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The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories
Set in Greece, the Caribbean, Manhattan, a white-collar prison and outer space, this “small masterpiece of short fiction” (USA Today) is a mesmerizing introduction to Don DeLillo’s iconic voice.
In “Creation,” a couple at the end of a cruise somewhere in the West Indies can’t get off the island—flights canceled, unconfirmed reservations, a dysfunctional economy. In “Human Moments in World War III,” two men orbiting the earth, charged with gathering intelligence and reporting to Colorado Command, hear the voices of American radio, from a half century earlier. In the title story, Sisters Edgar and Grace, nuns working the violent streets of the South Bronx, confirm the neighborhood’s miracle, the apparition of a dead child, Esmeralda.
Nuns, astronauts, athletes, terrorists and travelers, the characters in "The Angel Esmeralda" propel themselves into the world and define it. These nine stories describe an extraordinary journey of one great writer whose prescience about world events and ear for American language changed the literary landscape.
In “Creation,” a couple at the end of a cruise somewhere in the West Indies can’t get off the island—flights canceled, unconfirmed reservations, a dysfunctional economy. In “Human Moments in World War III,” two men orbiting the earth, charged with gathering intelligence and reporting to Colorado Command, hear the voices of American radio, from a half century earlier. In the title story, Sisters Edgar and Grace, nuns working the violent streets of the South Bronx, confirm the neighborhood’s miracle, the apparition of a dead child, Esmeralda.
Nuns, astronauts, athletes, terrorists and travelers, the characters in "The Angel Esmeralda" propel themselves into the world and define it. These nine stories describe an extraordinary journey of one great writer whose prescience about world events and ear for American language changed the literary landscape.
211 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2011
230 people are currently reading
4148 people want to read
About the author
Don DeLillo
107 books6,490 followersDonald Richard DeLillo is an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenwriter and essayist. His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, the complexities of language, art, the advent of the Digital Age, mathematics, politics, economics, and sports.
DeLillo was already a well-regarded cult writer in 1985, when the publication of White Noise brought him widespread recognition and the National Book Award for fiction. He followed this in 1988 with Libra, a novel about the Kennedy assassination. DeLillo won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Mao II, about terrorism and the media's scrutiny of writers' private lives, and the William Dean Howells Medal for Underworld, a historical novel that ranges in time from the dawn of the Cold War to the birth of the Internet. He was awarded the 1999 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2010, and the 2013 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.
DeLillo has described his themes as "living in dangerous times" and "the inner life of the culture." In a 2005 interview, he said that writers "must oppose systems. It's important to write against power, corporations, the state, and the whole system of consumption and of debilitating entertainments... I think writers, by nature, must oppose things, oppose whatever power tries to impose on us."
DeLillo was already a well-regarded cult writer in 1985, when the publication of White Noise brought him widespread recognition and the National Book Award for fiction. He followed this in 1988 with Libra, a novel about the Kennedy assassination. DeLillo won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Mao II, about terrorism and the media's scrutiny of writers' private lives, and the William Dean Howells Medal for Underworld, a historical novel that ranges in time from the dawn of the Cold War to the birth of the Internet. He was awarded the 1999 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2010, and the 2013 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.
DeLillo has described his themes as "living in dangerous times" and "the inner life of the culture." In a 2005 interview, he said that writers "must oppose systems. It's important to write against power, corporations, the state, and the whole system of consumption and of debilitating entertainments... I think writers, by nature, must oppose things, oppose whatever power tries to impose on us."
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September 4, 2022
‘Let the words be the facts. This was the nature of our walks – to register what was out there, all the scattered rhythms of circumstance and occurrence, and to reconstruct it as human noise.’
After hearing the opening lyrics to the Bright Eyes song Gold Mine Gutted, I spent 2 years of high school believing that Don DeLillo was some obscure brand of whisky. While passing time between lectures in college, I stumbled upon DeLillo’s short story The Angel Esmeralda in my lit. textbook and, after feeling slightly dense, dove in. I was instantly transfixed by the stories prose and poignancy, falling in love over and over again with each blessed word.
I was initially surprised to see The Angel Esmeralda to be the title story of this 2011 publication, as I had been under the impression – once again, wrongly – that DeLillo’s short fiction, especially a story that has already been anthologized in textbooks, were commonly read and previously collected. DeLillo actually began his writing career by publishing short fiction in magazines, getting his bearings and exercising his style before switching to the longer form¹. His first return to the short form in 1979 spawned this collection’s first story Creation. This book, a finalist for both the 2011 Story Prize and the 2012 PEN/Faulkner award, offers a broad look at the ideas and social critiques, ideas that defined him as a leading literary figure when he expanded upon in his novels. Through ideas ranging through war, religion, technology, Logic class, stalkers and natural disasters, DeLillo pinpoints how we all have some ‘shared purpose, shared destiny’ as members of the human race. We are all an orchestration of our fears and desires and are corralled into our lifestyles and livelihoods by the larger working society we dwell within. Despite occasionally seeming dated, DeLillo is the scream from the modern human soul, drown out by the buzz of society.
‘Do we project our current failure and despair out toward the star clouds, the endless night?’ he asks us in Human Moments in World War III, which features two astronauts drifting above the earth, pondering on the masses below, as they seek out enemy satellites to destroy. Looking outward to define what we feel inward is a major motif working through many of these stories. What we see around us, the events/objects/people that disgusts or delights, works as a sort of sonar for our interior self; we go out and bump our consciousness against the world, and what bounces back tells us a great deal of who we are. In The Starveling we follow a man as he follows a woman through the streets and subways of New York, observing the insights into her character which allows him to reflect on the similarities within him and putting his own self-analysis into form. Baader-Mienhof works in a similar fashion, as a woman side-steps her own discomfort with her life by observing the pathetic conditions of another. Despite disliking him and despite her inner voice warning her against, she invites him into her own apartment because that unconscious bond formed through their common, pitiful humanity. Both stories conclude with a confrontation, a metaphorical bumping into one another’s consciousness. These collisions leaves behind a residue, an abstract human stain on surface of our consciousness². ‘Nearly everything in the room had a double effect – what it was and the association it carried in her mind,’ is the feeling that lingers with the woman once the man has left. Our realities become fractals of thought, an infinitely telescoping association of any object with everything we have ever experienced.
Such an overload of associations in our lives manages to go relatively unnoticed through our waking life, yet it eats at the fringes of our mind, leaving us elusive pangs of discomfort. We all have different methods of assuaging the discomfort, ironically looking outward again for an inward comfort. Continuing on the story Baader-Mienhof, the woman spends three days staring at Gerhard Richter’s series of painting on the Baader-Mienhof Baader-Meinhoff gang’s deaths and funeral.
‘The world was narrowed down to inside and outside.’ This line from Ivory Acrobat plays out the irony of the interior self with the exterior world. Through these stories we watch people either find comfort by staying closed within themselves, safe from the greater picture, or moving out into the wide, anonymous comfort of being just a face in the masses. In Acrobat, the streets and the concern of those around Kyle are her comforts during earthquakes, whereas the unnamed runner in The Runner is a background-extra of sorts in a discomforting event while in a park, seeing the interior world of his well organized office building to be comfort away from the erratic outside. Hammer and Sickle makes some of the best statements on societal interaction, showing the comfort of group support, while also extolling the virtues of self-reflection and reverting back to the basics. The inmates lives are much easier and more stress-free without being constantly plugged into society at large. Cellphones and up to the nanosecond market updates keep the world running 24-7, stretching the sanity of any person to the limits when they are forced to keep up in such an information age. Similar to Creation, where a man finds the greatest comforts in a tropical paradise, floating free and cut off from the world, yet is singularly focused on the longings of human need for companionship, such as the extramarital affair with a fellow vacationer.
My personal favorite story, a story crackling with beautiful prose that becomes the silent, still winter landscape of a quiet campus, was Midnight In Dostoevsky. The story, named for a quote from the Frank O'Hara poem Meditations in an Emergency that a character references, features two college students walking around the city, affixing meaning to everything they see. The two students attend a logic class together, and the power of words and language, the deep meanings that lurk within everything, becomes a bit of an obsession for them. Like MFA students, they create an entire life for an old man they follow, insisting on plausibility and total, well-rounded understanding of even the most mundane details of his existence and history. They use language and logic as a form of pure creation, giving meaning to others to give meaning to their own vacant hours between classes. Language becomes the tool of creation, much like it is for DeLillo himself writing the stories. His use of language to express the ironies that flow through this collection are at their best in Human Moments. Phrases like ‘banning of nuclear weapons has made the world safe for war,’ ‘the emptier the land, the more luminous and precise the names for its features,’ or his comment that a Mission Specialist is one who does not specialize, all exploit the wonderful ways one idea can be formed by two separate, merging ideas that seem as if they should be like oil and water when analyzed on their own.
DeLillo has some marvelous turns of phrase and poetic expressions that dazzle the mind like fireworks to the eye, as well as incredibly insightful social commentary. That said, there are times where his ideas and words fall a bit flat. For example, the heavy-handedness present when a spacecraft’s weapons system is called being ‘open-minded’ when activated is a little bit of a groaner in a story about two astronauts reflecting on the human condition while simultaneously playing a part in it’s destruction. DeLillo takes a lot of criticism in his novels for having dated ideas and references, however, reading them in their present gives a very authentic feel. Hammer and Sickle, written in 2011, is eerily relevant with the Euro crisis of the past year and words like ‘smartphone’ feel natural. However, such a term may seem antiquated in ten or twenty years if it recedes from common usage, and the idea of outdated technology being called ‘smart’ may seem comical to those using what may be extraordinarily more advanced technology in the years to come. Even when DeLillo’s prose is faulty, it is more like a commercial firework that fails to lift off the ground and instead tips over to gyrate across the lawn still spewing bright plumes of colored sparks rather than a mere dud that becomes a silent void beneath the dark sky.
These short stories are brief bursts of genius. While there is a bit of filler, some stories seeming dull beside the rest, there are many moments of heart-in-your-throat enjoyment as each word passes through you. Midnight In Dostoevsky just might be one of my favorites short stories of all time now. DeLillo offers an incredible dose of irony that harnesses an authentic human nature dwarfed within a threatening existence. Like the astronauts in Human Moments, we sit silent and detached from the world, looking back at it and wondering how people manage to survive with so much fear, violence and destruction. I feel compelled to spend a long time immersed in the mans novels now. Although he is not actually some little-known exotic whisky as I had once thought, it is good to know you can still get drunk off his prose. And for that, I raise my glass to you, Don DeLillo.
4/5
'The view is endlessly fulfilling. It is like the answer to a lifetime of questions and vague cravings.'
¹ ‘When I started thinking about myself as a writer, the work I did was almost exclusively devoted to the short story,NPR’s All Things Considered. ‘I think many writers in those years started with a story — the American short story [is] such a classic form.’
² The best mentioning of things bumping into one another is found in the title story. There is a powerful questioning of faith and God’s purity, asking how could a God stay pure when always reaching out to clean the impurities of the world by having us hear the inner conflicts of a nun washing her hands: ‘How can the hands be clean if the soap is not? This question was insistent in her life? If you use scouring powder on the bleach bottle, how do you clean the bottle of Ajax? Germs have personalities.’
The artwork depicting Midnight in Dostoevsky that accompanied the story when it was first published in The New Yorker.
After hearing the opening lyrics to the Bright Eyes song Gold Mine Gutted, I spent 2 years of high school believing that Don DeLillo was some obscure brand of whisky. While passing time between lectures in college, I stumbled upon DeLillo’s short story The Angel Esmeralda in my lit. textbook and, after feeling slightly dense, dove in. I was instantly transfixed by the stories prose and poignancy, falling in love over and over again with each blessed word.
’And what do you remember, finally, when everyone has gone home and the streets are empty of devotion and hope, swept by river wind? Is the memory thin and bitter and does it shame you with its fundamental untruth — all nuance and wishful silhouette? Or does the power of transcendence linger, the sense of an event that violates natural forces, something holy that throbs on the hot horizon, the vision you crave because you need a sign to stand against your doubt?’The power of transcendence lingered in my 19 year old heart, so I read White Noise soon after and would become swept up in the vein of postmodernism from there on out. The short story, and the startling nun scene at the conclusion of White Noise has lead me to always associate DeLillo with nuns and his exciting blend of hope and emptiness that he enacts with his nun figures. Within this collection, the nine stories ordered chronologically from 1979-2011, DeLillo continues to dazzle by highlighting the ironies of life. Sifting through the white noises and silence of life, DeLillo has a gift of honing in on the building blocks of human consciousness and our most deep primal instincts of fear, longing, loneliness, and wonderment to place them in tangible, carefully chosen and neatly ordered words that manage to define the ineffable.
