piece of fiction, and if you choose to read it first (as I did), my bet is that you won't regret it. 

But, as a novel alone, White Noise (1985) perhaps paints an unfair portrait of DeLillo's writing career, which has spanned more than fifty years (1960-present). In other words, if you read this particular novel first, you may -- for better or for worse -- come to expect this kind of writing in all of DeLillo's works, and consequently you may find yourself a bit disappointed when you get around to his post-Underworld works (The Body Artist, Cosmopolis, Love-Lies-Bleeding, etc.).

The Angel Esmeralda, on the other hand, manages to cover more ground than White Noise in terms of DeLillo's career, seeing as the nine stories that comprise it were published between 1979-2011. But it is not for this reason alone that I believe The Angel Esmeralda represent the perfect introduction to this hilarious, haunting, and rather enigmatic American author, the litmus test for deciding whether or not to get involved with DeLillo.

Without spoiling the stories themselves, I will at least say that here readers will find many of the qualities and themes that make DeLillo the celebrated author that he is. To name just a few: his masterful discussion of airports; his passion for describing New York City; his belief that "the future belongs to crowds"; the influence of mass media; the impending financial collapse (as he predicted in his 2003 novel Cosmopolis); the way in which people almost systematically impose stories and backgrounds on other people in order to make sense of them; his interest in art; his insightful and ironic humor; and, finally, not only his admirable command of language, but his interest in language itself.

Although it is difficult to do so, I will pick a single passage from The Angel Esmeralda to quote, from "Midnight in Dostoevsky" (2010): 

If we isolate the stray thought, the passing thought, the thought whose origin is unfathomable, then we begin to understand that we are routinely deranged, everyday crazy.

Anyway, if you are one of those readers who's teetering on whether or not to pick up a book by Don DeLillo, then The Angel Esmeralda is where to begin -- and it may just push you over the edge.

DeLillo News & Notes: Why you shouldn't pay attention to New York Magazine's "Guide to the Don DeLillo Oeuvre"

In 2007, New York Magazine published this "Guide to the Don DeLillo Oeuvre" on their website. While I think that this is a great idea, especially for a writer like DeLillo, I think that it could have been executed much better.

For example, I cannot understand why Mao II -- a short, accessible book with big ideas about images, terrorism, and novelists, a book that won the Pen/Faulkner Prize and was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist -- is listed as "Recommended" instead of "Classic." Nor can I fathom why End Zone -- an early, eerie, and deeply funny book about the relationship between war and football -- is "For Fans Only"; certainly it should be "Recommended."

This guide, following in the footsteps of many critics, asks us to disregard DeLillo's post-Underworld writings, including Valparaiso, The Body Artist, Cosmopolis, and Love-Lies-Bleeding. Though I understand why someone might criticize these works, I just cannot get on-board with it. I would recommended Valparaiso and especially Cosmopolis (which, we can say with hindsight, proved part of its worth when the American economy recessed.) The only exception, perhaps, is the Body Artist: I am still searching for a way to redeem this book.

Finally, Libra, one of my favorite DeLillo novels, is, I must say, something of a departure from his usual writing style. So, even though it is an enjoyable read, it does not give someone a good introduction into DeLillo's sensibilities as a writer. For this reason, it may not be the best place to begin. At the same time, the highlight of Libra -- i.e. the assassination of President Kennedy -- does provide the basis on which all of DeLillo's work is built, and this may be sufficient justification for reading it first.

As I wrote in a previous review that I expect to publish on this blog tomorrow, I believe that DeLillo's recently published short-story collection, The Angel Esmeralda, provides the best introduction to his work because it is accessible, easy to read, features classic DeLillo themes, and spans the better part of his writing career (1979-2011). (Of course, this short-story collection was not in print when the New York Magazine created its guide.)

Or, if it must be a novel, then I would recommend that one begin with White Noise. It's difficult to find a better representative text of DeLillo than this.

Registers of Affect #2: the way terror "hovers and shimmers"

DeLillo is the laureate of terror, of modern or postmodern terror, and the way it hovers and shimmers in our subliminal minds.

-- Martin Amis

See the full review of The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories:
"Laureate of Terror: Don DeLillo's prophetic soul"

Favorite Passages: "How do they endure all those terrible things?"

I came across this passage as I was reading The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories (New York: Scribner, 2011). The story is called "Human Moments in World War III," and it was originally published in 1983 (Esquire, July). The story is about two men in orbit around the earth, the narrator and a younger man named Vollmer. The passage consists of the latter's sublime musings from their bird's-eye perspective. The emphasis on the names of the things themselves -- the deserts, the oceans, the volcanoes, the hurricanes -- and the theme of catastrophe strikes me as classic DeLillo. For, as he writes in White Noise, "Only a catastrophe gets our attention."

Anyway, it is, I feel, a piece of writing to be admired.

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It's almost unbelievable when you think of it, how they live there in all that ice and sand and mountainous wilderness. Look at it," he says. "Huge barren deserts, huge oceans. How do they endure all those terrible things? The floods alone. The earthquakes alone make it crazy to live there. Look at those fault systems. They're so big, there's so many of them. The volcanic eruptions alone. What could be more frightening than a volcanic eruption? How do they endure avalanches, year after year, with numbing regularity? It's hard to believe people live there. The floods alone. You can see whole huge discolored areas, all flooded out, washed out. How do they survive, where do they go? Look at the cloud buildups. Look at that swirling storm center. What about the people who live in the path of a storm like that? It must be packing incredible winds. The lightning alone. People exposed on beaches, near trees and telephone poles. Look at the cities with their spangled lights spread in all directions. Try to imagine the crime and violence. Look at the smoke pall hanging low. What does that mean in terms of respiratory disorders? It's crazy. Who would live there? The deserts, how they encroach. Every year they claim more and more arable land. How enormous those snowfields are. Look at the massive storm fronts over the ocean. There are ships down there, small craft, some of them. Try to imagine the waves, the rocking. The hurricanes alone. The tidal waves. Look at those coastal communities exposed to tidal waves. What could be more frightening than a tidal wave? But they live there, they stay there. Where could they go?