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Understanding Don DeLillo: Notes

Understanding Don DeLillo
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table of contents
  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Contents
  5. Series Editor’s Preface
  6. Preface
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. Chapter 1: Understanding Don DeLillo
  9. Chapter 2: Jargon and Genre: Americana, End Zone, and Great Jones Street
  10. Chapter 3: Opacity and Transparency: White Noise and Mao II
  11. Chapter 4: Artists and Prophets: The Body Artist, Cosmopolis, and Falling Man
  12. Chapter 5: With, to, and against the Novel: The Short Stories
  13. Notes
  14. Bibliography
  15. Index
  16. About the Author

Page 127 →Notes

Introduction

  1. 1. Arac, “Violence and the Human Voice,” 55.
  2. 2. Begley, “The Art of Fiction CXXXV,” 96.
  3. 3. Ibid., 93–94.
  4. 4. Knight, “DeLillo, Postmodernism, Postmodernity,” 28.
  5. 5. Said, On Late Style, 7.

Chapter 1: Understanding Don DeLillo

  1. 1. Said, Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography, 122. Italics appear in the original.
  2. 2. Burn, “Wired Up and Whacked Out,” 38.
  3. 3. Ibid.
  4. 4. Pivano, Amici Scrittori, 114.
  5. 5. Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census (Washington D.C., 1940). The specific document containing the DeLillo family’s census information is available online as “Population Schedule, Pottsville City, PA, Sheet no. 12-A,” National Archives and Records Administration, http://1940census.archives.gov/ (accessed May 17, 2013).
  6. 6. Talese, Unto the Sons, 4.
  7. 7. Begley, “The Art of Fiction CXXXV,” 88.
  8. 8. Brecht, “Life Story of the Boxer Samson Körner,” 207.
  9. 9. Aaron, “How to Read Don DeLillo,” 67–68.
  10. 10. Lentricchia, “The American Writer as Bad Citizen,” 1–6.
  11. 11. Gardaphé, Italian Signs, American Streets, 174.
  12. 12. Hungerford, “Don DeLillo’s Latin Mass,” 345, 352. DeLillo has occasionally discussed his Catholic upbringing in interviews. See also LeClair, “An Interview with Don DeLillo,” 10.
  13. 13. Major writers in twentieth-century American letters who were baptized or raised in the Catholic Church include figures such as novelists Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy, literary critics Allen Tate, F. O. Matthiessen, and Mary McCarthy, and poets Ted Berrigan and William Carlos Williams. I regard Ross Labrie’s The Catholic Imagination in American Literature (1997) to be a representative study.
  14. 14. Basu, “Reading the Techno-Ethnic Other,” 87–111.
  15. 15. For DeLillo’s discussion of jazz music and museums, see Burn, “Wired Up and Whacked Out,” 37–38. In addition to depicting New York baseball teams and their Page 128 →environs in Mao II and Underworld, a quick internet search will turn up photographs of DeLillo in attendance at baseball games.
  16. 16. DeLillo, “Baader-Meinhof,” in The Angel Esmeralda, 106.
  17. 17. DeLillo, “Hammer and Sickle,” in The Angel Esmeralda, 175.
  18. 18. Critics have sometimes used Sontag’s essay to frame discussion of these matters in DeLillo’s novels. See Osteen, American Magic and Dread, 104–6. The most recent discussion appears in Olster, “White Noise,” 84.
  19. 19. Osteen, “DeLillo’s Dedalian Artists,” 138.
  20. 20. Begley, “The Art of Fiction CXXXV,” 88.
  21. 21. DeCurtis, “An Outsider in this Society,” 67.
  22. 22. Camus, The Fall, 88.
  23. 23. DeCurtis, “An Outsider in this Society,” 56, 73.
  24. 24. Lentricchia, “The American Writer as Bad Citizen,” 3.
  25. 25. Two years after DeLillo received the award, Ralph Gardner Jr. published a related story in the New York Times describing how DeLillo codesigned a writing course for patients with Alzheimer’ disease. See Gardner, “Writing That Can Strengthen the Fraying Threads of Memory.” For more information on the Wallace Foundation, see http://www.wallacefoundation.org/Pages/default.aspx (accessed May 10, 2013).
  26. 26. Ruppersburg and Engles, “Introduction,” 1.