I was initially surprised to see The Angel Esmeralda to be the title story of this 2011 publication, as I had been under the impression – once again, wrongly – that DeLillo’s short fiction, especially a story that has already been anthologized in textbooks, were commonly read and previously collected. DeLillo actually began his writing career by publishing short fiction in magazines, getting his bearings and exercising his style before switching to the longer form¹. His first return to the short form in 1979 spawned this collection’s first story Creation. This book, a finalist for both the 2011 Story Prize and the 2012 PEN/Faulkner award, offers a broad look at the ideas and social critiques, ideas that defined him as a leading literary figure when he expanded upon in his novels. Through ideas ranging through war, religion, technology, Logic class, stalkers and natural disasters, DeLillo pinpoints how we all have some ‘shared purpose, shared destiny’ as members of the human race. We are all an orchestration of our fears and desires and are corralled into our lifestyles and livelihoods by the larger working society we dwell within. Despite occasionally seeming dated, DeLillo is the scream from the modern human soul, drown out by the buzz of society.
‘Do we project our current failure and despair out toward the star clouds, the endless night?’ he asks us in Human Moments in World War III, which features two astronauts drifting above the earth, pondering on the masses below, as they seek out enemy satellites to destroy. Looking outward to define what we feel inward is a major motif working through many of these stories. What we see around us, the events/objects/people that disgusts or delights, works as a sort of sonar for our interior self; we go out and bump our consciousness against the world, and what bounces back tells us a great deal of who we are. In The Starveling we follow a man as he follows a woman through the streets and subways of New York, observing the insights into her character which allows him to reflect on the similarities within him and putting his own self-analysis into form. Baader-Mienhof works in a similar fashion, as a woman side-steps her own discomfort with her life by observing the pathetic conditions of another. Despite disliking him and despite her inner voice warning her against, she invites him into her own apartment because that unconscious bond formed through their common, pitiful humanity. Both stories conclude with a confrontation, a metaphorical bumping into one another’s consciousness. These collisions leaves behind a residue, an abstract human stain on surface of our consciousness². ‘Nearly everything in the room had a double effect – what it was and the association it carried in her mind,’ is the feeling that lingers with the woman once the man has left. Our realities become fractals of thought, an infinitely telescoping association of any object with everything we have ever experienced.
Such an overload of associations in our lives manages to go relatively unnoticed through our waking life, yet it eats at the fringes of our mind, leaving us elusive pangs of discomfort. We all have different methods of assuaging the discomfort, ironically looking outward again for an inward comfort. Continuing on the story Baader-Mienhof, the woman spends three days staring at Gerhard Richter’s series of painting on the Baader-Mienhof Baader-Meinhoff gang’s deaths and funeral.
’What they did had meaning,’ she asserts to the man, ‘It was wrong but it wasn’t blind and empty. I think the painter’s searching for this. And how did it end the way it did? I think he’s asking this.’. These words, incredibly portentous of the story’s conclusion, reflects on how she see’s meaning associated with everything around her, yet is not able to process it all into one streamlined, structured and succinct statement on what anything truly means. She silences these inner pangs by looking outward to a painting, hoping to understand one small object as a compensation for all the other meanings that escape her. In the powerful Hammer and Sickle inmates at a minimum-security prison all gather around the television to watch the daily economics report put on by two young girls. The inmates, most of them for incarcerated for economic reasons ranging from failure-to-pay-taxes to market manipulation and arms-dealing, find a sense of community and comfort watching the world market crumble. They watch two girls apply blunt meaning well beyond their capacity to intricate systems, while also being able to express inner angst together as a group.
Gerhard Richter’s The Funeral, featured prominently in the story.
‘The world was narrowed down to inside and outside.’ This line from Ivory Acrobat plays out the irony of the interior self with the exterior world. Through these stories we watch people either find comfort by staying closed within themselves, safe from the greater picture, or moving out into the wide, anonymous comfort of being just a face in the masses. In Acrobat, the streets and the concern of those around Kyle are her comforts during earthquakes, whereas the unnamed runner in The Runner is a background-extra of sorts in a discomforting event while in a park, seeing the interior world of his well organized office building to be comfort away from the erratic outside. Hammer and Sickle makes some of the best statements on societal interaction, showing the comfort of group support, while also extolling the virtues of self-reflection and reverting back to the basics. The inmates lives are much easier and more stress-free without being constantly plugged into society at large. Cellphones and up to the nanosecond market updates keep the world running 24-7, stretching the sanity of any person to the limits when they are forced to keep up in such an information age. Similar to Creation, where a man finds the greatest comforts in a tropical paradise, floating free and cut off from the world, yet is singularly focused on the longings of human need for companionship, such as the extramarital affair with a fellow vacationer.
My personal favorite story, a story crackling with beautiful prose that becomes the silent, still winter landscape of a quiet campus, was Midnight In Dostoevsky. The story, named for a quote from the Frank O'Hara poem Meditations in an Emergency that a character references, features two college students walking around the city, affixing meaning to everything they see. The two students attend a logic class together, and the power of words and language, the deep meanings that lurk within everything, becomes a bit of an obsession for them. Like MFA students, they create an entire life for an old man they follow, insisting on plausibility and total, well-rounded understanding of even the most mundane details of his existence and history. They use language and logic as a form of pure creation, giving meaning to others to give meaning to their own vacant hours between classes. Language becomes the tool of creation, much like it is for DeLillo himself writing the stories. His use of language to express the ironies that flow through this collection are at their best in Human Moments. Phrases like ‘banning of nuclear weapons has made the world safe for war,’ ‘the emptier the land, the more luminous and precise the names for its features,’ or his comment that a Mission Specialist is one who does not specialize, all exploit the wonderful ways one idea can be formed by two separate, merging ideas that seem as if they should be like oil and water when analyzed on their own.
DeLillo has some marvelous turns of phrase and poetic expressions that dazzle the mind like fireworks to the eye, as well as incredibly insightful social commentary. That said, there are times where his ideas and words fall a bit flat. For example, the heavy-handedness present when a spacecraft’s weapons system is called being ‘open-minded’ when activated is a little bit of a groaner in a story about two astronauts reflecting on the human condition while simultaneously playing a part in it’s destruction. DeLillo takes a lot of criticism in his novels for having dated ideas and references, however, reading them in their present gives a very authentic feel. Hammer and Sickle, written in 2011, is eerily relevant with the Euro crisis of the past year and words like ‘smartphone’ feel natural. However, such a term may seem antiquated in ten or twenty years if it recedes from common usage, and the idea of outdated technology being called ‘smart’ may seem comical to those using what may be extraordinarily more advanced technology in the years to come. Even when DeLillo’s prose is faulty, it is more like a commercial firework that fails to lift off the ground and instead tips over to gyrate across the lawn still spewing bright plumes of colored sparks rather than a mere dud that becomes a silent void beneath the dark sky.
These short stories are brief bursts of genius. While there is a bit of filler, some stories seeming dull beside the rest, there are many moments of heart-in-your-throat enjoyment as each word passes through you. Midnight In Dostoevsky just might be one of my favorites short stories of all time now. DeLillo offers an incredible dose of irony that harnesses an authentic human nature dwarfed within a threatening existence. Like the astronauts in Human Moments, we sit silent and detached from the world, looking back at it and wondering how people manage to survive with so much fear, violence and destruction. I feel compelled to spend a long time immersed in the mans novels now. Although he is not actually some little-known exotic whisky as I had once thought, it is good to know you can still get drunk off his prose. And for that, I raise my glass to you, Don DeLillo.
4/5
'The view is endlessly fulfilling. It is like the answer to a lifetime of questions and vague cravings.'
¹ ‘When I started thinking about myself as a writer, the work I did was almost exclusively devoted to the short story,NPR’s All Things Considered. ‘I think many writers in those years started with a story — the American short story [is] such a classic form.’
² The best mentioning of things bumping into one another is found in the title story. There is a powerful questioning of faith and God’s purity, asking how could a God stay pure when always reaching out to clean the impurities of the world by having us hear the inner conflicts of a nun washing her hands: ‘How can the hands be clean if the soap is not? This question was insistent in her life? If you use scouring powder on the bleach bottle, how do you clean the bottle of Ajax? Germs have personalities.’
The artwork depicting Midnight in Dostoevsky that accompanied the story when it was first published in The New Yorker.
March 7, 2016
Angel Esmeralda –
1 Creation – A husband and wife are trapped on a remote island where all outgoing flights are cancelled. As ever Delillo’s prose is gloriously incisive and lyrical. And as usual he does a fabulous job of evoking in a new and searing light contemporary situations. In this story he’s brilliant at capturing the ennui of waiting at airports; the arresting of the narrative of a life by unseen circumstances. And showing how sometimes life happens when you’re waiting for the next chapter. A story about being compelled into a kind of backstage area of identity when the continuity machine of modern civilisation breaks down.
Some favourite quotes: “The dream of Creation that glows at the edge of the serious traveller’s search.”
“This spot was so close to perfect we would not even want to tell ourselves how lucky we were, having been delivered to it. The best of new places had to be protected from our own cries of delight. We would hold the words for weeks or months, for the soft evening when a stray remark would set us to recollecting. I guess we believed, together, that the wrong voice can obliterate a landscape.”
“The new snow of her breasts.”
2 Human Moments in World War Three – Two astronauts, adrift from “human moments”, are orbiting earth where World War Three has broken out. They are gathering intelligence, monitoring data and communication with the world below is largely conducted in jargon – “You are negative red on the step-function quad.” DeLillo, often cited as a kind of seer able to predict the future, is brilliant at cataloguing the damage jargon does to human interaction, how it deflects the immediacy of truthful response. “He no longer describes the earth as a library globe or a map that has come alive, as a cosmic eye staring into deep space. The earth is land and water, the dwelling place of mortal men, in elevated dictionary terms. He doesn’t see it anymore (storm-spiralled, sea-bright, breathing heat and haze and colour) as an occasion for picturesque language, for easeful play or speculation.” Then, one day, the two astronauts begin picking up wireless transmissions from sixty years ago. The two astronauts are awoken to a more nostalgic and philosophical imperative, they are returned to nature. What follows are some truly beautiful reflections on the nature of the human condition.
“It makes a man feel universal, floating over the continents, seeing the rim of the world, a line as clear as a compass arc, knowing it is just a turning of the bend to Atlantic twilight, to sediment plumes and kelp beds, an island chain glowing in the dusky sea.”
“To men at this remove, it is as though things exist in their particular physical form in order to reveal the hidden simplicity of some powerful mathematical truth.”
“War, among other things, is a form of longing.”
“People had hoped to be caught up in something bigger than themselves. They thought it would be a shared crisis. They would feel a sense of shared purpose, shared destiny. Like a snowstorm that blankets a large city – but lasting months, lasting years, carrying everyone along, creating fellow feeling where there was only suspicion and fear. The war would ennoble everything we say and do. What was impersonal would become personal. What was solitary would be shared.”
“There is a seaward bulge of stratocumulus. Sun glint and littoral drift. I see blooms of plankton in a blue of such Persian richness it seems an animal rapture, a colour change to express some form of intuitive delight.”
“Forget the measure of our vision, the sweep of things, the war itself, the terrible death. Forget the overarching night, the stars as static points, as mathematical fields. Forget the cosmic solitude, the upwelling awe and dread.”
“Don’t you sometimes feel a power in you? An extreme state of good health. An arrogant healthiness. That’s it. You are feeling so good you begin thinking you’re a little superior to most people. An optimism about yourself that you generate at the expense of others. Don’t you sometimes feel this?”
“We listen to the old radio shows. Light flares and spreads across the blue-banded edge, sunrise, sunset, the urban grids in shadow. There is a sweetness in the tenor voice of the young man singing, a simple vigour that time and distance and random noise have enveloped in eloquence and yearning. Every sound, every lilt of strings has this veneer of age.”
This story is DeLillo at his best.
3 The Runner.
This is rather slight story about a young man is running in a park. His running is a kind of control, a kind of housekeeping: he is ordering the world around him to the rhythm of his running, he is able to take the next and the next time frame for granted. Until a car inexplicably veers off the road and comes to a sudden halt on the grass. A man jumps out of the car, steals a child who is standing close to his mother and then drives off. The runner then has a conversation with a bystander and they both seek to interpret what they have seen. Life cannot be resumed until a satisfactory explanation has been found. So it’s about those violent moments that seem to arrive out of the blue and shatter momentarily the tidy (and perhaps rather sterile) continuity of routine until they can be rationally explained. It’s a kind of parochial metaphorical insight into what happened on a grand scale on 9/11 except it was written over 20 years earlier.
