/lit/ - Literature

>>6603373
I mean Underworld wasn't exactly light reading...
Also maybe stop calling writers memes
But yeah he is pretty good, a little bit
heavy-handed sometimes, like snippits
of Mao II that could probably be dropped
particularly some of the WASP-y dialogue.

>>6603373
He's not a meme because his works, while post modern, are comprehensible, accessible, and are able to be understood without having to learn certain esoteric subjects to form an opinion on the meaning of the text in regards to analogy, metaphor, parallels etc. He is a very good novelist, his themes are very human, he can be philosophical, but you are able to understand what he is alluding to without a degree in philosophy. His prose is also just flat out amazing at times. 10/10 writer would recommend.

>>6603446
So he is good because he makes you think less?

>>6603446
>human

>>6603473
https://youtu.be/YgHNtzxO0y8

>>6603459
Why do people think clear prose isn't capable of conveying complex ideas? If anything, clarity in writing facilitates the ability to think profoundly.

>>6603459
>>6603527
BTFO

>>6603478
>meming

Isn't Underworld his sprawling maximalist novel? I haven't read it yet.

I have read White Noise, Libra, Falling Man, and Mao II and I thought they were all spectacular. He is probably less popular here because he is almost painfully direct with his themes; there's not much room for interpretation in most of his books. But he's a great writer and he puts a lot of thought into his characters.

Oh, hello.

>>6603373

stop being a shill

he will not become a meme

good stuff

>>6603527
That isn't what you said. You said he is able to be understood without learning about "esoteric" "analogy, metaphor, parallels, etc.". The Talmud is clear enough prose but you won't catch the gist without knowing the references. Similarly should we say that Apocalypse Now or Aguirre be docked points because the enjoyment of them can be magnified by also having read Heart of Darkness? DeLillo can present philosophical ideas in plain speech until the cows come how, but if you don't take those ideas beyond the text and interface with them then are you really doing anything? Why is the author obligated to spoon feed you, to compromise expansion on philosophy, or aesthetics, to instead simplify concepts so that you can say "Oh I know that too!" I feel like you're the type of person who would have hated when Melville stopped writing pulp.

>>6603585
No, I don't believe a writer should "spoonfeed," but I'm just pointing out the matter of writing clearly. One aspect of writing clearly is presenting allusions in a way that it is integrated strategically and fluidly within a work and without having to extrapolate what that allusion is about (a good reader should do well in looking up references he doesn't know, anyway). A great example would be in the works of Joyce and other modernists in general.

>>6603373

rich white american boomer

>>6603585
Also, are you kidding me? Melville is his most clearest in Moby Dick and subsequent works. He makes us understand philosophical ideas and allusions in such an engaging way without deviating from the story.

>>6603641
>race and status defines literature

>>6603654

Why not? let's disqualify works based on it, for a laugh, do you actually come here because you like literature? you a faggo?

>>6603641
Nigga, he grew up in the working-class part of the Bronx as the son of immigrant Italian parents.

>>6603620
O.K., but if we are saying that Joyce's prose presents allusions clearly enough then I don't think DeLillo is any more successful than, say, Pynchon--though I will concede that Mason & Dixon has some rough spots, but like Gravity's Rainbow or Inherent Vice--that the difference is stylistic not obscurantist. Pynchon makes some weird allusions, but I don't feel as if they are generally combating the fluidity of the work, or when they are jagged--like the sort of out-of-nowhere, 4th wall breaking Ishmael Reed reference in Gravity's Rainbow--it is a lamp-shading and doesn't make the text less accessible than any other allusion would. Also, sorry about the Melville thing, the meme guy got my goat I guess...

hes the martin scorsese of literature

>>6603685

He has been rich for decades and he wrote during that time

>>6603645
Wait, you think the Locke and Kant whale heads didn't seem a little...tangential?

>>6603697
Who cares?

>>6603699
Well, I never said Moby Dick was perfect (it can be uneven at times), but part of Melville's genius was in bringing us back to solid ground after those metaphysical tangents. Also, there is irony abound, so don't underestimate Melville's strategic choices.

>>6603689
more like David Cronenberg

libra's incredible.

>>6603459
No. He's good because he doesn't obfuscate his ideas with turgid prose.

>>6603373
He's not a meme because his books are not famously difficult. Lit has an obsession with the three enormous allusion-drenched tomes because they make them feel like wacky genius obscure literary types that exist on an intellectual echelon unattainable by the everyday reader. Plain old good writers like Delillo are no longer obscure enough

underworld is delillo's sprawling maximalist novel.

libra is pretty sprawling as well.

delillo's good.

>>6603754
LOL I get this joke.....

>>6603754
>David Cronenberg
Nice.

He compared himself to some European director for his Paris Review's Art of Writing interview.

>>6603373

I grabbed Cosmopolis on a library run a couple months ago. I was looking for White Noise but they didn't have it.

I thought it was solid, but there wasn't anything surprising or revelatory about it. The subject matter is germane, there are a few scenes that were grand in a cinematic manner, and the prose is serviceable.

There's nothing really experimental about the writing style or narrative structure though. I don't need a book to have those qualities to enjoy it, but their absence felt conspicuous to me.

I'd read The Lover by Marguerite Duras the day before though. That book meanders and deals with time and memory, revealing information with an intentionally uneven tempo. I liked The Lover a lot, and Cosmopolis just felt kind of flat to me right afterwards.

>>6606404
Which one?

>>6606533
read Players and Great Jones Street

>>6607784

I'll check those out, thanks for the recommendations