Chapter 2: Jargon and Genre

  1. 1. Over the course of DeLillo’s career, publishers have generally used the dust jackets, color schemes, and print layouts for American editions of DeLillo’s books to convey an indirect sense of some feature or quality of the work. By contrast, the covers of Thomas Pynchon’s novels lack this quality of design, while the dust jacket presentation of other authors—one might look at the “script letter” covers of recent editions of Toni Morrison’s novels—suggest a carefully planned visual marketing strategy that grants a distinctive look to the author’s books. (One might very well say the same for the paperback editions of DeLillo’s fiction issued by Vintage during the 1990s or the British editions of DeLillo’ recently published by Picador.)
  2. 2. Oates, “Young Man at the Brink of Self-Destruction,” 5-E.
  3. 3. Cowart, “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” 604.
  4. 4. As the novel concludes, David visits Dealey Plaza, the site of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, a moment that critics regard as a preview of scenes in later DeLillo novels more thoroughly devoted to paranoia, politics, and history.
  5. 5. David Cowart warns against the temptation to reduce the book to autobiography, yet also claims that DeLillo is six years older than the narrator—a difference in age that is never entirely clear because of the narrator’s conflicting references to dates. See Cowart, “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” 604.
  6. 6. DiPietro, Introduction, ix.
  7. 7. See Cowart, “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” 602–3.
  8. 8. Ibid.
  9. 9. Boxall, “DeLillo and Media Culture,” 48.
  10. 10. Nel, “DeLillo and Modernism,” 13. See also that essay’s postmodern other, “DeLillo, Postmodernism, Postmodernity,” in that same volume, wherein Peter Knight argues that “it is the explicitness with which DeLillo acknowledges his enormous debt to modernism that ends up rendering him postmodern” (27).
  11. 11. Lentricchia, “Libra as Postmodern Critique,” 194.
  12. 12. Page 129 →Giaimo, Appreciating Don DeLillo, 57.
  13. 13. Aaron, “How to Read Don DeLillo,” 69, 77.
  14. 14. LeClair, In the Loop, 98.
  15. 15. DeCurtis, “An Outsider in this Society,” 57, 133.
  16. 16. McClure, “Postmodern Romance,” 99.
  17. 17. Ibid., 102.
  18. 18. LeClair, in the Loop, 11.
  19. 19. LeClair, “An Interview with Don DeLillo,” 5.
  20. 20. Dore, “The Rock Novel and Jonathan Lethem’s Fortress of Solitude.”
  21. 21. Ibid.
  22. 22. LeClair, “An Interview with Don DeLillo,” 6.
  23. 23. DeCurtis, “An Outsider in this Society,” 65.
  24. 24. Ibid., 67.
  25. 25. DeCurtis, “‘The Product,’” 131, 133.

Chapter 3: Opacity and Transparency

  1. 1. DeLillo, “Letter,” 3–4.
  2. 2. Ferraro, “Whole Families Shopping at Night,” 17.
  3. 3. Orr, Don DeLillo’s White Noise, 21.
  4. 4. Bawer, “Don DeLillo’s America,” 24.
  5. 5. Ibid., 22.
  6. 6. Will, “Shallow Look at the Mind of an Assassin,” 56.
  7. 7. Goodheart, “Don DeLillo and the Cinematic Real,” 121.
  8. 8. See Connolly, “An Interview with Don DeLillo,” 37.
  9. 9. See Osteen, American Magic and Dread, 8–10.
  10. 10. Begley, “The Art of Fiction CXXXV,” 99.
  11. 11. Ibid., 93.
  12. 12. Arensberg, “Seven Seconds,” 45.
  13. 13. Lentricchia, “The American Writer as Bad Citizen,” 3.
  14. 14. Ibid., 2.
  15. 15. Ibid., 3.
  16. 16. Ibid., 3.
  17. 17. Ibid., 5.
  18. 18. Ibid., 2.
  19. 19. Aaron, “How to Read Don DeLillo,” 76.
  20. 20. Ibid., 75.
  21. 21. LeClair, “An Interview with Don DeLillo,” 8.
  22. 22. Begley, “The Art of Fiction CXXXV,” 97.
  23. 23. Osteen, American Magic and Dread, 140.
  24. 24. Boxall, Don DeLillo, 187.
  25. 25. Cowart, “DeLillo and the Power of Language,” 151.
  26. 26. See Weatherby, Salman Rushdie, 126–28. I refer to Weatherby’s account for several reasons, including its excellent research in the later chapters (the early biographical chapters are not as strong), but I refer to it primarily because it was published prior to DeLillo’s novel and may have been used as a source.
  27. 27. Ibid., 108. Edward W. Said published several articles about Rushdie, and Said’s later writings refer occasionally to the matter.
  28. 28. Ibid., 189.
  29. 29. Page 130 →Nel, “DeLillo and Modernism,” 24.
  30. 30. Nadotti, “An Interview with Don DeLillo,” 112.
  31. 31. Barrett, “Mao II and Mixed Media,” 54.
  32. 32. Adam Begley, “The Art of Fiction CXXXV,” 10.
  33. 33. Weatherby, Salman Rushdie, 91–92. Weatherby interviewed Godwin for the book.
  34. 34. Knight, “Mao II and the New World Order,” 42.
  35. 35. Barrett, “Mao II and Mixed Media,” 62.
  36. 36. Boxall, “DeLillo and Media Culture,” 44.
  37. 37. Ibid., 52.