4 The Ivory Acrobat.
This is a story about a young American woman experiencing an earthquake while living in Athens. It explores the mirror shattering charge of a terror event, familiar DeLillo terrain, and how mass emotion infiltrates into consciousness and distorts identity. The Ivory Acrobat of the title is a cheap reproduction of a Minoan ivory figurine of a girl in the act of vaulting over a charging bull. It is given to her by Edmund, an English teacher, because he says it reminds him of her – “It’s your magical true self, mass produced”. So the story is about the threat posed by mass controlling emotion on the sanctity of self.
5 The Angel Esmeralda
Again familiar Delillo territory – the underlying fervour of a crowd to fuse into a single consciousness. Sister Edgar is initially portrayed as a hard-boiled authoritarian, whose morality centres more on hygiene and correct use of grammar than more idealistic imperatives. Together with the younger and more idealistic Sister Gracie she performs ministrations in a dystopian part of the Bronx among “junkies who roamed at night in dead men’s Reeboks,” among “foragers and gatherers, can-redeemers, the people who yawed through subway cars with paper cups.” One young girl, Esmeralda, becomes the subject of the two nuns’ concern. But every time she is approached Esmeralda runs off. Then they hear she has been raped and thrown off the roof of a building. Soon afterwards there is a widespread talk of a miracle. The face of Esmeralda is said to appear at certain moments every night on an advertising hoarding, calling to mind the brilliant eyes of God in The Great Gatsby. Unlike Sister Gracie who now becomes the voice of reason, Sister Edgar feels a craving to see the phenomena for herself. “When the train lights hit the dimmest part of the billboard, a face appeared and it belonged to the murdered girl. A dozen women clutched their heads, they whooped and sobbed, a spirit, a godsbreath passing through the crowd.”
“If you know you’re worth nothing, only a gamble with death can gratify your vanity.”
"She thought she understood the tourists. You travel somewhere not for museums and sunsets but for ruins, bombed-out terrain, for the moss-grown memory of war and torture."
1 Creation – A husband and wife are trapped on a remote island where all outgoing flights are cancelled. As ever Delillo’s prose is gloriously incisive and lyrical. And as usual he does a fabulous job of evoking in a new and searing light contemporary situations. In this story he’s brilliant at capturing the ennui of waiting at airports; the arresting of the narrative of a life by unseen circumstances. And showing how sometimes life happens when you’re waiting for the next chapter. A story about being compelled into a kind of backstage area of identity when the continuity machine of modern civilisation breaks down.
Some favourite quotes: “The dream of Creation that glows at the edge of the serious traveller’s search.”
“This spot was so close to perfect we would not even want to tell ourselves how lucky we were, having been delivered to it. The best of new places had to be protected from our own cries of delight. We would hold the words for weeks or months, for the soft evening when a stray remark would set us to recollecting. I guess we believed, together, that the wrong voice can obliterate a landscape.”
“The new snow of her breasts.”
2 Human Moments in World War Three – Two astronauts, adrift from “human moments”, are orbiting earth where World War Three has broken out. They are gathering intelligence, monitoring data and communication with the world below is largely conducted in jargon – “You are negative red on the step-function quad.” DeLillo, often cited as a kind of seer able to predict the future, is brilliant at cataloguing the damage jargon does to human interaction, how it deflects the immediacy of truthful response. “He no longer describes the earth as a library globe or a map that has come alive, as a cosmic eye staring into deep space. The earth is land and water, the dwelling place of mortal men, in elevated dictionary terms. He doesn’t see it anymore (storm-spiralled, sea-bright, breathing heat and haze and colour) as an occasion for picturesque language, for easeful play or speculation.” Then, one day, the two astronauts begin picking up wireless transmissions from sixty years ago. The two astronauts are awoken to a more nostalgic and philosophical imperative, they are returned to nature. What follows are some truly beautiful reflections on the nature of the human condition.
“It makes a man feel universal, floating over the continents, seeing the rim of the world, a line as clear as a compass arc, knowing it is just a turning of the bend to Atlantic twilight, to sediment plumes and kelp beds, an island chain glowing in the dusky sea.”
“To men at this remove, it is as though things exist in their particular physical form in order to reveal the hidden simplicity of some powerful mathematical truth.”
“War, among other things, is a form of longing.”
“People had hoped to be caught up in something bigger than themselves. They thought it would be a shared crisis. They would feel a sense of shared purpose, shared destiny. Like a snowstorm that blankets a large city – but lasting months, lasting years, carrying everyone along, creating fellow feeling where there was only suspicion and fear. The war would ennoble everything we say and do. What was impersonal would become personal. What was solitary would be shared.”
“There is a seaward bulge of stratocumulus. Sun glint and littoral drift. I see blooms of plankton in a blue of such Persian richness it seems an animal rapture, a colour change to express some form of intuitive delight.”
“Forget the measure of our vision, the sweep of things, the war itself, the terrible death. Forget the overarching night, the stars as static points, as mathematical fields. Forget the cosmic solitude, the upwelling awe and dread.”
“Don’t you sometimes feel a power in you? An extreme state of good health. An arrogant healthiness. That’s it. You are feeling so good you begin thinking you’re a little superior to most people. An optimism about yourself that you generate at the expense of others. Don’t you sometimes feel this?”
“We listen to the old radio shows. Light flares and spreads across the blue-banded edge, sunrise, sunset, the urban grids in shadow. There is a sweetness in the tenor voice of the young man singing, a simple vigour that time and distance and random noise have enveloped in eloquence and yearning. Every sound, every lilt of strings has this veneer of age.”
This story is DeLillo at his best.
3 The Runner.
This is rather slight story about a young man is running in a park. His running is a kind of control, a kind of housekeeping: he is ordering the world around him to the rhythm of his running, he is able to take the next and the next time frame for granted. Until a car inexplicably veers off the road and comes to a sudden halt on the grass. A man jumps out of the car, steals a child who is standing close to his mother and then drives off. The runner then has a conversation with a bystander and they both seek to interpret what they have seen. Life cannot be resumed until a satisfactory explanation has been found. So it’s about those violent moments that seem to arrive out of the blue and shatter momentarily the tidy (and perhaps rather sterile) continuity of routine until they can be rationally explained. It’s a kind of parochial metaphorical insight into what happened on a grand scale on 9/11 except it was written over 20 years earlier.
4 The Ivory Acrobat.
This is a story about a young American woman experiencing an earthquake while living in Athens. It explores the mirror shattering charge of a terror event, familiar DeLillo terrain, and how mass emotion infiltrates into consciousness and distorts identity. The Ivory Acrobat of the title is a cheap reproduction of a Minoan ivory figurine of a girl in the act of vaulting over a charging bull. It is given to her by Edmund, an English teacher, because he says it reminds him of her – “It’s your magical true self, mass produced”. So the story is about the threat posed by mass controlling emotion on the sanctity of self.
5 The Angel Esmeralda
Again familiar Delillo territory – the underlying fervour of a crowd to fuse into a single consciousness. Sister Edgar is initially portrayed as a hard-boiled authoritarian, whose morality centres more on hygiene and correct use of grammar than more idealistic imperatives. Together with the younger and more idealistic Sister Gracie she performs ministrations in a dystopian part of the Bronx among “junkies who roamed at night in dead men’s Reeboks,” among “foragers and gatherers, can-redeemers, the people who yawed through subway cars with paper cups.” One young girl, Esmeralda, becomes the subject of the two nuns’ concern. But every time she is approached Esmeralda runs off. Then they hear she has been raped and thrown off the roof of a building. Soon afterwards there is a widespread talk of a miracle. The face of Esmeralda is said to appear at certain moments every night on an advertising hoarding, calling to mind the brilliant eyes of God in The Great Gatsby. Unlike Sister Gracie who now becomes the voice of reason, Sister Edgar feels a craving to see the phenomena for herself. “When the train lights hit the dimmest part of the billboard, a face appeared and it belonged to the murdered girl. A dozen women clutched their heads, they whooped and sobbed, a spirit, a godsbreath passing through the crowd.”
“If you know you’re worth nothing, only a gamble with death can gratify your vanity.”
"She thought she understood the tourists. You travel somewhere not for museums and sunsets but for ruins, bombed-out terrain, for the moss-grown memory of war and torture."
June 7, 2025
shoutout to don delillo. when i'm in the mood for what some call his "bloated" prose (prone to atmospheric detours during which he flexes his never-ending array of overly muscular verbs/adjectives to show us how untalented and poorly read we are), his work HITS.
when i'm not in the mood for his prose, i have to fight to stay awake. reading white noise, you begin to pick up on the hallmarks of delillo's work: a skepticism of technology, an incessant need to grapple with theories of knowledge (how do we know what anything is? what drives our most quotidian desires? why does language language?), and a love for enigmatic men with 'foreign' (read: european, namely german) names and/or aesthetic leanings. he loves a man fascinated by western european names, cultures, and languages. he loves writing intentionally clunky, peculiar dialogue that devolves into repeated words or phrases until those words become meaningless sounds, or cult-like chants. (an interesting reading might trace american propaganda vs agitprop across his work.)
delillo is a man well aware of his creative affinities.
if you're someone interested in the craft of language, syntax, and sound, i think he's a great writer to dive into. but if abstractions in form and world-building bore you, i would not suggest this collection.
oddly, i found the titular short story to be one of the worst. delillo's depiction of nuns and young 'street rat'-adjacent children is laughably bad. his writing is really and truly just too well-muscled and self-absorbed to sell me a story like that. 2.7/5. white noise continues to beat out all his other work.
when i'm not in the mood for his prose, i have to fight to stay awake. reading white noise, you begin to pick up on the hallmarks of delillo's work: a skepticism of technology, an incessant need to grapple with theories of knowledge (how do we know what anything is? what drives our most quotidian desires? why does language language?), and a love for enigmatic men with 'foreign' (read: european, namely german) names and/or aesthetic leanings. he loves a man fascinated by western european names, cultures, and languages. he loves writing intentionally clunky, peculiar dialogue that devolves into repeated words or phrases until those words become meaningless sounds, or cult-like chants. (an interesting reading might trace american propaganda vs agitprop across his work.)
delillo is a man well aware of his creative affinities.
if you're someone interested in the craft of language, syntax, and sound, i think he's a great writer to dive into. but if abstractions in form and world-building bore you, i would not suggest this collection.
oddly, i found the titular short story to be one of the worst. delillo's depiction of nuns and young 'street rat'-adjacent children is laughably bad. his writing is really and truly just too well-muscled and self-absorbed to sell me a story like that. 2.7/5. white noise continues to beat out all his other work.
June 25, 2022
Don DeLillo has a very distinctive writing style. It's like a wand he waves over the modern world and you see things you see every day with an added dimension. My favourite stories were two characters orbiting the earth in a space mission and the ministering of a grizzled old nun to an abandoned cast of characters living in derelict part of the Bronx. I'm looking forward to reading another of his novels.
January 27, 2018
«Este no es uno de los grandes momentos del mundo. Llegará y pasará. Pero aquí estamos».Extraordinaria antología de Don DeLillo. Este es mi sexto libro que leo de él, y debo decir que siempre encuentro algo nuevo en sus historias. Nunca deja de darme algo más, algo que no esperaba. En este caso, con estos nueve cuentos DeLillo me llevó a realidades diferentes que sirven de reflexión acerca del mundo en el que vivimos, con inteligencia, virtuosismo y una escritura pocas veces vista en la literatura contemporánea.
Me gustaron prácticamente todos, pero mis favoritos fueron:
«Momentos humanos de la tercera guerra mundial»: Breve pero gran relato sobre dos astronautas que orbitan la Tierra y reflexionan sobre nuestra naturaleza, al margen de la autodestrucción bélica. Muy interesante, original e inolvidable. Tiene varias partes que hacen resplandecer al mejor DeLillo, en especial al final.
«El acróbata de marfil»: Solo se me ocurre una palabra para describir este cuento: brillante. A raíz de un terremoto devastador, se narra las inseguridades de los personajes, que buscan compañía en el medio de la catástrofe. Pero la tragedia empieza cuando solo encuentran muestras de la fragilidad humana en esta tierra que se agita y palpita, recordándoles de qué están hechos realmente.
