Underworld

UNDERWORLD

by Don DeLillo

 

Nominations: National Book Finalist 1997, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 1997, Pulitzer Finalist 1998

 

Date Read: December 27, 2020

 

Underworld begins with an interesting and well-written vignette about a baseball game where the Giants win the pennant and advance to the World Series. The roar of the crowd, the paper floating down from the tiers above, the tussle for the game-winning ball that landed in the stands indicate a pretty good beginning, even though I am not a baseball fan. And in addition to a lot of pages, Underworld also has a lot of baseball.

 

A quarter of the way through, I believe this entire novel is a bloviated meditation on the past and how we experience nostalgia. For Nick, a character revisited more than any other, what baseball games meant back in the day, visiting his former love and experiencing the pangs of lost romance, reminiscing with his Mom and tapping her memory to fill gaps in his own.

 

In a baseball “museum” run out of Marvin Lundy’s home, he articulates DeLillo’s point about the Cold War, who tells him that the atomic bomb’s radioactive core is the exact same size as a baseball. He argues, in a very loose way, that the Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation is what propelled all life forward and without the possibility of imminent death, life would have no meaning. While I agree that death does provide a framework for life, I don’t believe humans respond to the imminence of death as much as to death in general.

 

After further reading it occurs to me that this entire novel seems like an elegy to the 1950’s, where DeLillo believes baseball, architecture, even icons and art were superior to modern times. Hell, sometimes I agree even though I wasn’t alive then. Yet, the further I keep reading, I am continually reminded that women didn’t have much say in their fate then. Civil Rights hadn’t passed yet. The environment was exploited with no regard for clean air or water. DeLillo begins to pull the mask away from the pretense of a simpler time.

 

Finally, I have to believe that part of his point is that human nature is indeed just that. Human nature. It’s inescapable. Humans were flawed then and they continue to be flawed now. Essentially, not much has changed fundamentally aside from advances in technology.

 

The fact that DeLillo is a man with all the privilege that entails was continually drive home to me throughout. The scene where Janet runs home from the hospital to attract the notice of men, rather than to exercise, made my stomach churn. He makes a lot of assumptions from his male perspective the previous being only one example.

 

My other critique would be his dialogue. Nearly every conversation sees the characters repeating what each other says. I find this incredibly annoying and unconvincing. Perhaps some people do this but not Every. Single. Character. 

 

Overall, I enjoyed Underworld but didn’t find it to be the literary powerhouse that other critics have claimed it to be. I appreciate DeLillo’s prose and character development and how he uses these to advance his ideas. I am looking forward to the DeLillo road ahead.

 

Looking Forward: Libra, Mao II, White Noise