Chapter 4: Artists and Prophets

  1. 1. Samuel Cohen offers a relevant sidelong glance at Fukuyama’s arguments in his critical literary book After the End of History (129–30), a work that also includes an epilogue on DeLillo’s Underworld and its anticipation of the alleged “post-historical” advent and impulse of the new millennium.
  2. 2. Steiner, “Look Who’s Modern Now,” 18–19.
  3. 3. Steiner, “The End of Traditionalism,” 497. It should also be noted that Steiner’s essay revisits the argument she made regarding Pynchon in the conclusion to her section of the Cambridge History but instead using DeLillo as the main example. For a more persuasive and thoughtful critique of DeLillo’s Underworld, readers should consult Tony Tanner’s “Don DeLillo and ‘the American Mystery.’” Tanner explains how DeLillo’s recent work had exaggerated the novelist’s displacement by the terrorist, among other things.
  4. 4. Haworth-Booth, “Introduction,” 15–24. The quoted words appear on page 23.
  5. 5. See Kessel, Reading Landscape in American Literature 144. While I use Kessel’s quote to illustrate a critical point, I would disagree with Kessler’s terminology insofar as I believe the gerund lacks subtlety or fails to note distinctions between “texts,” or, for that matter, the reader’s actively performative role vis-à-vis Lauren’s character as well as the intonations of DeLillo’s syntax.
  6. 6. Boxall, Don DeLillo, 220.
  7. 7. Gaiamo, Appreciating Don DeLillo. For quotes, see pages 162, 163, and 166.
  8. 8. Boxall, Don DeLillo, 215–17.
  9. 9. McClure, “Postmodern Romance,” 102.
  10. 10. Gates, Business @ the Speed of Thought, 265.
  11. 11. Ibid., xvii.
  12. 12. Kunkel, “Dangerous Characters,” 15.
  13. 13. Ibid., 14.
  14. 14. Kakutani, “A Man, A Woman, and a Day of Terror.”
  15. 15. Bonca, “Contact with the Real.”
  16. 16. Denby, “Creep Shows.”
  17. 17. The former volume devotes two pages to a discussion of globalization in Cosmopolis. See Rowe, “Global Horizons in Falling Man,” 123–24.
  18. 18. McClure, “DeLillo and Mystery,” 175.
  19. 19. Helyer, “DeLillo and Masculinity,” 134–35.
  20. 20. Knight, “DeLillo, Postmodernism, Postmodernity,” 35.
  21. 21. Conte, “Writing amid the Ruins,” 179.
  22. 22. Ibid., 181.
  23. 23. Page 131 →Boxall, Don DeLillo, 221.
  24. 24. O’Hagan, “Don DeLillo Gets Under America’s Skin,” 8.
  25. 25. Kauffmann, “Bodies in Rest and Motion in Falling Man,” 135.
  26. 26. Apitzsch, “The Art of Terror—The Terror of Art,” 96.
  27. 27. Ibid., 104.
  28. 28. Duvall, “Fiction and 9/11,” 185.
  29. 29. Ibid.
  30. 30. Apitzsch, “The Art of Terror—The Terror of Art,” 97.
  31. 31. Kauffmann, “Bodies in Rest and Motion in Falling Man,” 148.
  32. 32. Ibid., 151.
  33. 33. Kauffmann, “World Trauma Center,” 655.
  34. 34. Pöhlmann, “Collapsing Identities,” 51.
  35. 35. Kauffman, “The Wake of Terror,” 21.
  36. 36. Salván, “Terror, Asceticism, and Epigrammatic Writing,” 145.
  37. 37. Ibid., 153.
  38. 38. Ibid., 154.
  39. 39. See, for example, Bizzini, “Grieving and Memory in Don DeLillo’s Falling Man,” 40–42.
  40. 40. Pöhlmann, “Collapsing Identities,” 51.
  41. 41. Kauffman, “The Wake of Terror,” 20.
  42. 42. Said, On Late Style, 6.
  43. 43. Ibid., 7.
  44. 44. Wagner-Martin, “The Twenty-First Century,” 327.

Chapter 5: With, to, and against the Novel

  1. 1. Trussler, “Suspended Narratives,” 558.
  2. 2. Ibid.
  3. 3. Ibid., 557.
  4. 4. Curt Gardner and Phil Nel have kept a running bibliography of DeLillo’s publications at http://www.perival.com/delillo/ddbiblio.html (accessed March 19, 2013). Their list distinguishes clearly between “Stories” and “Short Fiction Excerpts,” and it is a useful starting point for the reader who is interested in DeLillo’s short fiction.
  5. 5. McClure, “DeLillo and Mystery,” 174.
  6. 6. Denning, Mechanic Accents, 10.
  7. 7. Begley, “The Art of Fiction CXXXV,” 93.
  8. 8. “Notes on Contributors,” Granta 25 (Autumn 1988): 255.
  9. 9. Begley, “The Art of Fiction CXXXV,” 92.
  10. 10. Lukács, The Theory of the Novel, 51.
  11. 11. Arac, Emergence of American Literary Narrative, 31.
  12. 12. Engles, “Who Are You, Literally?” 174–75.
  13. 13. Hendin, “Underworld, Ethnicity, and Found Object Art,” 99.
  14. 14. Engles, “DeLillo and the Political Thriller,” 68.
  15. 15. Kauffman, “The Wake of Terror,” 27.
  16. 16. Osteen, American Magic and Dread, 9.
  17. 17. Ibid., 16. Page 132 →

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