«Medianoche en Dostoievski»: Tremenda joya que me hizo acordar mucho a la primera parte de El secreto, de Donna Tartt (libro que también recomiendo mucho). Dos alumnos aplicados fantasean acerca de la vida de un anciano que un día ven caminando entre la nieve. ¿Qué es más reconfortante: la fantasía o la realidad?
«La hoz y el martillo»: En una cárcel de baja seguridad, los reclusos escuchan cómo dos niñas (sí, niñas) hablan en la televisión sobre la economía de ciertos países y su declive inminente, con un grado alto de amarillismo. Lo interesante radica en la aparición de un contraste entre los delitos "graves" y los "leves". Todos los presos están encerrados por defraudación al Estado, sobornos corporativos, evasión de impuestos, etcétera; pero lucen inocentes. Sin embargo, la realidad narrada en la televisión expone algo distinto.
«El ángel esmeralda»: Este relato probablemente lo habría disfrutado mucho más si no lo hubiera leído antes en la magnum opus de DeLillo: Submundo. Desgarradora historia, que recomiendo leer en dicha novela.
En fin: DeLillo es uno de los mejores escritores vivos del planeta, de eso no caben dudas. No obstante, jamás lo había conocido como cuentista. Ya habiendo leído El ángel esmeralda, puedo decir que DeLillo es un autor con un genio volátil y apto para todo lo que se proponga (al menos dentro de las letras, claro).
December 12, 2011
FUUUUUCK YEAAAAAAAH
DeLillo, so closely identified with the novel, one of the artists whose insistence upon the novel as the preeminent form of human expression, or at least American expression, has allowed the novel to endure as such... this same DeLillo, this mad genius with the ever-loaded and inimitable style evident in each of his fifteen-ish novels, has written just enough short stories over his four-decade career for this slim collection to be publishable. Short stories?? Don, you taught us that the future belongs to crowds, not to short stories. And yet DeLillo has made this form his own, albeit infrequently, using its concision as a means to distill and/or zoom in on typically DeLillean ideas. Not all of these stories are masterpieces, but at least two of 'em are, and the collection as a whole is enormously satisfying. DeLillo fans: don't sleep on this.
Brief rundowns of each story, w/ letter grades for some reason:
Creation (B) A couple tries to fly home from a remote island, but at least one of them seems to be stuck there for the foreseeable future. An interesting piece, but not very representative of DeLillo; it's all minimalistic, enigmatic, leaving everything unsaid. Although this is an early story (1979), the DD work it reminded me of most was the second half of last year's Point Omega, when it got all creepily spare.
Human Moments in World War III (A) Two astronauts orbit the Earth as part of some alternate future's defense program during a major war, hearing some odd transmissions. Permit me this expulsion again: FUUUUUUCK YEAAAAAAH. DeLillo does SF! I feel this story is one of the greatest works DeLillo has ever produced. It was written between The Names and White Noise, certainly a fecund period for the man, and its power is impossible for me to describe, so just read it.
The Runner (B) A jogger in a park witnesses a kidnapping, tries to piece together what happened. This story has an interesting structure in that the reader doesn't really understand what is happening until about halfway through, and even then we only know as much as the characters do, which is not very much. This one is too brief to make a huge impression, but it shows DeLillo playing with what the short story can do as opposed to the novel.
The Ivory Acrobat (A-) A woman living abroad in Greece freaks out after a deadly earthquake hits her town. This story shows how much DeLillo can do with the barest of material. The one sentence of plot summary I just gave is really all that happens here. But the sentences DD spins out of this scenario are absolutely stunning, perfectly capturing feelings of unease, helplessness, paranoia and fear magnified when you're a long way from home and scary things are happening.
The Angel Esmeralda (B+) Nuns help out in a dangerous inner-city neighborhood, then consider a dubious local miracle. This rating would probably be higher if I hadn't already read this story in slightly altered form: after its initial publication in Esquire, DeLillo incorporated it into his mammoth index of latter 20th-century tension, Underworld. I think it worked a bit better in the context of the novel, but maybe only because that was my first exposure to it. Amazing writing in any case.
Baader-Meinhof (B+) Two linked scenes -- a visit to a museum exhibit of paintings of terrorists, and an attempted rape -- bounce off each other in confusing and fascinating ways. Not a story about terrorism, but perhaps about our perception of it.
Midnight in Dostoevsky (A-) Two students at a remote college create a mythology surrounding a strange professor and a stranger townie. A brilliant piece that asks whether it's better to know or to invent.
Hammer and Sickle (A) White-collar criminals at a minimum-security facility watch a strange TV program of children reading financial news. This is the collection's other masterpiece, and I treasure it because DeLillo's writings on the modern world are very rare. Even Falling Man, his 9/11 novel, feels weirdly like it could have been written in some previous decade. But this is unmistakably a story about the present moment, the world economic crisis, the smartphone era. The ending, in which the protagonist temporarily escapes from the facility to behold the mystery of highway traffic, is worthy of of White Noise's sunset.
The Starveling (B+) A solitary cinephile in New York, who attends film screenings all day every day in lieu of a job, obsessively follows/stalks a fellow (female) moviegoer. On paper this should've been my favorite, what with my own cinemania, but it doesn't quite reach greatness. It's a lovely piece, though, with an extra layer of fascinated stalking: just as the protag stalks the woman, so does DeLillo stalk this (dying?) breed of New York cineaste, the monkish film fanatics blitzing from one arthouse to another.
***
Dammit, I want more of these. Is it possible that America's greatest living novelist is also secretly one of its greatest short story writers?
DeLillo, so closely identified with the novel, one of the artists whose insistence upon the novel as the preeminent form of human expression, or at least American expression, has allowed the novel to endure as such... this same DeLillo, this mad genius with the ever-loaded and inimitable style evident in each of his fifteen-ish novels, has written just enough short stories over his four-decade career for this slim collection to be publishable. Short stories?? Don, you taught us that the future belongs to crowds, not to short stories. And yet DeLillo has made this form his own, albeit infrequently, using its concision as a means to distill and/or zoom in on typically DeLillean ideas. Not all of these stories are masterpieces, but at least two of 'em are, and the collection as a whole is enormously satisfying. DeLillo fans: don't sleep on this.
Brief rundowns of each story, w/ letter grades for some reason:
Creation (B) A couple tries to fly home from a remote island, but at least one of them seems to be stuck there for the foreseeable future. An interesting piece, but not very representative of DeLillo; it's all minimalistic, enigmatic, leaving everything unsaid. Although this is an early story (1979), the DD work it reminded me of most was the second half of last year's Point Omega, when it got all creepily spare.
Human Moments in World War III (A) Two astronauts orbit the Earth as part of some alternate future's defense program during a major war, hearing some odd transmissions. Permit me this expulsion again: FUUUUUUCK YEAAAAAAH. DeLillo does SF! I feel this story is one of the greatest works DeLillo has ever produced. It was written between The Names and White Noise, certainly a fecund period for the man, and its power is impossible for me to describe, so just read it.
The Runner (B) A jogger in a park witnesses a kidnapping, tries to piece together what happened. This story has an interesting structure in that the reader doesn't really understand what is happening until about halfway through, and even then we only know as much as the characters do, which is not very much. This one is too brief to make a huge impression, but it shows DeLillo playing with what the short story can do as opposed to the novel.
The Ivory Acrobat (A-) A woman living abroad in Greece freaks out after a deadly earthquake hits her town. This story shows how much DeLillo can do with the barest of material. The one sentence of plot summary I just gave is really all that happens here. But the sentences DD spins out of this scenario are absolutely stunning, perfectly capturing feelings of unease, helplessness, paranoia and fear magnified when you're a long way from home and scary things are happening.
The Angel Esmeralda (B+) Nuns help out in a dangerous inner-city neighborhood, then consider a dubious local miracle. This rating would probably be higher if I hadn't already read this story in slightly altered form: after its initial publication in Esquire, DeLillo incorporated it into his mammoth index of latter 20th-century tension, Underworld. I think it worked a bit better in the context of the novel, but maybe only because that was my first exposure to it. Amazing writing in any case.
Baader-Meinhof (B+) Two linked scenes -- a visit to a museum exhibit of paintings of terrorists, and an attempted rape -- bounce off each other in confusing and fascinating ways. Not a story about terrorism, but perhaps about our perception of it.
Midnight in Dostoevsky (A-) Two students at a remote college create a mythology surrounding a strange professor and a stranger townie. A brilliant piece that asks whether it's better to know or to invent.
Hammer and Sickle (A) White-collar criminals at a minimum-security facility watch a strange TV program of children reading financial news. This is the collection's other masterpiece, and I treasure it because DeLillo's writings on the modern world are very rare. Even Falling Man, his 9/11 novel, feels weirdly like it could have been written in some previous decade. But this is unmistakably a story about the present moment, the world economic crisis, the smartphone era. The ending, in which the protagonist temporarily escapes from the facility to behold the mystery of highway traffic, is worthy of of White Noise's sunset.
The Starveling (B+) A solitary cinephile in New York, who attends film screenings all day every day in lieu of a job, obsessively follows/stalks a fellow (female) moviegoer. On paper this should've been my favorite, what with my own cinemania, but it doesn't quite reach greatness. It's a lovely piece, though, with an extra layer of fascinated stalking: just as the protag stalks the woman, so does DeLillo stalk this (dying?) breed of New York cineaste, the monkish film fanatics blitzing from one arthouse to another.
***
Dammit, I want more of these. Is it possible that America's greatest living novelist is also secretly one of its greatest short story writers?
April 11, 2021
Non tutti i Don DeLillo vengono col buco e
Underworld sicuramente non si discute, ma a questi racconti ogni sera tornavo malvolentieri e con fastidio.
Già 24 ore dopo mi ero completamente dimenticata il racconto letto il giorno prima... e non è mai un buon segno.
Per farla breve non li ho nemmeno letti tutti.
Resta invece sempre bello il personaggio di Suor Edgard protagonista del racconto che dà il titolo alla raccolta, un personaggio degno di nota e di memoria già presente nel romanzo maggiore di De Lillo, Underworld.
Underworld sicuramente non si discute, ma a questi racconti ogni sera tornavo malvolentieri e con fastidio.
Già 24 ore dopo mi ero completamente dimenticata il racconto letto il giorno prima... e non è mai un buon segno.
Per farla breve non li ho nemmeno letti tutti.
Resta invece sempre bello il personaggio di Suor Edgard protagonista del racconto che dà il titolo alla raccolta, un personaggio degno di nota e di memoria già presente nel romanzo maggiore di De Lillo, Underworld.
July 8, 2013
You know how in high school or college English classes, you unpack every single line of whatever text you're studying at the time. The class looks deeply into the work for symbolism, metaphor, syntax, diction, and deeper meaning. To be honest, much as I can enjoy doing it, I think a lot of that's bullshit. Sometimes a spade is just a spade, you know. Sometimes, the color of the wallpaper in the room wasn't the author subtly trying to send the reader a message about the hero's emotional state.
Why am I going into all of this? Well, DeLillo's stories feel like he wrote them with these sorts of classes in mind. They're full of symbolism and deeper meanings, all intended to show how clever he is. Were I reading these with a class and taking the time to analyze them word by word, I might be impressed. However, as pleasure reading, they kind of sucked.
Here's the thing: these stories were just so boring. I wanted to like DeLillo; actually, I still do, since I own two of his novels. They were mostly the sort of thing where nothing really happens and what does happen doesn't make sense, but probably because they were about something else altogether. A couple of them had awesome premises, but failed to focus on the cool parts. For example, one was set in Athens, which was being beset by an endless stream of earthquakes. It focused not on that, but on a broken statue, obviously a metaphor, but for what I just don't care. Yes, I know much of this is my laziness, but I have a day job, y'all, and I don't want to do too much heavy lifting when I get home.
The characters lacked development, I felt. Again, this just seemed to be much more about his ideas and getting his literariness across. Also, they were repetitive. In most of the stories, there was a refrain that would repeat several times, which is generally not my favorite literary technique, and didn't work for me here.
I fully acknowledge that I didn't read these the way I think DeLillo intended them to be read, but, dammit, I'll read however I want to. Anyway, for the scholarly types that want to study sentences in detail, go right ahead; this is for you. I'm sure these are marvelous and critically praised and whatever, but I guess I'm not smart enough to appreciate them. Fine by me.
Narration:
The narrators match their style to the stories pretty perfectly. Of course, I didn't like the stories, so I didn't care for most of the narration either. For the most part, they affect (or always read with) a monotonous tone. These people don't give a fuck and they want the world to know it. This plays perfectly into the scholarly "too good for an interesting story line" business. It does not, however, make paying attention to the audiobook an easy task. If you like this style, then go for it, but it's not for me.
