Zero K by Don DeLillo REVIEW
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- As dope and entertaining as a visit to a contemporary art exhibition can be.
... Not much, and also a lot at the same time. IfyouknowhatImean.
Did you like Zero K (I sure did!)? How would you compare it to the rest of Don's production?
Let me know in the comments!
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I'm so glad that you keep posting content.
I'd give Zero K a 7/10. It was like a Samuel Beckett science fiction novel.
Cosmopolis and Point Omega are significantly better than they get credit for. Zero K is in that class, although I think I enjoyed Point Omega more.
Latter day DeLillo's icy prose is challenging. I miss White Noise DeLillo, who didn't seem at war with giving his readers a few laughs. Current DeLillo almost seems to deliberately lull his readers, which admittedly makes plot points more meaningful when they happen. Zero K really tested my patience at first, but that point in the book, where the father explains what Zero K actually is, is sublime, and I was totally on board from that point forward. And that seems to be DeLillo's move more than ever now. It's like the deliberate monotony of Cosmopolis, and then you get that insane rapper funeral, which is just the fucking best.
Zero K is really good. Unfortunately, all of DeLillo's thematic obsessions (time, death, waste, war, parental issues) still being present, tends to remind me of the times he explored them more successfully. I really try not to hold his past masterpieces against him, but it's difficult to avoid. Even so, it's remarkable how sharp DeLillo still is, and his obsession with time and death, at 80, is completely understandable. Also, at 80, he's still cooler than pretty much every other writer alive, so please get cooler, every other writer, because I don't know how many more Double D Novels we have left.
As for the present looking like the future, we're basically living in a cyberpunk novel at this point. It is both cool and terrifying.
Totally see what you mean. I am someone who constantly compares stuff (books album and shit) especially within a single artist's production, also because I love Top Xs and charts and stuff. The only reason why I manage not to think too much about DeLillo's past masterpieces when I read novels like Zero K is because they really seem almost different authors, or different sides of the same author, pre 98 DeLillo and post 98 DeLillo. As you said, it might be that his humor dried up in the 21th Century, but it really seems to me that the guy has two different (and awesome) bibliographies. And I totally agree that he's the coolest man on the planet, I've heard personal stories from people who met him that just confirmed the impression.
I just read Point Omega and it is pretty incredible. I think there's a lot to like there.
Good review. I enjoyed Zero K, but it's a book more of the head than the heart. Well written; a good book makes the reader think, and Zero K does that. One fact about this book is DeLillo is 80 and may be thinking a lot about death. A good ending, but no one in the book seemed to enjoy their lives, so why do they want to live forever? Thanks for the review.
Felt like a nice companion to 'Bleeding Edge' to me - presenting a different side to that fixed examination of the strange machineries operating underneath ordinary life. Weirdly I think it actually felt a bit like an inverse "White Noise" to me: where WN has the big cataclysmic event in the middle that changes the characters' ordinary lives, this begins with an overwhelming mystery that you know through the whole mundanity of the middle section will inevitably return in some way, shape, or form (and, even after the novel, we know that Jeffrey will be living with these lingering feelings for the rest of his life)
Yes, this seemed more like a spiritual journey, even more than a literary one--similar to The Body Artist, and Point Omega, with these artistic installations references. Completely ZEN!
Love your reviews! I'm definitely going to pick this up.
The Body Artist might be my favorite of DeLillos, for reasons I cannot understand. it has stayed with me in a different way than all his other work. all of his books are very dear to me but the honesty felt so pure, to the point where it became unbelievable. it is contradictory and becomes acceptable. ZERO K I loved. because I look to DeLillo like some kind of anonymous mentor.
Would you consider doing a general introduction to Delillo? I've read White Noise and The Falling Man, feel I'm missing something but am not sure what.
I might do that!
You're not alone. His early stuff I've been reading is fun to read but really baffling, too.
It's like trying to read smoke, cant get a hold of it and the more I try the more my head throbs.
White Noise is gibberish imo. Haven't tried him since. Need to pick this up as sounds like I might like it more the WN
Nice little overview of his later writing, and I agree that it's one of the better late-DeLillo novels. By the way, I wanted to draw your attention to the new Alan Moore novel coming out next month that's supposed to be epic. It's called Jerusalem if you hadn't already heard about it.
Jesus H, why does everybody have to write such monsters? Of course I'll read it but when, when?? Thanks for the heads up man ;)
Are you going to give Alan Moore's monolith Jerusalem a read this September?
I'm in the weird position in which I have to do that for academic reasons and there's no way in hell I'll have time enough to do that.
I finished reading Zero K yesterday. The first part read more like a stage play than a novel, it also reminded me of a movie. The second part too is more like a sequence of scenes you could film. Today I read his stage play Love-Lies-Bleeding, you can read it in a couple of hours, and indeed it is very similar: the topic euthanasia, the relationship between a son and his father, an installation of land art in a remote desert area with paintings undergruund not to be seen by any public, even the rock - it's on the cover! The atmosphere of K (and Omega as well) is very much like in the writings and movies of Marguerite Duras, sometimes a bit like Tarkovsky. And since they always were my favourites, I also liked Z, despite its flaws. Why is the death of Stake to be seen on that screen? it makes the novel unnecessarily irrealistic without getting allegorical value out of it or elaboration of plot. Anyway ...
