do you think don delillo speaks like a character from a don delillo novel in real life

i was going to agree with that but then i couldn't remember whether i was thinking of 'the fisher king' or not

Mylon Ware stood in a corner talking to no one. He was a folk singer from western Canada, a lean bleak man with strange eyes. His second winter in New York he killed and ate his dog to keep from starving. People had offered him food and urged him to go on welfare but he took nothing, listened to no one, said not a word. The dog was a German shepherd, bought for protection, and very hard to kill. Mylon began by using the long bar that was part of his police lock. The first blow wasn't severe or direct enough and the bar proved too long a weapon for the kind of struggle that followed. However it was useful for holding off the dog while Mylon maneuvered with his hunting knife, also brought for protection. It took him fifteen minutes to kill the animal. When it was over, almost nothing in the small apartment stood in the same place, or was free of blood.

liked yr post btw thomp; think those things probably read true, though are separate from the broadly musical things i get from his prose & mood - i can't hate on him for telling an elliptical story strung loosely & inconclusively along themes of war & the desert &c because that's just so delillo - it's like OH BACK TO NEW JERSEY HUH PHILIP, & also bc he had a hand in foregrounding that stuff in contemporary american lit, i think. like on reflection a part of point omega doesn't sound so distinguishable from americana - the journey in to the landscape, the introspection of the lead, filtered through his industry-speak, &c. it's him working variations on a theme, albeit on a small & modern canvas.

haha i would probably rather still read it than the 'best' roth novels so = ??

i remember nothing about americana, though i know i've read it. i've started letting myself reread them out of order now though so i don't know when i'll reach that one.

there is a recurring thought that i have been having in this current delillo jag, which i think i had a fairly inarticulate go at explaining in the other delillo thread -- that delillo is spectacularly (in more than one sense!) ill-served by quite how much his stuff appears to align with Things You Teach Kids About Postmodernism 101. too tired to remember what i meant by that actually.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I just tried to read The Names, and ugh, that guy's dialogue is sooo lame. His characters use the same syntax and prose as his exposition=boring.

― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 11 July 2007 18:57 (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i read an interview with him where he claimed that he got every line of dialogue in his book by transcribing verbatim overheard conversations on public transport. which just cannot be true because nobody speaks like they do in his books ever.

books

In his books.

zero k coming in may
http://books.simonandschuster.com/Zero-K/Don-DeLillo/9781501135392

lol, good thread

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/12/magazine/don-delillo-interview.html?action=click&module=Editors%20Picks&pgtype=Homepage

lol wow

Let me ask about something that’s not in “The Silence,” at least not anymore. In the first galley copy I read, there’s a scene in which a character is reciting disastrous events and mentions Covid-19. Then I was told there were changes to the book and was sent a second galley. Covid-19 was gone. Why did you take it out?

I didn’t put Covid-19 in there. Somebody else had. Somebody else could have decided that it made it more contemporary. But I said, “There’s no reason for that.”

Can't read as I've not got a subs but it sounds wild

Don DeLillo really talks like a Don DeLillo novel pic.twitter.com/wPhP3PQtK6

— Matthew Zeitlin (@MattZeitlin) October 12, 2020