Cosmopolis
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Cosmopolis is Don DeLillo's 13th novel. His reputation as one of the most provocative and innovative of American writers is assured, thanks to such books as Underworld and Americana, but this new outing is as likely to challenge the author's legion of admirers as much as it will exhilarate them--and there's nothing wrong with that.
DeLillo's protagonist this time is a well-heeled American, Eric Packer, who sets out one eventful day for a haircut. Gazing through the windows of his white limousine (and availing himself of its state-of-the-art technology), this self-made millionaire takes in the spectacle of financiers being murdered, the funeral of a rapper and some violent anti-globalisation protests. As we come to know DeLillo's anti-hero, we realise that Eric Packer is by no means the most ingratiating of individuals. Cheating on his new wife, he specialises in using people in a cynical and exploitative way. And as this self-serving captain of industry takes an ever-more dangerous journey through a bizarrely rendered New York, it's inevitable that comparisons with Tom Wolfe's classic Bonfire of the Vanities will spring to mind. Resemblances of plot aside, however, the book is a very different animal. Wolfe's narrative had the epic spread of a latter-day War and Peace, whereas DeLillo sharpens and condenses his prose in Cosmopolis to produce an altogether more concise novel.
There are two ways to approach Cosmopolis: as a rudely pointed dissection of the American Dream, or as a surreal, symbolic (and disturbing) road trip. This is not a comforting book, but a bracing and caustic one. --Barry Forshaw --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
GQ Magazine, April 2003
Full of ideas, and brilliant phrases, Cosmopolis is written with the sort of intensity you simply don't get elsewhere.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
...which is still very good.
Most of the story takes place in a stretch limousine that Eric Packer, the main character, a Master-of-the-Universe, is driven around. He basically goes from one side of downtown Manhattan to another in search of a haircut. The journey is made more arduous than normal by a visit by the president and a public funeral of a rapper. Eric thinks that someone is trying to kill him and employs all manner of different security defences to combat this threat.
This is DeLillo operating well within his talents and is nowhere near as good as White Noise (heartily recommended). However, and as you would expect, it is still relentlessly interesting and offers some things to think about.
Pretty good, but not vintage DeLillo.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
If you like sentences like that one, you might like Cosmopolis.
A day, possibly the last, in the life of 28 year-old multi-billionaire, Eric Packer, as he goes in search of a haircut.
It's a novel that aims for enormous profundity, using characters that verge on the risible.
Packer himself is close to a Bond villain caricature. 'Every act he performed was self-haunted and synthetic.' His apartment has 48 rooms, a borzoi pen, a shark tank, card parlour, lap pool. What, no fluffy white cat? He owns a bomber. His body fat is under six per cent. He wears sunglasses. His stretch limo has been 'prousted' - cork lined for silence. Inside is a twenty screen video bank, microwave, heart monitor, toilet. His head of security, voice-activated firearm at the ready, accompanies him. As do two bodyguards.
Packer heads across town. The traffic is hellish.The car moves in quarter-inches. The sentences are short. Declamatory. They include phrases like 'zero-saturation'. And words like 'misweave.' Packer stops off twice on the way for sex. Various employees keep popping in and out: Micheal Chin, currency analyst. Dr Ingrams, who gives Packer his daily check up, including prostate tweak. Jane Melman chief of finance. Vija Kinski head of theory. Packer keeps bumping into his wife of twenty two days, Elise Shifrin, bad poet and heir to the Shifrin banking fortune. 'When are we going to have sex again?' he asks her, over untouched green tea and toast. She feels this way about him: 'You know things. I think you're dedicated to knowing. I think you acquire information and turn it into something stupendous and awful.You're a dangerous person..a visionary.' The dialogue throughout is almost laughably mannered and I kept hoping the book was a comedy, perhaps an update of American Psycho, with which it shares many themes. Get this conversation with lover/art dealer Didi Fancher.
'I remember what you told me once.'
'What's that?'
'Talent is more erotic when it's wasted.'
'What did I mean?' she said.
'You meant I was ruthlessly efficient. Talented, yes...'
'Did I mean lovemaking as well?'
'I don't know. Did you?'
'Not quite ruthless. But yes. Talented. And a commanding presence as well. Dressed or undressed. Another talent, I suppose.'
'But there was something missing for you. Or nothing missing. That was the point.'
It could be a rip-roaring satire, but Delillo, unlike Ellis, has a need for meaning - and, you feel, is half in love with Packer. DeLillo, via Packer's financial dealings, wants to explore his pet ideas, particularly 'the cross-harmonies between nature and data', the patterns that exist in the ambient world. And of course, he has to have a raving assassin on the loose as well.
Packer, already obviously bonkers, gets increasingly so throughout the day, as he encounters an anarchist demonstration, a rave, the funeral of his favourite rap star, Brutha Fez, and a film shoot which involves 300 naked people lying on the ground. Then he has to face his nemesis: though not before delivering a three page speech to a gun.
Well. You like this kind of thing or you don't. De Lillo can turn a sentence, of course, though his word choice often seems interchangeable with Martin Amis's. To me, like a lot of his work, it strains violently for effect and chucks far too much into the pot. There's a film soon, by Mike Leigh. Sorry, I mean David Cronenberg.
A day, possibly the last, in the life of 28 year-old multi-billionaire, Eric Packer, as he goes in search of a haircut.
It's a novel that aims for enormous profundity, using characters that verge on the risible.
