End Zone

Book#35 on my '08 reading list was Don DeLillo's End Zone.

End Zone on its surface is about a rebellious college football player exiled to a small college in the middle of nowhere. Under the surface it's a book about philosophy, becoming a man, and the parallels between football and war (which DeLillo both draws and pokes fun at in that oh so post-modern way). Not my favorite DeLillo book (that'd be White Noise) but a good read and nice insight into the early work of one of our generation's greatest writers.

Apparently another in my continuing theme of books I read and then find out are being made into a movie.

Wikipedia

Falling Man

Way, way behind on my blogging, so I'm going to make these next few short and sweet. Book #26 of my '07 reading list was Don DeLillo's new post-9/11 novel Falling Man.

Riveting reading as you would expect from DeLillo. It's not his best work, but the fact that he's managed to produce a novel that reasonably contextualizes the impact of 9/11 on our collective psyche makes it well worth a read.

Wikipedia entry
Village Voice review

White Noise

Book #7 on my list this year was Don DeLillo's modern classic White Noise.

White Noise is a tour-de-force novel about modernity and mortality. It is also the second DeLillo book I've read (Mao II being the first). It's amazing to realize this novel was published in 1985 given that it feels like a book spawned out of the internet age. The front flap bills it as 'A brilliant satire of mass culture and the numbing effects of technology", but who other than maybe Bill Gates and the dude who invented the VCR was numbed by technology way back in '85? DeLillo clearly has a knack for predicting trends well ahead of their time. Reading back through my old review of Mao II (published in '91) I was reminded of that book's allusions to terrorism and how shockingly current I found it to be 14 years after its release. Impressive stuff and great literature to boot.

New York Times book review
Wikipedia entry

Mao II

2 more books left to reach my goal of reading 50 books this year. Tonight I finished book #48 Don DeLillo's Mao II.

Mao II (named after the Warhol painting of the same name) is not an easy book to explain. In the most basic sense it's a novel centered around a recluse author named J.D. Salinger...er I mean Bill Gray who lives in a secluded house with his assistant/ex-groupie Scott and reformed Moonie Karen. Bill has decided to come out of seclusion a bit allowing photographer Brita Nilsson to visit and take his picture. From there things get complicated. The plot wanders as we follow Bill out of his seclusion into New York, London, Athens and finally Beirut. Along the way DeLillo manages to stretch the story to work in themes of terrorism (more interesting given the book was written in 1991), imagery, and individualism, navigating around pitfalls that would easily trip up a less talented writer.

Having just finished the book, I'm not completely sure yet what I think of it. The story itself isn't super compelling, but it's been awhile since I've read a novel that's managed to pack so many ideas into so little space. I have a feeling this will be one of those books I look back on a few months from now and realize just how good it actually was. That or it will have faded into the oblivion of a hundred other decent books.

I haven't read any other Don DeLillo novels yet, but I will definitely be giving some of his other books a try. I think the next one I'll read is White Noise which seems to be everyone's consensus favorite.