Why am I going into all of this? Well, DeLillo's stories feel like he wrote them with these sorts of classes in mind. They're full of symbolism and deeper meanings, all intended to show how clever he is. Were I reading these with a class and taking the time to analyze them word by word, I might be impressed. However, as pleasure reading, they kind of sucked.
Here's the thing: these stories were just so boring. I wanted to like DeLillo; actually, I still do, since I own two of his novels. They were mostly the sort of thing where nothing really happens and what does happen doesn't make sense, but probably because they were about something else altogether. A couple of them had awesome premises, but failed to focus on the cool parts. For example, one was set in Athens, which was being beset by an endless stream of earthquakes. It focused not on that, but on a broken statue, obviously a metaphor, but for what I just don't care. Yes, I know much of this is my laziness, but I have a day job, y'all, and I don't want to do too much heavy lifting when I get home.
The characters lacked development, I felt. Again, this just seemed to be much more about his ideas and getting his literariness across. Also, they were repetitive. In most of the stories, there was a refrain that would repeat several times, which is generally not my favorite literary technique, and didn't work for me here.
I fully acknowledge that I didn't read these the way I think DeLillo intended them to be read, but, dammit, I'll read however I want to. Anyway, for the scholarly types that want to study sentences in detail, go right ahead; this is for you. I'm sure these are marvelous and critically praised and whatever, but I guess I'm not smart enough to appreciate them. Fine by me.
Narration:
The narrators match their style to the stories pretty perfectly. Of course, I didn't like the stories, so I didn't care for most of the narration either. For the most part, they affect (or always read with) a monotonous tone. These people don't give a fuck and they want the world to know it. This plays perfectly into the scholarly "too good for an interesting story line" business. It does not, however, make paying attention to the audiobook an easy task. If you like this style, then go for it, but it's not for me.
Read
February 13, 2023“— Sigo deprimiendo los domingos — me dice.
— ¿Tenemos domingos aquí?
— No, pero allí sí y los sigo notando. Siempre sé cuándo es domingo.
— ¿Por qué te deprimen?
— Por lo lentos que son los domingos, tiene que ver con el resplandor, el olor de la hierba cálida, el oficio religioso, los parientes viniendo de visita muy bien vestidos. Es como si el día entero durase para siempre.
— A mí tampoco me gustan los domingos. “
No sabría por donde empezar, pero por algo tiene que ser. Pensaba que Delillo era un escritor latinoamericano, pero es estadounidense, también pensaba que era un escritor que estaba muerto, tampoco lo está. Aunque si conocía su influencia en parte de algunos escritores, incluso algunos lo definen como uno de los autores imprescindibles del siglo pasado. Podría decirse que la confusión vino cuando algún escritor de habla hispana afirmó que era su influencia más notable, a saber. Decidí, como tengo por costumbre, empezar por los cuentos, lo quiero y suelo hacer con cualquier autor con el que quiero empezar. Si no los tiene, suelo acudir a las novelas cortas. Dellillo no es un cuentista prolífico, de hecho, me causó curiosidad la poca cantidad de cuentos que tenía publicados. Lo suyo es la novela, sin ninguna duda (También abarcaré la parte de las novelas). Aunque tenga pocos cuentos, se nota que tiene habilidad par manejar el relato breve, la tensión, el desenlace y la cadencia. Tiene una larga experiencia literaria que es más que indiscutible. Es une escritor que, por lo visto, también le gusta jugar con el lector, oculta su intención detrás de una máscara, no desvela las intenciones de golpe, como hacen algunos autores, sino que lo va desvelando poco a poco, parece que en el proceso de desvelarnos su intención, se fuese a caer una pirámide de naipes. Lo que me ha dado a entender es que no es un escritor que se haya quedado estancado, es sensible a los problemas que acontecían en cada momento en el que fueron escritos los cuentos. Me habría gustado saber que tenía muchos más cuentos, porque no me ha dejado del todo desencantado. Es una lectura exigente, incluso intencionadamente brumosos en algunos aspectos. Los relatos fueron publicados con muchos años de diferencia, pero bien marcados por los acontecimientos, como bien he dicho antes. Puede que mi primera incursión con el escritor me haya dejado un sabor algo agridulce, pero, por otro lado, tiene toda la pinta de no dejar indiferente a nadie con sus novelas más largas.
— ¿Tenemos domingos aquí?
— No, pero allí sí y los sigo notando. Siempre sé cuándo es domingo.
— ¿Por qué te deprimen?
— Por lo lentos que son los domingos, tiene que ver con el resplandor, el olor de la hierba cálida, el oficio religioso, los parientes viniendo de visita muy bien vestidos. Es como si el día entero durase para siempre.
— A mí tampoco me gustan los domingos. “
No sabría por donde empezar, pero por algo tiene que ser. Pensaba que Delillo era un escritor latinoamericano, pero es estadounidense, también pensaba que era un escritor que estaba muerto, tampoco lo está. Aunque si conocía su influencia en parte de algunos escritores, incluso algunos lo definen como uno de los autores imprescindibles del siglo pasado. Podría decirse que la confusión vino cuando algún escritor de habla hispana afirmó que era su influencia más notable, a saber. Decidí, como tengo por costumbre, empezar por los cuentos, lo quiero y suelo hacer con cualquier autor con el que quiero empezar. Si no los tiene, suelo acudir a las novelas cortas. Dellillo no es un cuentista prolífico, de hecho, me causó curiosidad la poca cantidad de cuentos que tenía publicados. Lo suyo es la novela, sin ninguna duda (También abarcaré la parte de las novelas). Aunque tenga pocos cuentos, se nota que tiene habilidad par manejar el relato breve, la tensión, el desenlace y la cadencia. Tiene una larga experiencia literaria que es más que indiscutible. Es une escritor que, por lo visto, también le gusta jugar con el lector, oculta su intención detrás de una máscara, no desvela las intenciones de golpe, como hacen algunos autores, sino que lo va desvelando poco a poco, parece que en el proceso de desvelarnos su intención, se fuese a caer una pirámide de naipes. Lo que me ha dado a entender es que no es un escritor que se haya quedado estancado, es sensible a los problemas que acontecían en cada momento en el que fueron escritos los cuentos. Me habría gustado saber que tenía muchos más cuentos, porque no me ha dejado del todo desencantado. Es una lectura exigente, incluso intencionadamente brumosos en algunos aspectos. Los relatos fueron publicados con muchos años de diferencia, pero bien marcados por los acontecimientos, como bien he dicho antes. Puede que mi primera incursión con el escritor me haya dejado un sabor algo agridulce, pero, por otro lado, tiene toda la pinta de no dejar indiferente a nadie con sus novelas más largas.
February 15, 2016
”O anjo Esmeralda – Nove histórias” é um livro do escritor norte-americano Don DeLillo (n. 1936) que reúne nove contos escritos entre 1979 e 2011.
Nos primeiros cinco contos: ”Criação” (1979) – 3*, ”Momentos calorosos na Terceira Guerra Mundial” (1983) – 3*, ”O Corredor” (1988) – 3*, ”A acrobata de marfim” (1988) – 3* e ”O anjo Esmeralda” (1994) – 4* - não existe nenhum destaque literário a referir; exceptuando, o conto ”O anjo Esmeralda” (1994), a história de duas freiras, Grace Fahey e Edgar que apoiam e ajudam uma comunidade de pessoas empobrecidas no Bronx, Nova Iorque, ”… uma paisagem de terrenos baldios, juncados por anos e anos de depósitos estratificados – a era do lixo doméstico, a era do entulho de obras e carroçarias vandalizadas de automóveis. (…)” (Pág. 85); duas mulheres profundamente religiosas e pragmáticas, num relato deslumbrante sobre o desespero e a ruína, mas igualmente, sobre a fé e a redenção.
Tote - Dead - Ulrike Meinhof - 1988 - Gerhard Richter (n. 1932)
Nos restantes quatro contos: ”Baader-Meinhof” (2002) – 5*, ”Meia-noite em Dostoievski” (2009) – 3*, ”Foice e martelo” (2010) – 5* e ”A faminta” (2011) – 4* - destacam-se ”Baader-Meinhof” (2002) e ”Foice e martelo” (2010).
Em ”Baader-Meinhof” (2002) uma mulher visita a exposição do pintor alemão Gerhard Richter (n. 1932), quinze telas baseadas em fotografias de momentos da vida e da morte de quatro membros da RAF (Fracção do Exército Vermelho) ou do Grupo Baader- Meinhof, um grupo terrorista alemão de esquerda que perpetrou uma série de sequestros e assassinatos na década de 1970. Uma mulher que ”Estava a olhar para Ulrike, cabeça e espáduas, pescoço esfolado pela corda, embora não soubesse ao certo que género de utensílio fora usado no enforcamento." (Pág. 117), e que visitava a exposição pelo terceiro dia consecutivo, quando ouviu os passos de uma pessoa, “… passos arrastados e sonoros de um homem…”. (Pág. 117)
”Foice e Martelo” (2010): é uma história ambientada numa prisão de segurança mínima para criminosos de colarinho branco. Um preso assiste na televisão à transmissão de um noticiário infantil apresentado pelas suas duas filhas e com os textos escritos pela sua ex-mulher, sobre mercados financeiros e o colapso económico de 2010, nomeadamente, no Dubai, na Grécia, na Irlanda, na Islândia e em Portugal.
”(…) – O pior talvez já tenha passado.
- Ou o pior talvez esteja para vir.
(…)
- Pensem nos mercados de capitais noutros países.
- Alguém está a olhar para Portugal?
- Toda a gente está a olhar para Portugal.
- Dívida colossal, baixo crescimento.
- Juros, juros, juros.
- Euro, euro, euro.
(…)” (Pág. 186)
Será ”O anjo Esmeralda – Nove histórias” um livro indispensável e essencial no contexto da obra de Don DeLillo? Não. ”O anjo Esmeralda – Nove histórias” é um conjunto de nove contos – com o primeiro a ser publicado em 1979 e o último editado em 2011 - que permitem examinar e analisar a evolução qualitativa da escrita e das temáticas constantes na obra de literária de Don DeLillo, nomeadamente, no enquadramento e numa caracterização mais aprofundada das personagens, num contexto de globalização ficcional.
Nos primeiros cinco contos: ”Criação” (1979) – 3*, ”Momentos calorosos na Terceira Guerra Mundial” (1983) – 3*, ”O Corredor” (1988) – 3*, ”A acrobata de marfim” (1988) – 3* e ”O anjo Esmeralda” (1994) – 4* - não existe nenhum destaque literário a referir; exceptuando, o conto ”O anjo Esmeralda” (1994), a história de duas freiras, Grace Fahey e Edgar que apoiam e ajudam uma comunidade de pessoas empobrecidas no Bronx, Nova Iorque, ”… uma paisagem de terrenos baldios, juncados por anos e anos de depósitos estratificados – a era do lixo doméstico, a era do entulho de obras e carroçarias vandalizadas de automóveis. (…)” (Pág. 85); duas mulheres profundamente religiosas e pragmáticas, num relato deslumbrante sobre o desespero e a ruína, mas igualmente, sobre a fé e a redenção.
Tote - Dead - Ulrike Meinhof - 1988 - Gerhard Richter (n. 1932)
Nos restantes quatro contos: ”Baader-Meinhof” (2002) – 5*, ”Meia-noite em Dostoievski” (2009) – 3*, ”Foice e martelo” (2010) – 5* e ”A faminta” (2011) – 4* - destacam-se ”Baader-Meinhof” (2002) e ”Foice e martelo” (2010).
Em ”Baader-Meinhof” (2002) uma mulher visita a exposição do pintor alemão Gerhard Richter (n. 1932), quinze telas baseadas em fotografias de momentos da vida e da morte de quatro membros da RAF (Fracção do Exército Vermelho) ou do Grupo Baader- Meinhof, um grupo terrorista alemão de esquerda que perpetrou uma série de sequestros e assassinatos na década de 1970. Uma mulher que ”Estava a olhar para Ulrike, cabeça e espáduas, pescoço esfolado pela corda, embora não soubesse ao certo que género de utensílio fora usado no enforcamento." (Pág. 117), e que visitava a exposição pelo terceiro dia consecutivo, quando ouviu os passos de uma pessoa, “… passos arrastados e sonoros de um homem…”. (Pág. 117)
”Foice e Martelo” (2010): é uma história ambientada numa prisão de segurança mínima para criminosos de colarinho branco. Um preso assiste na televisão à transmissão de um noticiário infantil apresentado pelas suas duas filhas e com os textos escritos pela sua ex-mulher, sobre mercados financeiros e o colapso económico de 2010, nomeadamente, no Dubai, na Grécia, na Irlanda, na Islândia e em Portugal.
