"Om Does Not Rhyme With Bomb. It Only Looks That Way"
Written: Jun 26 '02 (Updated Jun 26 '02)
Product Rating:
Pros: The baseball prologue, the Lenny Bruce scenes, the Hoover scenes, DeLillo's language
Cons: Too coincidental, needs better character development
The Bottom Line: A gargantuan noble failure, that's worth reading, if only for the challenge of slugging it out with 800+ pages. And because DeLillo, no matter what, is always worth while.
Before I begin detailing some of its problems, I just wanted to say that I enjoyed 'Underworld'. Don DeLillo's use of language is prolific, routinely producing interesting epigrams like the one I stole for my review's title. And I never felt like giving up once during its 800+ pages, which is shocking. The reason for that is there's so much going on here that I always found something interesting in the next section. But therein lies one of its major downfalls. DeLillo has written the start of about 6 or 7 interesting novels, largely focused on the theme of Cold War paranoia/anxiety, pasted together haphazardly to create a whole that is not greater than the sum of its parts.
I guess part of the problem is that the connective tissues are fragile. Yes, there is a famous baseball ("The shot heard 'round the world!") that pops up over and over, paralleling the existence of nuclear weapons. And all of the characters are associated in one way or another. But when an author makes a claim that everything is connected, I want those connections to jump up and slap me in the face. The ones produced here seemed unbelievable, almost too coincidental. If I saw them with my own eyes, in real life, I might believe. But in this piece of fiction, they seem highly contrived. It occurs to me that the film 'Magnolia' had many of the same problems. I suppose if you liked that movie (I didn't), you'll accept 'Underworld' too.
Most of the attention 'Underworld' gets revolves around the prologue, set at the famous 1951 playoff game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. Being an amateur baseball historian, I was looking forward to these scenes with glee. And for the most part, DeLillo does a wonderful job, ably skipping from the action on the field, to the action in Russ Hodges' broadcast booth, to a fantastical sequence in the stands where Frank Sinatra, Jackie Gleason, J. Edgar Hoover, and Toots Shore trade barbs and bodily fluids! DeLillo moves between these scenes effortlessly and poetically. Unfortunately, the whole thing felt a little too over-researched and forced, resulting in an emotional coldness that lasts for most of the rest of the book.
The Lenny Bruce scenes are probably the best things here. I don't know what it was like seeing Lenny live in his heyday, but DeLillo produces an entertaining facsimile. He does a fine job depicting what's going on in Lenny's head and what comes out of his mouth while onstage. And he manages to tell much more by just describing the club settings and its patrons. Also fine are the (non-Polo Ground) scenes featuring J. Edgar Hoover and his "companion". Again, we get an interesting glimpse into Hoover's inner workings, his fears, his paranoias, and his obsessions. And there's a great scene where he goes to Truman Capote's Black and White ball. Both of these mid-twentieth century icons are utilized to great effect.
In the other DeLillo book I've read, 'White Noise', he clearly defines his characters and their roles. They are all interesting and essential to that book's central themes. It is one of my favourite books. Here, the Dramatis Personae reads like a phone book: names in abundance, with mostly anonymous identities. The reader is given a difficult task getting to know any of them. Even the de facto protagonists Nick and Klara (nominated as such based solely on the fact that they are name-checked in the back cover blurb) are barely recognizably as anything more than rhetorical devices.
And speaking of rhetorical devices, DeLillo prominently uses (at least) two that baffled me. First, when someone is cut-off mid-sentence, their speech is still concluded with a period. As if the thought was complete. And second, he takes great pains in keeping the identity of a new scene ambiguous for as long as possible. I know that there is a concrete reason for both of these, but for the life of me I can't figure it out. Unless, of course, they're meant to be distracting and off-putting. Not as off-putting was the reverse time structure (where "things move indelibly into the past"). It dominated the book, and was used successfully.
So, yeah, there is much good here. And like I said, I did enjoy the book overall. It's definitely worth the effort. And I appreciate the effort DeLillo made in writing it. I only wish that he had achieved the perfection that a book of this size and of this subject matter deserves.
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