Finished this today, first time reading Delillo. I liked it.

but its white noise's theme of death and its relation to all the trivialities of our life that precisely makes it so potently good - It's about, in a sense, living life to the fullest while taking the mundane in stride.

its important too for predicting the progression of where studies in university were going. Hitler studies and American pop culture studies courses seemed comical at the time, but at the uni I go to, there are classes exactly like that. There's a senior comm seminar dedicated to harry potter studies for fuck's sake

Prose-wise, I've always seen him as the opposite of thomas pynchon - tighter sentences with more punch and concision. not very long-winded, influenced by dashiell hammett's stenographer style, etc.

Check out Libra senpai

>>9732941
Maybe I'd get more out of it on a reread, with actual literature that always seems to be the case. And I did like it, I guess I just expected to feel something from it, and it was more interesting than emotional for me. The characters all felt similarly disconnected to me, like they often became just mouthpieces for his comedic dialogue. Which I did like, I just didn't actually care about any of them cause they didn't feel very real. Except for some of the kids maybe.

For me the prose was fine, it just didn't often seem very musical to me, which I guess is what I tend to like. Sometimes it really hit the spot too, but it mostly felt very dry.

I do plan on reading more of his stuff, thanks for the rec!

>>9732955
libra, ironically, to tie it to my pynchon comparison, is a kind of historical fiction - it pretty accurately follows the arc of lee harvey oswald's life - but adds a fictional layer of conspiracy and other stuff on top of it and its pretty gripping imo. raced through it across a 3 day work weekend because I just couldn't put it down

I kinda dislike this book.
It's like a bad Pynchon-lite.
David Wallace without ambition.

>>9732971
Definitely felt the influence it had on DFW, especially the dialogue.

I feel like DeLillo is a great writer of the mundane. Besides the black cloud section and the ending, nothing much happens.
I'm a little over halfway through Underworld right now and it feels like I'm getting blueballed by it. Every paragraph, every chapter and every story arc seems to be building up to something that just never comes. I'm 500 pages into it and almost nothing of great importance has happened.

>>9733258
>I'm a little over halfway through Underworld right now and it feels like I'm getting blueballed by it. Every paragraph, every chapter and every story arc seems to be building up to something that just never comes. I'm 500 pages into it and almost nothing of great importance has happened.

Well, I read Underworld faster than any other book of his(yes, even Mao II). And I fucking loved the ending. I don't get people's criticisms of that book. It spoke directly to me and clicked instantly.

His best is either Underworld or Libra. Very close.

>>9732955
>>9733258
In both cases the criticism here reflects authorial intent. You mightn't like it, but this isn't accidental.

In White Noise the characters are disconnected and acting as mouthpieces (this is how they are), in Underworld the Cold War was one long blue ball incident of dread. Its possible you might be a little young to remember this but unfortunately its all happening again I think so you'll have a second chance. Nothing much happening was absolutely terrifying for decades.

Am I the only one who thinks that people talk like the characters in White Noise and they're not just mouthpieces for Delillo?

I dunno, I can see north american families talking like that. Obviously not every family but there's a certain upper-middle class family that could talk like that. I saw myself a lot in White Noise, maybe that's why.

>>9733611
I think 'naturalistic' dialogue is often an illusion itself. However, I would argue that the characters in white noise, when expounding on a subject, drift into very similar tones and syntax. There's some broad homogenizing effect at work there. The various characters become distinct through Gladney's POV, but when they talk they start to hive mind, which is fine with me.

I saw a lot of myself in the dialogue too.

One of the most praise worthy things about Delillo is how incredibly prescient he is. Read Mao II and then consider it was written in 1991

>Does he have other stuff that's supposed to be quite a bit better

Underworld is supposedly his crowning achievement though I never read the entire book, save for the prologue which was published as a seperate novella at first called "Pafko at the Wall" which was absolutely incredible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DTePKA1wgc

This is also superb