”(…) – O pior talvez já tenha passado.
- Ou o pior talvez esteja para vir.
(…)
- Pensem nos mercados de capitais noutros países.
- Alguém está a olhar para Portugal?
- Toda a gente está a olhar para Portugal.
- Dívida colossal, baixo crescimento.
- Juros, juros, juros.
- Euro, euro, euro.
(…)” (Pág. 186)
Será ”O anjo Esmeralda – Nove histórias” um livro indispensável e essencial no contexto da obra de Don DeLillo? Não. ”O anjo Esmeralda – Nove histórias” é um conjunto de nove contos – com o primeiro a ser publicado em 1979 e o último editado em 2011 - que permitem examinar e analisar a evolução qualitativa da escrita e das temáticas constantes na obra de literária de Don DeLillo, nomeadamente, no enquadramento e numa caracterização mais aprofundada das personagens, num contexto de globalização ficcional.
November 2, 2019
"Le notizie esistono per scomparire, è quello lo scopo delle notizie, quale che sia la storia, ovunque succeda. Noi contiamo sul fatto che le notizie scompaiano, dice mio padre. Poi mio padre è diventato una notizia. Poi è scomparso. (Dal racconto "Falce e martello")
Una raccolta di racconti sorprendente, vasta, un vero piacere irrequieto.
"L'angelo Esmeralda" racconto che dà il titolo alla raccolta, è del 1994, DeLillo lo riprende, rielabora e immette in Underworld (1997), spezzandolo in due, la prima parte dopo 200 pagine, la seconda riaffiora al termine del libro, quindi dopo altre 600 pagine, peraltro cambiandone il finale rispetto all'originale. Qui il racconto a sé stante muove alle lacrime, lì no, qui è un capolavoro, lì forse no, avendolo immesso in un mare di suggestioni e personaggi diviene un rivolo. Perde la sua autonomia di racconto. Sono due cose diverse. Anche il finale nel racconto originale è più sobrio ed efficace.
Ne accenno alcuni, senza dire troppo:
"L'angelo Esmeralda" (1994). Una suora anziana, Edgar, insieme a una suora più giovane, Gracie, si occupano di portare del cibo e dei beni di prima necessità, con un furgoncino, a persone derelitte del Bronx, vengono coadiuvati da un gruppo di writers, costoro hanno l'abitudine di disegnare sui muri le persone disgraziate, morte in quel quartiere al limite dell'umano. Le due suore un giorno vedono una bambina dodicenne, Esmeralda, correre da sola nei prati fatti di ammassi di carcasse, non si sa chi sia, così facendo rischia la vita, vogliono salvarla...
"La denutrita"(2011). Un uomo trascorre le giornate prendendo la metro da una parte all'altra di New York, per vedere ogni genere di film, entra nei cinema, tra poche persone, in orari insoliti; nell'arco di anni vede migliaia di film, fino a quando un giorno incontra una donna in un cinema che sembra aver la sua stessa ossessione, prende a seguirla...
"Falce e martello"(2010). Un uomo in galera per reati finanziari, che inizia a vedere con un certo sgomento un notiziario finanziario del pomeriggio, in cui le notizie vengono redatte dalla sua ex moglie e le annunciatrici sono le sue due bambine...
Per l'irrequietezza che mette addosso anche "Baader-Meinhof"(2002). Un incontro tra un uomo e una donna in una mostra di dipinti riferiti a due ex terroristi tedeschi, morti in circostanze poco chiare, in carcere a metà anni Settanta. Si conoscono, decidono di andare a casa di lei...
E ancora "Il corridore"(1988) e "La mezzanotte in Dosotevskij"(2009). Buona lettura.
Una raccolta di racconti sorprendente, vasta, un vero piacere irrequieto.
"L'angelo Esmeralda" racconto che dà il titolo alla raccolta, è del 1994, DeLillo lo riprende, rielabora e immette in Underworld (1997), spezzandolo in due, la prima parte dopo 200 pagine, la seconda riaffiora al termine del libro, quindi dopo altre 600 pagine, peraltro cambiandone il finale rispetto all'originale. Qui il racconto a sé stante muove alle lacrime, lì no, qui è un capolavoro, lì forse no, avendolo immesso in un mare di suggestioni e personaggi diviene un rivolo. Perde la sua autonomia di racconto. Sono due cose diverse. Anche il finale nel racconto originale è più sobrio ed efficace.
Ne accenno alcuni, senza dire troppo:
"L'angelo Esmeralda" (1994). Una suora anziana, Edgar, insieme a una suora più giovane, Gracie, si occupano di portare del cibo e dei beni di prima necessità, con un furgoncino, a persone derelitte del Bronx, vengono coadiuvati da un gruppo di writers, costoro hanno l'abitudine di disegnare sui muri le persone disgraziate, morte in quel quartiere al limite dell'umano. Le due suore un giorno vedono una bambina dodicenne, Esmeralda, correre da sola nei prati fatti di ammassi di carcasse, non si sa chi sia, così facendo rischia la vita, vogliono salvarla...
"La denutrita"(2011). Un uomo trascorre le giornate prendendo la metro da una parte all'altra di New York, per vedere ogni genere di film, entra nei cinema, tra poche persone, in orari insoliti; nell'arco di anni vede migliaia di film, fino a quando un giorno incontra una donna in un cinema che sembra aver la sua stessa ossessione, prende a seguirla...
"Falce e martello"(2010). Un uomo in galera per reati finanziari, che inizia a vedere con un certo sgomento un notiziario finanziario del pomeriggio, in cui le notizie vengono redatte dalla sua ex moglie e le annunciatrici sono le sue due bambine...
Per l'irrequietezza che mette addosso anche "Baader-Meinhof"(2002). Un incontro tra un uomo e una donna in una mostra di dipinti riferiti a due ex terroristi tedeschi, morti in circostanze poco chiare, in carcere a metà anni Settanta. Si conoscono, decidono di andare a casa di lei...
E ancora "Il corridore"(1988) e "La mezzanotte in Dosotevskij"(2009). Buona lettura.
December 24, 2015
Qui ci sono nove racconti scritti tra il 1979 e il 2011.
Mi è sembrato tutto abbastanza eccezionale.
Frasi perfette, storie infallibili, finali sospesi.
E niente, vorrei saper scrivere allo stesso modo.
Peccato che i regali di Natale son già impacchettati altrimenti almeno una copia l’avrei rifilata. [78/100]
PS: il racconto che dà il titolo alla raccolta è presente anche in Underworld.
Mi è sembrato tutto abbastanza eccezionale.
Frasi perfette, storie infallibili, finali sospesi.
E niente, vorrei saper scrivere allo stesso modo.
Peccato che i regali di Natale son già impacchettati altrimenti almeno una copia l’avrei rifilata. [78/100]
PS: il racconto che dà il titolo alla raccolta è presente anche in Underworld.
March 9, 2017
The second story of this, 'Human Moment in World War 3' was amazing. I might be coming around.
August 1, 2022
While Delilo explores seemingly interesting subject matter in The Angel Esmeralda, in essence, it is a rather dull collection of short stories told through bloated prose.
November 16, 2023
Forse questa raccolta è uno dei modi migliori per avvicinarsi a DeLillo, se a qualcuno fa schifo che si fermi qui ....
Sono racconti stranianti e che spiazzano, come sempre le sue storie altro non sono che pretesti per parlare di altri temi a lui cari, le preoccupazioni nei confronti di un mondo minaccioso, che mettono in luce la sua straordinaria capacità nel leggere il presente e i cambiamenti in atto nel mondo.
Continuo a ripeterlo, per la chiaroveggenza che si evince dai suoi racconti, a volte sembra che il corso degli eventi segua le trame dei suoi racconti e non viceversa ....
Su tutti L'acrobata d'avorio, Baader-Meinhof e La Denutrita
Formò questo pensiero categorico: È la scossa più forte finora. La camera era una macchia indistinta. Sembrava che stesse per frantumarsi. Questa volta l'effetto lo avvertí alle gambe, una sorta di svuotamento, la flebile resa a una malattia. Era difficile crederci, difficile credere che fosse durato tanto. Appoggiò le mani con forza allo stipite, cercando un po' di calma dentro di sé. Riusciva quasi a vedere una foto della sua mente, un vago ovale grigio che fluttuava sulla stanza. L'oscillazione non si fermava. C'era un elemento di rabbia, di pretesa martellante. Sul volto aveva lo sforzo corrucciato di un sollevatore di pesi. Non era facile capire cosa le stava succedendo attorno. Non riusciva a vedere le cose in modo normale. Vedeva solo se stessa, con la pelle luminosa, in attesa che la stanza le crollasse addosso.
Norman sentiva la mancanza delle sue pareti, ma qui non stava poi tanto male. Era contenuto, diceva, scollato, slegato, lontano. Era libero dai bisogni gonfiati e dalle richieste altrui, ma soprattutto si era svincolato dalle sue pulsioni perso- nali, dalla sua avidità, quell'obbligo di accumulare, ampliare, costruire se stesso, comprare una catena di alberghi, farsi un nome. Qui era tranquillo, diceva.
Ecco cosa temevo, che lei avrebbe parlato delle notizie, di tutte le notizie in genere, e che avrebbe raccontato che suo padre diceva sempre che le notizie esistono per scomparire, è quello lo scopo delle notizie, quale che sia la storia, ovunque succeda. Noi contiamo sul fatto che le notizie scompaiano, dice mio padre. Poi mio padre è diventato una notizia. Poi è scomparso.
Questa è la civiltà, pensai, spinta sociale e progresso materiale, persone in movimento, che mettono alla prova i limiti di tempo e spazio. Al diavolo la puzza ammorbante di combustibile bruciato, l'inquinamento del pianeta. Il pericolo può essere reale, ma è semplicemente la sovrapposizione, l'inevitabile sovrastruttura.
Tutta l'esistenza umana è un gioco di luce.
Cercò di ricordare il contesto di quella frase. Parlava dell'universo e della nostra posizione remota e fugace di terrestri? O era qualcosa di molto più intimo, persone dentro una stanza, ciò che vediamo e ciò che ci manca, come ci attraversiamo a vicenda, di anno in anno, secondo dopo secondo?
Sono racconti stranianti e che spiazzano, come sempre le sue storie altro non sono che pretesti per parlare di altri temi a lui cari, le preoccupazioni nei confronti di un mondo minaccioso, che mettono in luce la sua straordinaria capacità nel leggere il presente e i cambiamenti in atto nel mondo.
Continuo a ripeterlo, per la chiaroveggenza che si evince dai suoi racconti, a volte sembra che il corso degli eventi segua le trame dei suoi racconti e non viceversa ....
Su tutti L'acrobata d'avorio, Baader-Meinhof e La Denutrita
Formò questo pensiero categorico: È la scossa più forte finora. La camera era una macchia indistinta. Sembrava che stesse per frantumarsi. Questa volta l'effetto lo avvertí alle gambe, una sorta di svuotamento, la flebile resa a una malattia. Era difficile crederci, difficile credere che fosse durato tanto. Appoggiò le mani con forza allo stipite, cercando un po' di calma dentro di sé. Riusciva quasi a vedere una foto della sua mente, un vago ovale grigio che fluttuava sulla stanza. L'oscillazione non si fermava. C'era un elemento di rabbia, di pretesa martellante. Sul volto aveva lo sforzo corrucciato di un sollevatore di pesi. Non era facile capire cosa le stava succedendo attorno. Non riusciva a vedere le cose in modo normale. Vedeva solo se stessa, con la pelle luminosa, in attesa che la stanza le crollasse addosso.
Norman sentiva la mancanza delle sue pareti, ma qui non stava poi tanto male. Era contenuto, diceva, scollato, slegato, lontano. Era libero dai bisogni gonfiati e dalle richieste altrui, ma soprattutto si era svincolato dalle sue pulsioni perso- nali, dalla sua avidità, quell'obbligo di accumulare, ampliare, costruire se stesso, comprare una catena di alberghi, farsi un nome. Qui era tranquillo, diceva.
Ecco cosa temevo, che lei avrebbe parlato delle notizie, di tutte le notizie in genere, e che avrebbe raccontato che suo padre diceva sempre che le notizie esistono per scomparire, è quello lo scopo delle notizie, quale che sia la storia, ovunque succeda. Noi contiamo sul fatto che le notizie scompaiano, dice mio padre. Poi mio padre è diventato una notizia. Poi è scomparso.