Packer himself is close to a Bond villain caricature. 'Every act he performed was self-haunted and synthetic.' His apartment has 48 rooms, a borzoi pen, a shark tank, card parlour, lap pool. What, no fluffy white cat? He owns a bomber. His body fat is under six per cent. He wears sunglasses. His stretch limo has been 'prousted' - cork lined for silence. Inside is a twenty screen video bank, microwave, heart monitor, toilet. His head of security, voice-activated firearm at the ready, accompanies him. As do two bodyguards.
Packer heads across town. The traffic is hellish.The car moves in quarter-inches. The sentences are short. Declamatory. They include phrases like 'zero-saturation'. And words like 'misweave.' Packer stops off twice on the way for sex. Various employees keep popping in and out: Micheal Chin, currency analyst. Dr Ingrams, who gives Packer his daily check up, including prostate tweak. Jane Melman chief of finance. Vija Kinski head of theory. Packer keeps bumping into his wife of twenty two days, Elise Shifrin, bad poet and heir to the Shifrin banking fortune. 'When are we going to have sex again?' he asks her, over untouched green tea and toast. She feels this way about him: 'You know things. I think you're dedicated to knowing. I think you acquire information and turn it into something stupendous and awful.You're a dangerous person..a visionary.' The dialogue throughout is almost laughably mannered and I kept hoping the book was a comedy, perhaps an update of American Psycho, with which it shares many themes. Get this conversation with lover/art dealer Didi Fancher.
'I remember what you told me once.'
'What's that?'
'Talent is more erotic when it's wasted.'
'What did I mean?' she said.
'You meant I was ruthlessly efficient. Talented, yes...'
'Did I mean lovemaking as well?'
'I don't know. Did you?'
'Not quite ruthless. But yes. Talented. And a commanding presence as well. Dressed or undressed. Another talent, I suppose.'
'But there was something missing for you. Or nothing missing. That was the point.'
It could be a rip-roaring satire, but Delillo, unlike Ellis, has a need for meaning - and, you feel, is half in love with Packer. DeLillo, via Packer's financial dealings, wants to explore his pet ideas, particularly 'the cross-harmonies between nature and data', the patterns that exist in the ambient world. And of course, he has to have a raving assassin on the loose as well.
Packer, already obviously bonkers, gets increasingly so throughout the day, as he encounters an anarchist demonstration, a rave, the funeral of his favourite rap star, Brutha Fez, and a film shoot which involves 300 naked people lying on the ground. Then he has to face his nemesis: though not before delivering a three page speech to a gun.
Well. You like this kind of thing or you don't. De Lillo can turn a sentence, of course, though his word choice often seems interchangeable with Martin Amis's. To me, like a lot of his work, it strains violently for effect and chucks far too much into the pot. There's a film soon, by Mike Leigh. Sorry, I mean David Cronenberg.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I certainly wouldn't recommend this, DeLillo's thirteenth novel, to someone looking for a first taste of this brilliant writer - for them, maybe the elegant White Noise or the hypnotic Libra might be a better bet. For anyone familiar with DeLillo's work, however, I'd say Cosmpolis is far too interesting a piece of writing to ignore. It's certainly slim, and some of the ideas may be head-spinning even by DeLillo's standards, but the sheer intellect and craftsmanship (not to mention the deadpan wit) are inspired, and inspiring.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Weird and Gripping
I bought this in preparation for seeing the upcoming film staring Robert Pattinson and directed by David Cronenberg. Read more
Published 1 month ago by P. Rowe
BE DEAD THEN
This is the third Don Delilo novel i have read after White Noise and Mao 2,i read this over the weekend and am now OFFICIALLY excited by the upcoming movie adaptation from genius... Read more
Published 1 month ago by mister joe
Garbage.
Easily the worst book I've come across in the last year. An unbearably pretentious novel; I refused to finish it and skimmed through the latter half. Read more
Published 3 months ago by F Drew
Gloomy, boring, ultimately timid.
I read this book when it first came out and had never previously read Delillo. It is a measure of this book's literary worth that I never went back to read any other works of... Read more
Published 8 months ago by M. N. Dixon
callthepolis
I've just read Cosmopolis in a state veering between irritation and boredom.
The novel is based around one day in the life of New York multi-millionaire Eric Packer. Read more
The novel is based around one day in the life of New York multi-millionaire Eric Packer. Read more
Published on 9 Aug 2007 by Leyla Sanai
Erm, OK
Having failed to get started with Underworld a couple of times, I thought I'd try this seemingly much more accessible Delillo as a starting point. Read more
Published on 24 Aug 2004
Like running through quicksand at the beginning
What happened to the Don DeLillo of Underworld, White noise or Libra? The beginning of the novel tends to drag and then drag and then drag some more. Read more
Published on 9 Mar 2004 by Mr. A. M. Crane
Not convinced
I'll keep it simple with and aim this at readers of other DeLillo books. I loved White Noise, enjoyed Libra, was astounded by Underworld and irritated by The Body Artist. Read more
Published on 13 Sep 2003
We are speculating into the void !
After the relative, intimate calm of The Body Artist following the storm of Underworld, Don Delillo's 13th novel is again a very unsettling proposition. Read more
Published on 22 May 2003 by Jean-Marc Lantz
We are speculating into the void !
After the relative, intimate calm of The Body Artist following the storm of Underworld, Don Delillo's 13th novel is again a very unsettling proposition. Read more
Published on 22 May 2003 by Jean-Marc Lantz
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