About this title: In order to dramatize the theme that all people and events in the universe are connected, DeLillo presents several narrators and a series of chronologically dislocated events. Additionally, history and facts scattered throughout the novel connect the reader to DeLillo's fictional world. After the reader discovers how these disjointed experiences ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Prentice Hall & IBD
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780684848150ISBN:0684848155
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Prentice Hall & IBD
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780684842691ISBN:0684842696
Description: Very Good. Family business dispatching books to all over the world within 24/48 hours. Next day delivery and gist wrapping are available. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Picador
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780330354325ISBN:0330354329
Description: Good. All orders are dispatched from our UK warehouse within one working day. Established in 2004. No quibble refund if not completely satisfied. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Picador
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780330354325ISBN:0330354329
Description: Good. All orders are dispatched from our UK warehouse within one working day. Established in 2004. No quibble refund if not completely satisfied. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Prentice Hall & IBD
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780684842691ISBN:0684842696
Description: Very Good. EXCELLENT value for money and ready for dispatch. Delivery usually within 3/5 days. Our reputation is built on our Speedy Delivery Service and our Customer Service Team. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Prentice Hall & IBD
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780684842691ISBN:0684842696
Description: Good. This book is in GOOD overall condition. It shows signs of having been read and has general light wear to the cover, spine and pages. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780684842691ISBN:0684842696
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 832 p. Audience: General/trade. New York, NY, U.S.A. : Scribner, 1997, New York, NY, U.S.A., 1997. Hard Cover. Book Condition: Very Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Fine. First Edition, First Printing. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Hard Cover. Very Fine/Very Fine. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. First Edition, First Printing, . National Book Award nominee. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: PICADOR
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780684848150ISBN:0684848155
Description: Published by PICADOR in 1998, paperback, tall size, covers good, internally very good, wear to head & tail of spine, a good used copy. Shipped from UK. Delivery is usually 2-3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: PICADOR
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780330354325ISBN:0330354329
Description: Published by Picador in 1998. Paperback. Number of pages: 1000. Condition: Very Good. May show some slight signs of wear. Shipped from UK. Delivery is usually 2-3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: PICADOR
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780330354325ISBN:0330354329
Description: Published by Picador in 1998. Paperback. Number of pages: 1000. Condition: Good. Used book but in Good Condition for sensible price. Shipped from UK. Delivery is usually 2-3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail. read more
Edition: Reprint
Binding: Cloth w/ Gilt Lettering
Publisher: Scribner, New York
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780684842691ISBN:0684842696
Description: Near Fine in Very Good+ jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. US edition. Slight wrinkle top spine-ends o/w no exterior faults, interior clean & tight. Jacket not price-clipped, sl wear to spine-ends, sl rubbing. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: PICADOR
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780330354325ISBN:0330354329
Description: Published by Picador in 1998. Hardback with Dust jacket. Number of pages: 1000. Condition: Good. Used book but in Good Condition for sensible price. Corners bumped. Shipped from UK. Delivery is usually 2-3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail. read more
"At nearly 900 pages, Underworld is often cited as Delillo's masterpiece. I didn't find it to be that, exactly; it is a fiction-of-everything that tests literary boundaries and the reader's patience in often disproportionate measure. At its disparate best the novel explores the subconscious desires (for death, love, a sense of history) of the latter half of the 20th century through a pseudo-confluential series of vignettes, separated into suites by loose chronology and character associations. At its scattershot worst, Underworld is a frustrating, sometimes dull look at a group of people whose individual desires and anxieties never seem to culminate in the broader historical context Delillo wishes them to. This is partly a failing of scope and focus: Nick Shay and Klara Sax, the ostensibly central characters with whom we spend more time than anyone else, are not altogether interesting people, especially when divorced (early in the novel) from their Bronx roots. Klara especially, whose story dominates the central suite set in early 70s Manhattan, is a frustratingly vague, meandering presence. While Nick's banal life in an Arizona suburb is at least suffused with a hint of mystery, Klara's is just plain boring. Coming away from Klara, Underworld regains a good bit of momentum, moving us through a dizzying series of people, places and times. Lenny Bruce and J. Edgar Hoover make appearances, often to greater effect than any of the primary or even tertiary characters. The novel's culmination, nearly 100 pages in the 1950s South Bronx spent with Nick as a knockaround youth, is done a disservice by the monotonous, lukewarm epilogue. Underworld is an important book by one of the 20th century's greatest living writers, but it rarely moves beyond the ground covered-in a more toothsome and certainly briefer fashion-in earlier works like Libra and White Noise."
"(3.5/5) DeLillo is obviously an excellent writer, but this book was a bit too epic, too long, too many characters. Much of it would make excellent short story material, and I have to admit that it was fun when correlations fell into place (e.g. at one point the owner of the infamous baseball, Chuckie flew in the bombers that Klara ended up painting; Hoover's garbage was searched; the change minus the dollar price of the ball was thirteen, etc). I also appreciate modern writers' ability to flex time. However, all these connections (minor or otherwise), all the time flex, and all the characters slowed me down to a snail's pace in an epic story that is already 800+ pages. More is not always better! One could also argue that the characters were lacking passion - of course this could be a fuction of what happens when you look back over your life, a form in which this book may be read. I did really enjoy how he jutaposed waste, bombs, time, etc. This is a book that does resonate in your memory..."
"Following a series of characters all loosely connected, DeLillo attempts to encompass and explore the entirety of modern(post?) America from the outer boroughs of NYC to the suburbs of Phoenix over a span of five decades. Beginning at a baseball game in 1951 at the events that took place there and elsewhere in the world that day, Underworld embarks on an exhaustive depiction of events and facets that characterize America (baseball, suburbs, Cuban Missle Crisis, etc) and its effect on the American psyche through intimate stories revolving around everyone from a waste contractor to Lenny Bruce.
Overwhelming? Hardly. This is a collage of post-modern life that is filled with symbols and coincidences that we want to assign meaning, when in actuality, much like our own daily experiences, any meaning is shrouded, hidden and quite possibly doesn't even exist. Many of the characters of Underworld find themselves caught in this impasse, wanting to find a truth out in the physical world, but ultimately failing to ever do so. Sound familiar? Yeah, DeLillo might describing your life. (Ironically, and actually quite impressively, it seems after reading reviews of this book from people who did not like it, that they might have been struggling with the same dilemma while reading the book.) If it all seems a little too over-intellectual, it really isn't. DeLillo just seems to have an acute sense of what its like to live in America from the 1950's onward.
Maybe this is going out on a limb, but I feel like this book can also be read as a collection of short stories revolving around similar themes. Its big, messy and sure, maybe could have been edited a bit, but in the end its a satisfying read that moves quite quickly. (If I hadn't moved across the country by car half way through this book, I probably would have gotten through it quicker myself.)
Okay, no more books this year that are 600 + pages. This is my fourth (fifth?) since June (my Goodreads years start in June to coincide with when I started this list)."
"I totally fail to see what makes Don DeLillo such a great writer and why people are all over this novel. It's that obnoxious Pynchon/Wallace type of post-modern fiction where all the emphasis is placed on novelty and not enough on the fundamentals of good writing. The prose is mediocre, the dialogue is wooden and the characterization is TERRIBLE. 800 effing pages and I still have no clue who any of these characters are, none of them have even the slightest sense of realness. But the plots intertwine and it's really long and I guess that's what passes for a good novel in people's minds."
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