Comments on: Cheap Reads

By: Dale

Dale — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 14:00:07 +0000

The Amis was surprisingly good. Notable was his review of Palimpsest. It suffers from the fact that he’s not a great stylist, but it’s honest, as far as I remember.

By: willie mink

willie mink — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 02:52:25 +0000

I’ve read most of DeLillo and thought Cosmopolis was okay. Underworld? Fantastic—but only if you understand DeLillo first. White Noise? Sure to be read 100 years from now, along with six or seven other 20th century novels. And his earlier work out-Godards Godard.

By: Walt Pohl

Walt Pohl — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 01:14:27 +0000

I like Don DeLillo’s writing. I like Belle’s writing. Belle, please don’t make me choose…

By: anthony

anthony — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 01:07:34 +0000

i found cosmopolis, strange, haunted, and a lot like nicholoson, i think it is one of the hardest, not in the sense of difficulty, but in the sense of uncompromising formality, gem like is the wrong word, its nothing so dazzling…

v. much worth reading

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 00:15:20 +0000

Yes, d-squared notes our tragically skiffy-skewed literary focus in a recent thread. I've never really liked "Blake's Seven" myself, but my old D&D buddies in junior high were heavy into it.

By: Tyrone Slothrop

Tyrone Slothrop — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 20:38:57 +0000

You could buy a Thomas Kinkade-branded novel (putatively by the Painter of Light(tm) himself), A Christmas Promise: A Cape Light Novel -- only $5.99 cheap! I can't tell from Amazon's description whether he touched up the cover artwork a little. More Kinkade fun. What can I say? It's an itch I keep scratching.

By: Eleanor

Eleanor — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 18:15:53 +0000

I liked Cosmopolis. But then I liked Underworld too. So I’m running away now before Belle can slap me.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 16:58:22 +0000

I think Cosmopolis tricks you into thinking that it’s bad. I thought the same thing about Eyes Wide Shut. It’s been noted, by a contributor, no less, that the CT taste in fiction skews skiffy too much, perhaps, for comfort.

By: KF

KF — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 15:47:48 +0000

As a sometime DeLillo scholar (for what that’s worth) and a longertime DeLillo fan (though always with a bit of the old love-hate involved), I can say without reservation: Cosmopolis blew. (The technical term, you know.) It read to me like a sterile rehashing of several of the better set pieces from earlier novels, without a strong focus to guide them along. In fact, I have an argument (forthcoming someday, journal finances willing) that Cosmopolis is a somewhat perverse enactment of the deconstructive impulse, a self-undoing novel that leaves you with nothing by the time you’re done.

Not a fan of that one, me.

By: Christopher M

Christopher M — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 15:44:51 +0000

Maybe there’s something else good in there. I missed it, apparently. You somehow overlooked this gem that seems tailored to the CT-reader market: Choose Your Own Adventure porn for grad students! The Classics Professor is a beautiful woman at a prestigious New York university whose cold professional façade masks a powerful eroticism. Dr. Wendy Lake wants to seduce you, and a disastrous relationship has left you vulnerable to her advances. You're fascinated and intimidated. When the affair becomes dangerously intense, you'll have to decide whether you will submit to all her perversions, such as attending pansexual orgies in midtown; escape the pressure through a fling with a nubile university co-ed; or drop out of graduate school altogether. They don't mention the other available ending where you sit at home on Friday night reading Marcuse.

By: Richard Bellamy

Richard Bellamy — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 15:07:02 +0000

I once heard a news report on “Early Books by Famous Writers,” that discussed poor early writings by future A-List writers.

By far the absolute best was Martin Amis’s 1982 masterpiece Invasion of the Space Invaders—which is not an early Sci-Fi attempt, but is rather an actual tip sheet/cheat book for the Atari 2600 Video Game.

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 15:01:35 +0000

Not sure if all Don Dellilo sucks, and I haven’t read that one, but Underworld should never have been published. I still occassionally contemplate shoving a hot poker through my ear to destroy the memory of that “novel”. At the very least, I want my $$ and time spent back.

By: alkali

alkali — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 13:40:22 +0000

This looks good: The War Against Cliche, 500 pages worth of essays and reviews by Martin Amis.

It is very good, even if some of the recent work of Amis fils has suffered a bit.

By: Backword Dave

Backword Dave — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 13:24:40 +0000

Aww, and I was looking forward to some “slash fiction” too.

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 13:15:43 +0000

I should also clarify, lest anyone be confused by my post: I believe it’s the price that’s been slashed, not the book itself. (I don’t want indignant emails from unsatisfied CT readers: I was let to understand this book would be mutilated!)