Thoughts on don delillo? What kind of place does he occupy on the spectrum of american literature...

thoughts on don delillo? What kind of place does he occupy on the spectrum of american literature? How important is he in the grand scheme of American lit?
I've read white noise and libra

Other urls found in this thread:

lmgtfy.com/?q=the influence of don delillo
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

How about you give us your opinion.

lmgtfy.com/?q=the influence of don delillo

He's top-tier middlebrow

Define "middlebrow", and why you would place him there.

DFW practically worshipped him, so we should too

dank meme, bro

Does this answer your question?

aha yep

middlebrow = hes good, but too many people read him

>the author's credibility falters based on the amount of people reading him

you are a fucking pseud. get off my board.

i was explaining the other guy's thought process

I think that user just means he's a good writer but he's either unambitious or myopic in his goals. Someone might criticize Delillo for being too American in spirit and content.

It's interesting. He's not talked about as much as pynchon even though they both deal in the same subject matter and literary movements

I stopped reading halfway through. It just wasn't very good. Jack was too much of a beta.

well that's a dumb reason to stop reading

They're so different in terms of content and style though...

White Noise is an absolute masterpiece. Only other book of his I have read is Point Omega, which was alright but merely shadowed by the greatness of the prior.

I liked White Noise. There were some genuinely funny moments, and I always enjoy someone making fun of social sciences and academia.

I really liked White Noise and Libra. End Zone was weak overall. Point Omega I thought was interesting when I read it but I barely even remember what the book was about. Libra was great. I read Mao II and Zero K too quickly and should reread them to make a judgment. I will say the dinner scene in Mao II is excellent. Extremely tense.

He's reasonably good and deals with some interesting themes in amusing ways but stylistically and prose-wise he's somewhat lacking compared to the best of the best. Definitely a solid author though.

Is being "too american" a legitimate complaint? I'm an American and I love American literature, but do people from other countries have trouble picking up Walt Whitman because he is "too American"? Genuinely curious. Additionally, is the postmodern era is there such a thing as a modern era book capable of being reduced to a national zeitgeist? When "The American Renaissance" was written, europe and america were apples and oranges, while today the differences are less apparent, maybe granny smith and gala apples. The most apparent themes that appear I beleive lend themselves most readily to theory from non american theorists such as the consumer culture being understandable via the french marxists. I guess what I'm trying to ask you is if there is a legitimate claim that there is a distinct and unique european post modern culture that is seperate from the american post modern culture.

I just don't know any other way to call him a fluff faggot who writes about shit I find entirely uninteresting in the most uninteresting way.
I'd say, wide-scale, it's absolutely a complaint. when Delillo writes about something like paranoia, it's not paranoia, it's American paranoia. Also, for reasons of posterity.
He's too-American in an objectionable and inflexible sense. Whitman isn't anything like this. Whitman is not drowned in any type of myopia because his project was more about being alive. Whitman is as American as Heidegger.

I probably sound like a faggot, I just can't actually give a reason why he's bad because I don't think he is. I just really don't like him. He inspired Franzen and DFW in the wrong ways, which is why no one gives a shit about them outside of America, and why none of them will be remembered in a hundred years.

>Whitman is as American as Heidegger

Wew lad

Basically what I mean is that Delillo, Franzen, DFW, all seemed like people who are afraid of life. And not only were they content with this, they believe it to be superior to any other way.
All I mean by that Heidegger-Whitman thing is that their work is not ad hoc like the others.

I think you're severely misreading DeLillo if you think he's afraid of life, if anything I'd more expect him to not believe in a concept of life and think that it's incoherent nonsense that's a feature of the human brain to survive.

I think you're just misunderstanding what I mean, probably because you read Delillo.

I also need to reread Mao II to make a proper judgement (popular Veeky Forums consensus is that it's his best), but the funeral of Imam Khomeini was one of the best scenes of interiority I've ever read.

>incoherent nonsense that's a feature of the human brain to survive.
DeLillo saw life more of an Othered necessity present in the realm of the social. White Noise showed this in the last chapters w the nun

Underworld was the worst book I've ever read

Franzen.

>an Othered necessity present in the realm of the social
what do you mean by this?

youre an idiot

>White Noise showed this in the last chapters w the nun

dude, you have no clue, youre confusing two books, retard

From browsing Veeky Forums this seems to be the consensus:

>Libra is god tier
>White Noise and The Names are good
>Underworld and everything else is mixed