About this title: Don DeLillo's 13th novel focuses on a 28-year-old billionaire, Eric Packer, on one fateful day in his life. It's April, 2000, and Eric spends most of the day being driven around Manhattan in his limo. From the back seat, he weathers a series of disasters, both economic (the yen is rising when Eric bet on its fall) and local (he and his driver meet up with an anarchist group), commits an act of violence, lunches with his wife but has sex with two other women, and confronts the stalker who is plaguing him. A New York Times Notable Book for 2003.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Picador
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780330412766ISBN:0330412760
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: Paperback
Publisher: Picador
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780330412759ISBN:0330412752
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: Picador
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780330412766ISBN:0330412760
Description: Good. Our aim is to create value for our customers through the provision of low cost, affordable products and an overall satisfying buying experience. read more
Description: Very good. Slight wear to edges of external cover; Several small indentations on rear external cover; Otherwise excellent condition; read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780743244244ISBN:0743244249
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Really nice and clean condition. Has some wear on the cover. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 209 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: PICADOR
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780330412766ISBN:0330412760
Description: Hardback book in good condition at sensible price. Shipped from UK. Delivery is usually 2-3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Date Published: 04/2003
ISBN-13:9780743244244ISBN:0743244249
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 209 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Date Published: 04/2003
ISBN-13:9780743244244ISBN:0743244249
Description: Good in good dust jacket. Good, In good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 209 p. Ex-Library expected imperfections. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Date Published: 04/2003
ISBN-13:9780743244244ISBN:0743244249
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 209 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780743244244ISBN:0743244249
Description: New in new dust jacket. BRAND NEW. Sticker on DJ. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 209 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Very Good. 0743244249 1st edition, 1st printing, Scribner hardcover w/ DJ, 2003. Book is VG, w/ clean text, tight binding; comment inked on ffep, remainder mark & light spotting to rear board. DJ is VG, price-clipped, w/ light edgewear & some soiling on inside of rear panel. Free delivery confirmation. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780743244251ISBN:0743244257
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. First Paperback Printing, 2004. May be unread; clean pages, tight binding, unmarked, no spine creases. Cover has a tiny corner bump, light shelf scuffs, and a slight edge lift. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 209 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
"After many robo-recommendations I finally picked up this DeLillo to start with. I like his style, for sure, but the subject matter of this novel wasn't really very compelling. An arrogant (but intelligent) self-made man who has it all embarks on a self-destructive tour of Manhattan in his fantastically appointed limousine. The root of his crisis is never really defined, DeLillo leaves that up to the reader to work out, and I appreciate that, but at the same time the destructive impulse seems arbitrary. Maybe his point was that success and wealth, winning and losing, are really arbitrary. I think he was trying to make some points about rapacious capitalism, which may have been more interesting 5 years ago when the book came out, but after the last couple of years we're all way, way too familiar with how men like that worked the financial system and then brought it down. This book might have been seen as a warning sign when it was written, but after Merrill-Lynch, et al, it's a little trite. I'll still give DeLillo another chance, though."
"Althought set in April of 2000, the novel Cosmopolis (cosmic...city: the story has a very spaceship glow to it; the gadgetry the narrator describes in Ellisian detail...the rocketship limo, the android guards with names like...like Torval...the voice-activated weaponry) seems more a prophecy of here and now (or, yes, even six months in the future) than a satire of pre-9/11 excesses that, well, kind of got us into the whole 9/11 fix.
Eric Packer speaks in enigmaticisms - beautiful enigmaticisms - and his calls are often answered with similiarly wrought hooks and phrases by his trusted group of advisors. Still, Packer is what the kids these days call a douche. And, I'm certain, there are many out there who, after the past six months, have kindled a certain hatred towards anybody who dabbles in money, stylizes themselves as a financial warrior: thus Eric Packer is the perfect lamb for the sacrifice in this Age of Bailout."
""Cosmopolis" by Don DeLillo is a story about the powers of greed, lust and revenge as seen through the eyes of post-modern nostalgia and technology obsession. Written in DeLillo's characteristically poetic and often harmonic lyrical tone, the story is wrapped up in certain sadness and longing after the basic human emotions lost in a society stricken by the plague of information technology, heartless bits of 1's and 0's, media driven global financial markets and of course the demonic obsession with money.
The pages seem soaked in this cold blue neon light of radiating motion, of brutal cause and effect relationships, of sorrowful physiological weaknesses. At the center sits a powerful yet uncharacteristically young broker who proceeds to gamble away his fortune against the movements of the Japanese yen (against his instincts and nature) from the comfort of his mobile office (his limousine).
The book is worth exploring, if not for the story, for its honest and open narrative that does not cringe or retract when exposing the shameful but realistic qualities of the human physique. I recommend this book for those readers who are interested in DeLillo's unforgettable language talent."
"I'm not sure what to make of this. It wasn't clear to me whether it was supposed to be funny, or satirical, or just surreal, or some combination of these things. In a similar way, I wasn't sure how to relate to the central character - if I was supposed to like him, or sympathize with him, or dislike him, or just sort of see him as a symbol or a phantom or some kind of enigmatic representation of cultural phenomena... So the book was ultimately offputting, since while I realize that we all take things in our own way, it sometimes helps to know how something was intended. All that said, it wasn't a bad read, parts were interesting or amusing, but it lacked the edge of the really funny Delillo books, and the punch of the more thrilling ones."
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