Questa è la civiltà, pensai, spinta sociale e progresso materiale, persone in movimento, che mettono alla prova i limiti di tempo e spazio. Al diavolo la puzza ammorbante di combustibile bruciato, l'inquinamento del pianeta. Il pericolo può essere reale, ma è semplicemente la sovrapposizione, l'inevitabile sovrastruttura.
Tutta l'esistenza umana è un gioco di luce.
Cercò di ricordare il contesto di quella frase. Parlava dell'universo e della nostra posizione remota e fugace di terrestri? O era qualcosa di molto più intimo, persone dentro una stanza, ciò che vediamo e ciò che ci manca, come ci attraversiamo a vicenda, di anno in anno, secondo dopo secondo?
April 3, 2019
This collection of 9 short stories was a great opportunity to be introduced to the fine writing of Don DeLillo.
July 23, 2023
Tutta l'esistenza umana è un gioco di luce
9 racconti affascinanti, inquieti, stranianti ,con elementi sospesi, da cogliere in controluce , molto diversi, eppure con alcuni temi che ricorrono in tutti, come il vedere e il guardare ( che è più complesso ,meno di superficie, meno freddo) l'emarginazione, la solitudine .
In Momenti di umanità nella terza guerra mondiale c'è la vista della terra dallo spazio che dà un appagamento senza fine
È come la risposta a una vita di domande e di vaghi desideri.Soddisfa ogni curiosità infantile, ogni aspirazione messa a tacere, lo scienziato che c'è in lui, il poeta, il veggente primitivo, l'osservatore del fuoco e delle stelle cadenti, qualunque ossessione abbia mai tormentato le sue notti(..)qualunque desiderio e speranza,qualunque troppo e non abbastanza, qualunque tutto in una volta e a poco a poco
Ne Il corridore c'è il gioco dei diversi punti di vista su una scena
In Baader-Meinhof ,nella galleria , c'è lo sguardo di due sconosciuti sui dettagli dei dipinti, poi l'intrecciarsi di un dialogo con impercettibili segnali di tensione e di minaccia crescente ,sempre più incombente ,tanto che alla fine ti pare di stare dietro la porta del bagno ,con il fiato sospeso ,con la protagonista
Nell'intenso L'angelo Esmeralda sembra apparire ,dopo il tramonto, su un cartellone pubblicitario il volto di una ragazzina senzatetto assassinata da poco nel Bronx
Nell'ultimo racconto La Denutrita un uomo, ogni giorno ,non può fare a meno di guardare 4/5 film (il vedere come tregua all'ansia ,come evasione da se stessi) di andare al cinema , per sentirsi al sicuro.
Il mondo era lassù, incorniciato dallo schermo, modificato e corretto ,costretto da legami, e loro erano qui, al loro posto, nel buio isolato,ed erano quello che erano, al sicuro.
perché
qualunque luna di inquietudine e malinconia aleggiasse sulla sua esperienza recente o lontana, quello era il luogo in cui tutto aveva la possibilità di evaporare
Sempre il senso di attesa. L'immancabile piacere all'idea di quello che stava per vedere, a prescindere dal titolo, dalla storia, dal regista e la capacità di eludere lo spettro della delusione
Da non perdere, tra 4 e 5 ☆
9 racconti affascinanti, inquieti, stranianti ,con elementi sospesi, da cogliere in controluce , molto diversi, eppure con alcuni temi che ricorrono in tutti, come il vedere e il guardare ( che è più complesso ,meno di superficie, meno freddo) l'emarginazione, la solitudine .
In Momenti di umanità nella terza guerra mondiale c'è la vista della terra dallo spazio che dà un appagamento senza fine
È come la risposta a una vita di domande e di vaghi desideri.Soddisfa ogni curiosità infantile, ogni aspirazione messa a tacere, lo scienziato che c'è in lui, il poeta, il veggente primitivo, l'osservatore del fuoco e delle stelle cadenti, qualunque ossessione abbia mai tormentato le sue notti(..)qualunque desiderio e speranza,qualunque troppo e non abbastanza, qualunque tutto in una volta e a poco a poco
Ne Il corridore c'è il gioco dei diversi punti di vista su una scena
In Baader-Meinhof ,nella galleria , c'è lo sguardo di due sconosciuti sui dettagli dei dipinti, poi l'intrecciarsi di un dialogo con impercettibili segnali di tensione e di minaccia crescente ,sempre più incombente ,tanto che alla fine ti pare di stare dietro la porta del bagno ,con il fiato sospeso ,con la protagonista
Nell'intenso L'angelo Esmeralda sembra apparire ,dopo il tramonto, su un cartellone pubblicitario il volto di una ragazzina senzatetto assassinata da poco nel Bronx
Nell'ultimo racconto La Denutrita un uomo, ogni giorno ,non può fare a meno di guardare 4/5 film (il vedere come tregua all'ansia ,come evasione da se stessi) di andare al cinema , per sentirsi al sicuro.
Il mondo era lassù, incorniciato dallo schermo, modificato e corretto ,costretto da legami, e loro erano qui, al loro posto, nel buio isolato,ed erano quello che erano, al sicuro.
perché
qualunque luna di inquietudine e malinconia aleggiasse sulla sua esperienza recente o lontana, quello era il luogo in cui tutto aveva la possibilità di evaporare
Sempre il senso di attesa. L'immancabile piacere all'idea di quello che stava per vedere, a prescindere dal titolo, dalla storia, dal regista e la capacità di eludere lo spettro della delusione
Da non perdere, tra 4 e 5 ☆
November 27, 2025
“She looked for something in people’s faces that might tell her their experience was just like hers, down to the smallest strangest turn of thought.
There must be something funny in this somewhere that we can use to get us through the night.” - The Ivory Acrobat
Thankful for you, Donald.
There must be something funny in this somewhere that we can use to get us through the night.” - The Ivory Acrobat
Thankful for you, Donald.
October 13, 2012
Don Delillo is one of those writers who either hits a home run with me or hits a series of amazing fouls. Mao II made me want to be a writer. White Noise pretty much convinced me I would never be good enough. Reading these 9 stories that span about 30 odd years it is clear that Delillo is a master of the literary universe. There are stories that seem to anticipate disaster and others that seem to translate the quiet terror of the present into more than words. It is like there is a hidden text behind the stories that is just sitting there smelling you as you apprehensivly read page after page. This isn't horror, this is a quiet hidden anxiety/terror that dances just out of site. It is the mood of David Lynch with the prose of Proust. I loved almost all the stories, except for the last. It ended with a whimper, but this was still an amazing collection of Delillo caught in fragments at his best.
November 12, 2012
I'm usually very skeptical about short story collections written by major novelists. In my opinion, very few novelists can succeed in both the short story and novel format. The exceptions? Joyce, Hemingway, Lawrence, O'Connor, Kafka, Melville, Barth, Coover, Wallace, Vollmann, Gass, Dick . . . and now, surprisingly, DeLillo, whom I had pegged for a marathon runner and not a sprinter.
Well, DeLillo can sprint - and very well. His stories in this collection, with the exception of the title story, aren't warm ups for the novels but language adventures that function very well on their own.
I coin the term "language adventures" to try to get at what DeLillo is up to here. But you'll probably arrive at the same conclusions if you read the collection for yourself.
The first two stories - "Creation" and "Human Moments in World War III" - are very conventional in terms of plot structure. Sure, their subject matter is weird, but they aren't language adventures. Their publication dates are telling - 1979 and 1983. These stories were published before DeLillo found his voice as a language adventurer in 1985's White Noise.
DeLillo's process as a language adventurer is to take words from everyday American speech and to combine them with other words in which they're usually not heard or read in the same context. This context - because DeLillo writes texts - is the written paragraph or sentence. The result? Something magical . . . the words stand out as separate entities, reborn - and even the simplest words from the most everyday speech become beautiful, exuberant sculptures that glow with a beautiful aura. DeLillo is then able to build sentences, paragraphs, and stories that take on almost a surrealistic tone. And when that tone is applied to American life, it had the ability to make us see America in a new way, but a way that strikes home with the arrow of truth.
The best stories in this collection - "Baader-Meinhof," "Midnight in Dostoevsky," "Hammer and Sickle," and "The Starveling" - accomplish everything that DeLillo sets out to do as a language adventurer. And I'm pleased to report that the latter two stories were published in 2010 and 2011, respectively. This means that the master hasn't lost his touch.
In closing, I want to share with you what I think is the key to reading all DeLillo. It's found in a passage in 1997's Underworld, in which Father Paulus and Nick work on finding the most accurate names for the various parts of a shoe. Now, I know that this might sound bland, but this little piece of metafiction really gets at what DeLillo is up to. The parts of the shoe are words (or names) and when they are combined, they make meaningful sentences and paragraphs that make readers understand what a miracle a shoe is. THIS HAPPENS IN LANGUAGE FOR DELILLO.
Well, DeLillo can sprint - and very well. His stories in this collection, with the exception of the title story, aren't warm ups for the novels but language adventures that function very well on their own.
I coin the term "language adventures" to try to get at what DeLillo is up to here. But you'll probably arrive at the same conclusions if you read the collection for yourself.
The first two stories - "Creation" and "Human Moments in World War III" - are very conventional in terms of plot structure. Sure, their subject matter is weird, but they aren't language adventures. Their publication dates are telling - 1979 and 1983. These stories were published before DeLillo found his voice as a language adventurer in 1985's White Noise.
DeLillo's process as a language adventurer is to take words from everyday American speech and to combine them with other words in which they're usually not heard or read in the same context. This context - because DeLillo writes texts - is the written paragraph or sentence. The result? Something magical . . . the words stand out as separate entities, reborn - and even the simplest words from the most everyday speech become beautiful, exuberant sculptures that glow with a beautiful aura. DeLillo is then able to build sentences, paragraphs, and stories that take on almost a surrealistic tone. And when that tone is applied to American life, it had the ability to make us see America in a new way, but a way that strikes home with the arrow of truth.
The best stories in this collection - "Baader-Meinhof," "Midnight in Dostoevsky," "Hammer and Sickle," and "The Starveling" - accomplish everything that DeLillo sets out to do as a language adventurer. And I'm pleased to report that the latter two stories were published in 2010 and 2011, respectively. This means that the master hasn't lost his touch.
In closing, I want to share with you what I think is the key to reading all DeLillo. It's found in a passage in 1997's Underworld, in which Father Paulus and Nick work on finding the most accurate names for the various parts of a shoe. Now, I know that this might sound bland, but this little piece of metafiction really gets at what DeLillo is up to. The parts of the shoe are words (or names) and when they are combined, they make meaningful sentences and paragraphs that make readers understand what a miracle a shoe is. THIS HAPPENS IN LANGUAGE FOR DELILLO.
February 8, 2018
Siamo stati programmati per intraprendere una serie di orbite cosiddette variabili e non c'è monotonia da una rotazione intorno alla terra a quella successiva […].
Io aspetto che lui riprenda la sua abitudine di prima della guerra, che torni a usare frasi arzigogolate per descrivere la Terra: un pallone da spiaggia, un frutto maturato al sole. Ma lui si limita a guardare […].
Qualunque ossessione abbia mai tormentato le sue notti, qualsiasi desiderio dolce e sognante lui abbia mai provato nei confronti di quei luoghi lontani e senza nome, qualunque senso della Terra lui possegga, l'impulso neurale di una consapevolezza ancora più scatenata, una comprensione per le bestie, qualunque fiducia in una forza vitale immanente, nel Signore della Creazione, qualunque segreta convinzione dell'idea di unicità umana, qualunque desiderio e speranza, qualunque troppo e non abbastanza, qualunque tutto in una volta e a poco a poco, qualunque bisogno ardente di fuggire dal suo essere troppo specializzato, dall'io circoscritto e rivolto all'interno, qualunque fossero i resti del suo fanciullesco desiderio di volare, dei suoi sogni di spazi strani e altezze inquietanti, le sue fantasie di una morte felice, qualunque inclinazione a un'indolenza sibaritica – lotofago, fumatore di erbe e piante aromatiche, occhi azzurri che fissano lo spazio -, ebbene, tutti questi bisogni sono soddisfatti, tutti raccolti e ammassati in quel corpo vivente, lo spettacolo che vede dalla finestra.
- È semplicemente troppo interessante, - dice alla fine. - I colori e tutto quanto.
I colori e tutto quanto.
