Status Updates From Underworld (Picador Collect...

Was DeLillo influenced by Pynchon’s Crying of Lot 49? W.A.S.T.E. becomes literal waste, and the mysterious search for a potentially unknowable proof remains, along with the cast of interlinked characters. The humor has dissipated—the 90s are not the 60s, after all—and the adultery has a darker tone, plus it’s wrapped in philosophy. Everything kind of is. Pynchon might roll his eyes.

this is like reading an entire season of a tv show GOD let me out

The thinking and linking here create deep impressions, but the avoidance of action is getting on my nerves. The prioritization of internal thought (complemented by the attention to language) becomes an affectation. Often fascinating, often even compelling, but still affected.