Lavinia reviewed Underworld (Scribner Classics) by Don DeLillo
Review of 'Underworld (Scribner Classics)' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Eight hundred twenty four (824) pages, fifty (50) years of American history. The Years of Cold War, the bomb, Vietnam and drugs, all these, engulfed by garbage and baseball.
The story starts with the description of a baseball game, on October 1951. J. Edgar Hoover, Jackie Gleason and Frank Sinatra are sitting together in the stands. It supposed to be an ordinary game when at the end, everything turns upside down, and an otherwise ordinary game, becomes THE game. The first chapter, the description of the game is really captivating. The details, the language, the characters real or fictional are lucid and transparent. And, it is indeed, the best part of the book.
Then everything changes. Every chapter seems to be a different book, a different story. Initially, the characters appear to have no connection between them. Gradually the relationships become clearer, the story more understandable, but, still not completely …
Eight hundred twenty four (824) pages, fifty (50) years of American history. The Years of Cold War, the bomb, Vietnam and drugs, all these, engulfed by garbage and baseball.
The story starts with the description of a baseball game, on October 1951. J. Edgar Hoover, Jackie Gleason and Frank Sinatra are sitting together in the stands. It supposed to be an ordinary game when at the end, everything turns upside down, and an otherwise ordinary game, becomes THE game. The first chapter, the description of the game is really captivating. The details, the language, the characters real or fictional are lucid and transparent. And, it is indeed, the best part of the book.
Then everything changes. Every chapter seems to be a different book, a different story. Initially, the characters appear to have no connection between them. Gradually the relationships become clearer, the story more understandable, but, still not completely comprehensible. Garbage and waste seem to be the main themes of the book. Waste, both garbage and nuclear waste destroy the environment, while baseball preempts human lives.
Underworld is not an easy reading. You need to prepare yourselves for long, slow and tiresome periods of reading. Feelings, emotions, even thoughts are analysed exhaustedly while every day is described in painful details. In some cases, it reminded me James Joyse’s Odyssey, in an “Americanised”, less graspable way.
Soon, strain and weariness did their work to me, and halfway through, I started to have bad thoughts. To abandon reading, or not. I decided to have another go, as I was curious to learn the beginning of the story, like the baseball memorabilia collector, one of the best characters in the book, who became obsessed with the lineage of the ball. That is because chronologically, the story does not keep a consistency, but it jumps through time, stories and people. And, because it is so painstakingly slow, you’ve forgotten what happened three years, or one month ago, so becomes very difficult to connect both people and situations.
Finally, I gave up. I didn't abandon it but I changed my reading style; yes it is true I became a speed reader and I finished the book in only two days. (10 days until the 508 page)
Definitely, I couldn’t dare to say that Underworld is "the great American novel", but it may worth the time if you wish to have an illustration of the American years of J. Edgar Hoover.
One of the best moments in the book:
“You feel sorry for yourself. You think you are missing something and you don’t know what it is. You are lonely inside your life. You have a job and a family and a fully executed will, already, at your age, because the whole point is to die prepared, die legal, with all your papers signed. Die liquid, so they can convert to cash. You used to have the same dimensions as the observable universe. Now you are a lost speck. You look at old cars and recall a purpose, a destination”. (The baseball collector, page 170)