Io aspetto che lui riprenda la sua abitudine di prima della guerra, che torni a usare frasi arzigogolate per descrivere la Terra: un pallone da spiaggia, un frutto maturato al sole. Ma lui si limita a guardare […].
Qualunque ossessione abbia mai tormentato le sue notti, qualsiasi desiderio dolce e sognante lui abbia mai provato nei confronti di quei luoghi lontani e senza nome, qualunque senso della Terra lui possegga, l'impulso neurale di una consapevolezza ancora più scatenata, una comprensione per le bestie, qualunque fiducia in una forza vitale immanente, nel Signore della Creazione, qualunque segreta convinzione dell'idea di unicità umana, qualunque desiderio e speranza, qualunque troppo e non abbastanza, qualunque tutto in una volta e a poco a poco, qualunque bisogno ardente di fuggire dal suo essere troppo specializzato, dall'io circoscritto e rivolto all'interno, qualunque fossero i resti del suo fanciullesco desiderio di volare, dei suoi sogni di spazi strani e altezze inquietanti, le sue fantasie di una morte felice, qualunque inclinazione a un'indolenza sibaritica – lotofago, fumatore di erbe e piante aromatiche, occhi azzurri che fissano lo spazio -, ebbene, tutti questi bisogni sono soddisfatti, tutti raccolti e ammassati in quel corpo vivente, lo spettacolo che vede dalla finestra.
- È semplicemente troppo interessante, - dice alla fine. - I colori e tutto quanto.
I colori e tutto quanto.
January 27, 2018
Colección de 9 relatos de Don DeLillo publicados inicialmente en diferentes medios.
Como todas las recopilaciones de relatos es irregular y a ello se suma esa sensación que siempre me dejan los buenos relatos cortos: quiero más. quisiera que fuera un libro donde la historia se acabara.
El arco va desde 1979 hasta 2011, y se nota en el estilo.
Los más antiguos tienen un estilo mas pretencioso, son meros ejercicios de exhibicionismo literario con una prosa más rebuscada. Poco a poco el estilo se va haciendo mas directo aunque el contenido sigue siendo el mismo. Desmenuzar el interior de gente solitaria, inadaptada y que no encaja en la sociedad y en lo que la sociedad espera de ellas.
Me gustaron por encima de los demás dos relatos: Baader-Meinhof, donde pone el punto en una situación de abuso machista y en como una mujer solitaria y asocial lo afronta, con un fondo casual de lo sucedido con los terroristas alemanes en los 70. Un relato fascinante.
El otro es El Angel Esmeralda, quizás la única historia medianamente conclusa del libro y con una vision muy ácida de la sociedad.
Como todas las recopilaciones de relatos es irregular y a ello se suma esa sensación que siempre me dejan los buenos relatos cortos: quiero más. quisiera que fuera un libro donde la historia se acabara.
El arco va desde 1979 hasta 2011, y se nota en el estilo.
Los más antiguos tienen un estilo mas pretencioso, son meros ejercicios de exhibicionismo literario con una prosa más rebuscada. Poco a poco el estilo se va haciendo mas directo aunque el contenido sigue siendo el mismo. Desmenuzar el interior de gente solitaria, inadaptada y que no encaja en la sociedad y en lo que la sociedad espera de ellas.
Me gustaron por encima de los demás dos relatos: Baader-Meinhof, donde pone el punto en una situación de abuso machista y en como una mujer solitaria y asocial lo afronta, con un fondo casual de lo sucedido con los terroristas alemanes en los 70. Un relato fascinante.
El otro es El Angel Esmeralda, quizás la única historia medianamente conclusa del libro y con una vision muy ácida de la sociedad.
March 6, 2023
Composição de nove contos de Delillo que gostaria de definir em 9 expressões/palavras: 1 realidade paralela, 2 espaço-tempo comprimido, 3 caos à espreita, 4 destruição, 5 obsessão, 6 foice e martelo, 7 violência, 8 queda e 9 Dostoiévski.
Tudo separado assim não parece fazer o menor sentido, mas os contos de Delillo são brilhantes da melhor forma caótica possível; alguns são mais próximos a realidade, outros estão no futuro e no seu perigo, porém, ao final, são em suma uma grande história dos tipos humanos e de suas relações. Eu gostei bastante, mas consigo entender quem não.
Tudo separado assim não parece fazer o menor sentido, mas os contos de Delillo são brilhantes da melhor forma caótica possível; alguns são mais próximos a realidade, outros estão no futuro e no seu perigo, porém, ao final, são em suma uma grande história dos tipos humanos e de suas relações. Eu gostei bastante, mas consigo entender quem não.
March 25, 2020
Book 22:
خاب أملي فيها...
خاب أملي فيها...
November 3, 2020
Ho apprezzato discretamente due racconti, L'angelo Esmeralda e Creazione.
Ma DeLillo è troppo arduo per me: mi dispiace, so di perdermi qualcosa di grande, ma lo trovo illeggibile.
Ma DeLillo è troppo arduo per me: mi dispiace, so di perdermi qualcosa di grande, ma lo trovo illeggibile.
April 26, 2016
I'd venture that a flawless short story is one of the best reading experiences available. All the possibility inherent in the medium, distilled and pressing outwards: character, setting, theme, style, plot, all second, but integral, to the moment so necessary to the short story. When done well, the construction is invisible; the art appears rich & effortless.
In this collection, Don DeLillo works these stories to their poor bones. Sick, limping, they try their very best to offer something -- anything -- to their readers. Unfortunately, their seams are glaring. And that makes them exceptionally boring, commonplace, and their truths self-evident.
Even the best of the bunch ("Baader-Meinhof" & "Midnight in Dostoevsky") suffer from this: they're so obviously created, see, that it's impossible to lose yourself in the moment. These two, however, have some magic ideas in them -- "Baader-Meinhof" touching on issues of terrorism & art, strangers & consent (though...DeLillo is such a fucking guy, and I'm not one to say that lightly: so, beware of latent sexism); "Midnight in Dostoevsky" exploring competition between pretentious academics and the creation of fact.
But all 9 stories are evidently (dated, self-indulgent) stories. It's an undertaking of bad voice (ugh, even "Midnight" is a voice disaster -- no 21st-century 20-something would use the expression 'woolen cap', come the fuck on), and worse flow. Very little is genuine, here -- and through it all, it's hard to shake the image of an author patting himself on the back, smiling without reason.
In this collection, Don DeLillo works these stories to their poor bones. Sick, limping, they try their very best to offer something -- anything -- to their readers. Unfortunately, their seams are glaring. And that makes them exceptionally boring, commonplace, and their truths self-evident.
Even the best of the bunch ("Baader-Meinhof" & "Midnight in Dostoevsky") suffer from this: they're so obviously created, see, that it's impossible to lose yourself in the moment. These two, however, have some magic ideas in them -- "Baader-Meinhof" touching on issues of terrorism & art, strangers & consent (though...DeLillo is such a fucking guy, and I'm not one to say that lightly: so, beware of latent sexism); "Midnight in Dostoevsky" exploring competition between pretentious academics and the creation of fact.
But all 9 stories are evidently (dated, self-indulgent) stories. It's an undertaking of bad voice (ugh, even "Midnight" is a voice disaster -- no 21st-century 20-something would use the expression 'woolen cap', come the fuck on), and worse flow. Very little is genuine, here -- and through it all, it's hard to shake the image of an author patting himself on the back, smiling without reason.
February 24, 2012
Read this because it was nominated for the PEN / Faulkner award, but I would have read it anyway, love DeLillo. The stories are great, but the book is SHORT and they span such a long span of time. I want more. MORE, I say.
The first story, "Creation," is about a couple trying to get a flight out of a Caribbean airport. The words were lush while the situation was slightly shocking.
"Human Moments in World War III" discusses war and humanity from the safety of space, after the ban of nuclear weapons. DeLillo always writes isolation well, and this is no exception.
"Forget the measure of our vision, the sweep of things, the war itself, the terrible death. Forget the overarching night, the stars as static points, as mathematical fields. Forget the cosmic solitude, the upwelling awe and dread." (Human Moments in World War III)
My two favorite stories were "Ivory Acrobat," about a woman's traumatic response to an earthquake in Greece, and "Baader-Meinhof," about two strangers who meet at an art exhibit. I've heard that you can distinguish DeLillo pre- and post- 9/11, and in that case, "Baader-Meinhof" is clearly an experience of post-9/11 DeLillo writing. I actually like how it changed his writing (if we can really blame the event rather than maturity or his own periods as a writer) because it feels like the actions of the characters carry more weight somehow. As if they can actually do harm. Everyone is just a little scarier....
The first story, "Creation," is about a couple trying to get a flight out of a Caribbean airport. The words were lush while the situation was slightly shocking.
"Human Moments in World War III" discusses war and humanity from the safety of space, after the ban of nuclear weapons. DeLillo always writes isolation well, and this is no exception.
"Forget the measure of our vision, the sweep of things, the war itself, the terrible death. Forget the overarching night, the stars as static points, as mathematical fields. Forget the cosmic solitude, the upwelling awe and dread." (Human Moments in World War III)
My two favorite stories were "Ivory Acrobat," about a woman's traumatic response to an earthquake in Greece, and "Baader-Meinhof," about two strangers who meet at an art exhibit. I've heard that you can distinguish DeLillo pre- and post- 9/11, and in that case, "Baader-Meinhof" is clearly an experience of post-9/11 DeLillo writing. I actually like how it changed his writing (if we can really blame the event rather than maturity or his own periods as a writer) because it feels like the actions of the characters carry more weight somehow. As if they can actually do harm. Everyone is just a little scarier....
November 9, 2013
Una volta non amavo leggere racconti, ma poi con il tempo ho dovuto ricredermi di fronte a quelli di Salinger, di Dubus, della Munro e di altri. Per questo non ho avuto timori nel leggere questa raccolta, avendo amato molto DeLillo nei romanzi che ho letto; questi racconti sono molto diversi gli uni dagli altri, ma in tutti ho riconosciuto lo stile asciutto ma ricco nello stesso tempo, la profonda analisi che sconfina nell'alienazione ma non nella paranoia, l'ansia di fronte alle paure e il desiderio di uscire dalla gabbia, qualunque essa sia, un'isola da cui partire, una catastrofe naturale, una prigione o uno schermo cinematografico.
July 25, 2022
That title story alone. Goodness.
September 22, 2019
Ho da sempre un certo fascino per le raccolte di racconti: ogni scritto è un mondo a sé stante. In questo senso DeLillo mette in scena uno spettro emotivo davvero notevale per varietà e potenza imaginifica. Come se fosse una bella tracklist, al primo racconto spetta il compito gravoso di sospingere il lettore nella lettura di una raccolta che però segue un ordine cronologico di pubblicazione. Anche così “Creazione” del 1972 ha una capacità creare tensione grazie ad un'atmosfera in bilico tra l'inquieto e il surreale. Lo scritto mette da subito in evidenza di come le descrizioni di una natura quanto mai possente avvengono attraverso l'esaltazione dei colori, dei profumi, del modificarsi del meteo e di ogni altro oggetto che brilla nei nostri cinque sensi. Una messa in scena in cui i suoi personaggi si muovono come guidati da forze imperscrutabili. Così come ogni cosa sembra imperscrutabile in “Correre” del 1983, con quella sul piano sequenza che si chiude in un'inquadratura fissa. Diversamente il racconto che da il nome alla raccolta può avere una lettura religiosa quanto il suo contrario oppure semplicemente finisce per essere un racconto degli ultimi. Dei nove racconti (un numero che piace ai grandi scrittori: vedi Sallinger) ve ne sono un paio di difficile lettura/interpretazione (“Baader-Meinhof” del 2002 e “La Denutrita” del 2011), ma nella loro non linearità riescono comunque a lasciare il segno grazie a momenti e personaggi difficili da dimenticare (come l'uomo che vive pianificando di passare da un cinema/film all'altro). Altro momento alto invece di questa raccolta è il racconto “Falce e Martello” del 2010 dove l'autore riprende i temi del suo romanzo “Cosmopolis”, ma dismette l'enfasi epica in favore di un tono che oscilla tra l'intimo e l'anarchico anticipando in fondo quelli che sono toni cari alla serie “Black Mirror”.
DeLillo ci dimostra così di essere in grado di andare dove vuole con la sua scrittura e tavolta però è anche il suo limite, ma avercene di scrittori così.
DeLillo ci dimostra così di essere in grado di andare dove vuole con la sua scrittura e tavolta però è anche il suo limite, ma avercene di scrittori così.
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