I listen to you as I fall asleep, I mean that in a good way.
Have you picked up “The Silence” yet? It’s a 2 hours read. Very mystical, like Zero K. Ma perché ti scrivo in inglese se siamo entrambi italiani?? : ) Volevo chiederti, in quanto grande fan di DeLillo: pensi anche tu che a volte (raramente) DeLillo in alcuni libri infili delle frasi o delle idee che non hanno alcun significato, ma solo perché “gli suonano bene” oppure perché gli sembra che evochino qualcosa di particolare ma indefinito? E se è così, quindi è vero che a volte (ripeto, raramente) nei suoi libri ci sono parti che sono un po’ lasciate all’interpretazione del lettore?
L'ho richiesto in review copy, se mi arriva lo leggo ;) e sì senz'altro, soprattutto nei libri post-Underworld (ma in realtà un po' dappertutto) DeLillo è pieno di frasi che magari hanno un significato per lui, ma lasciano me esterrefatto. Ma in fin dei conti succede sempre con fiction densa, difficile, opaca - penso a Pynchon o Joyce ma anche, per dire, a Saul Bellow.
Great review. I also like the shirt. Did you hear the new Metallica today?
Not till you mentioned man - thanks for the heads up!!
Hey Mattia, what do you think about Virginia Woolf's "The Waves"?
Also, have you read any good comedic books that are still somewhat "literary"?
+Anchovy Run The Futorological Congress by Stanislaw Len
+Anchovy Run *Lem
I've never read the Waves but one thing I've established throughout the years is that High Modernism is not my cup of tea! As for your other question, if we take comedy broadly I'd say that most of the world's best books fall into the definition! But if you mean laugh-out-loud straight-up comedy, two titles that come to mind are Toole's Confederacy of Dunces and Eggers' Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
I'd agree with you on that! I recently read it for a course in my degree and while I greatly respect the work that went into it and what she wanted to express through it, the book just wasn't very enjoyable to me. Thanks for the recommendations, I'll definitely check them both out!
Hi, I was wondering if you could help me as I have read the book and found it incredibly, absolutely boring. I think I am not able to appreciate this kind of art, I hated the book.
To be completely honest, I see what you mean! Like certain abstract art, DeLillo's 21st century novels walk a very fine line between the awe-inspiring and the plain boring. They require the right mindset and I think they're a bit of an acquired taste!
Great review, spot-on.
Good review, man! I liked it too. It was kind of hard to get into at first, but ultimately for me it was a really thoughtful and rewarding book.
The prose in Zero K reminded me of a line from a Marquez short story: "Refrigerated medicine." Cold, clean, an elixir for our times.
I’ve loved Zero K. I use to say that reading DeLillo is like listen to experimental jazz: you have to train your ear and learn how DeLillo uses language in his books and how to read it, but I find your metaphor with contemporary art more apt. This book seemed to me an ideal response to the Keats-ian question: “Can death be sleep when life is but a dream, and scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by,” and beside that, I’ve found some hints to previous DeLillo’s novels: the Convergence reminded me of the weird think tank in Ratner’s Star, the hobo in the metro (chapter 5) reminded me of the man with the carboard in the first chapter of Players as well as the screens on the hall reminded me of the film in the Prologue of Players, the riffs on the death sent my mind to White Noise and the reflections on language sent me to similar hints we can find in End Zone, Players (again) and Cosmopolis.
Maybe one of the best DeLillo’s Novels thus far. Surely one of my favorite. And, oh, I didn’t find the characters cold: I've really enjoyed Artis Martineau, the Monk and the Stenmarks.
The Silence is my first DeLillo and I didn't like it. Some redditors said that the best introduction is White Noise, so I'm going to try that next. If you don't mind me asking, how would you rank his books, including Angel Esmeralda, but minus Amazons and his plays? And what are your favorites by him?
It has a certain similarity to Ubik.
Question (hope you get to answer since you’re busy) but will I like DeLillo if I enjoy Pynchon? And if so, which is the best way to start? Thank you.
Interesting question that I tried to answer a couple of months ago; they are stylistic opposites (even as Pynchon became his own stylistic opposite, DeLillo and Pynchon remained opposites on many levels)... longer version here:
berlin8berlin.wordpress.com/2018/02/04/don-delillo-v-chicken-nuggets-w-r-t-pynchonian-errata-and-synchronicity/
I still need to read Zero K.
Also, little interesting fact, Michael Chabon will be coming to MTSU (my university) to discuss his upcoming novel "Moonglow". So I know what I'll be doing for December lol.
>:@
I really enjoyed it. The Artis Martineau chapter was delightful. And the way they kept going further into the ground through the various levels of the facility gave it a nice Divine Comedy frame. As it stands for me in his works, it's up there with Underworld and Mao II.
Totally didn't see the Artis chapter coming, felt really fascinating and upsetting and Philip Dick and beautiful.