Just finished this, want to talk about it. Anyone else read it? Overall, I enjoyed it a lot, but
I was kind of letdown with the extent or lack thereof, of Nick and Klara's interaction. I feel like it could have been a lot more... significant?
[quote]Is Matty an aspie?[/quote]
It's a great fucking book. I sorta see what you're talking about with Nick and Klara. A lot see the Klara sections as the weakest.
> Is Matty an aspie?
Maybe, I thought he reminded me of Pynchon, at least his secret job and then smoking weed and getting paranoid about it
The novel as a whole felt incredibly cinematic to me. Not only the creepy Texas Highway killer episodes (dat description of the video playing on CNN...)
Also, fuck the meme that the epilogue is the best part. The ending was way better.
I wasn't all that impressed with Nick at all. I liked the nuns and the Graffiti artist, the Lenny Bruce parts. And the black kid and his father. Didnt care much about the 70's art scene in New York. Or nick's dark secret backstory.
Is there a lot of art life in this book?
Nick's backstory was cool. I see him with the waiter guy so well. In fact, I can revisit so many of the scenes in my mind.
Klara Sax is some proto-hipster performance artist. She's kind of a shitty person/talentless hack.
Israel Munoz is a graffiti artist not unlike Banksy.
The regular ending? I don't think it would have been satisfying to end it there. The epilogue was good, but I think the best part in the novel were
-the prologue
-the bombing mission chapter (holy shit that was some good writing)
-the last section before the prologue with teen Nick
The Klara parts were weak. And I can't believe he didn't do anything with Klara at the party with J. Edgar Hoover.
>dat very last part though
I feel like Delillo was kind of like ah fuck let's just finish this thing.
Whoops forgot to add the Manx Martin sections. Those were also good.
I was let down by Nick's murder. It was built up all story as a product of his turbulent youth ... not much of a reform if he didn't do anything that wrong to begin with.
i'll have to reread this sometime though. way too overwhelming for one read
>I feel like Delillo was kind of like ah fuck let's just finish this thing.
You mean the son on the computer, and Delillo implicitly says "Lurk, but don't post."
> I can't believe he didn't do anything with Klara at the party with J. Edgar Hoover.
Shit. That would have been pretty cool. But is Klara a "real" enough artist to do something like that? She seemed like a pseudo to me.
Klara is not a performance artist. She's a visual artist.
The chapter with Munoz talking about tagging was pretty good.
Nice spoiler alert, m8!
The murder was such a great scene.I don't think it was a let-down and I don't think Nick was ever built up to be that much of a delinquent. But the reader and Nick slowly realize that maybe the waiter wanted to die and gave him the gun on purpose but it's still kind of fucked up how Nickcould have guessed what he wanted. I think part of the narrative structure is Nick figuring out how he knew Mike the waiter wanted to die.
He wasn't some crack-addict sketch-bag, he just half-sensed it and half wanted to see what would happen.
You don't think that would fuck with your head?
I just meant like very end. Sister Edgar dying and like becoming one with everything on the internet
I didn't necessarily mean she had to interact directly with Hoover, but I really figured they would do something with her at the party. She brings the party up at the beginning of the novel, I just assumed it would be a part that would feature her prominently when it came around.
I think her friend, that black chick, was the pseud. Miles called her out for being a pandering SJW with nothing to say really. Klara was already established as a respected artist in NY. I think the implication was that she promoted the black woman's work out of white guilt or something, even though it sucked.
It was a very great scene. Really interesting how you finally learn how it actually played out. Very unexpected and unnerving. And very psychologically complex. So much going on there.
Clearly George Manza either knew the gun was loaded or was not sure. But clearly he did not care if he died. Nick is the more interesting case. On some level he wanted to shoot Manza I think.
I see what you mean, I guess. I still kinda liked it but that the ending with Nick was really good.
Her black friend was definitely a pseud. She painted pictures of black dudes with big dicks on motorcycles,or something, right?
Anyone else feel like the whole atmosphere of this novel influenced a ton of TV shows?
too many spoilers going on I can't bring myself to look at all your posts. can someone compare this to some other books. how good is it lol.
Yeah she painted like black gangs and that actress who played Marilyn Monroe. Her show got shitty reviews.
I think the idea was that Klara supported her out of white guilt and the other message was that in general, people are self serving and will sacrifice principal, etc. to that end.
The irony being that the black woman clung to the white woman benefactor for promotion of her black SJW stuff. Clearly some pride and principle was lost there at the expense of trying to get ahead.
I don't think the black woman was a bad person though.
Give examples.
Big, non-linear sprawling postmodern thing. The best way I can describe it is "Infinite Jest for Boomers"
Infinite Jest for Boomers is a good way to put it. Lots of pretty prose and significant ennui that'd you expect with some po-mo books. It's very good though, but kind of on the dry side. DeLillo is very funny but the humor in this is spare and spread out but it is out there.
I really liked it and read it quickly. I guess some don't like it. It's about how normal people lived through the Cold War. Covers similar themes as Pynchon in perhaps a more accessible way.
I was going to say it reminded me a bit of The Wire, or any TV show/film that features multiple narratives and urban city life. Maybe I just think Delillo is really, really good at describing films.
It's ripe for an HBO adaptation too bad they're shit now
I don't find Delillo obviously post-modern. I mean, he is in many ways, but most won't read Libra and say, "Wow, how post-modern" even though it is.
He doesn't have the craziness/mix of styles of Pynchon, who I think is what people come to expect in a post-modern novel.
I haven't read any DFW but I think DFW liked Delillo more, or wanted to write like Delillo more than Pynchon, because there's less apparent irony in Delillo.
I think he's very clearly post-modern. My handle on the whole thing has always been loose I think, but his topics are always incorporate an awareness of media (something I think is key) and how media and communication has changed the world and his, American, subjects always felt very po-mo to me. That and his use of 2nd person and some of his other formal writing choices I think makes him a definite post modern author, if you want to not consider the general agreement the lit world has come to on him I mean.
I don't think it's clear. Libra is po-mo in the way it tries to imagine power relations but a lot will read it and think Delillo is giving the final word on the assassination.
The common tropes for po-mo lit are usually intertextuality, irony, mix of high and low, playing with cause and effect etc...stylistically, I don't find him very po-mo. Thematically, yes, absolutely.
But he's like Pynchon if Pynchon came out of Steinbeck or Hemingway and not James Joyce and Borges.
>But he's like Pynchon if Pynchon came out of Steinbeck or Hemingway
hmm yes, well put. I can't say I see DeLillo dip into low-brow much either, he's got his pay-dirt in deep and pretty prose too much to dare I bet. Lenny Bruce in this book is the lowest I've seem him reach, though I've only read through White Noise other than this so that may not be true of his other stuff.
Lenny Bruce is as middle-brow as it gets.
Still, the lowest I've seen..
........WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!
What I'm saying is Delillo doesn't mix science writing with comic book scenes.