- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: Penguin; Reprint edition (Jan 1994)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140179178
- ISBN-13: 978-0140179170
- Product Dimensions: 19.7 x 13.3 x 1.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,419,718 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Great Jones Street
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"Brilliant...deeply shocking...looks at rock music, nihilism and urban decay." --Diane Johnson, The New York Review of Books
"Luminous...finally, a novel that understands rock and roll!" --Jon Pareles, The Village Voice Literary Supplement --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
"Luminous...finally, a novel that understands rock and roll!" --Jon Pareles, The Village Voice Literary Supplement --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Product Description
A troubling satire of the romantic myth of stardom and the empty heart of rock and roll, more relevant than ever in our celebrity-obsessed times.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Delillo is fairly new to me, so I don't to pretend to have any major insights into how this book compares with his other more lauded works. From reading a little about Delillo, I understand Great Jones Street is one of his earlier and more experimental novels. It shows. It has an interesting, if a little dated and clichéd, premise, concerning the retreat of a 70s rock star into existential seclusion. The obvious Dylan references are clumsy (Buddy Wunderlick, the book's protagonist, records a post-fame, lo-fi collection of songs called the Mountain Tapes, a clear reference to Dylan's The Basement Tapes) and the book certainly doesn't work as satire (it is deeply unfunny and earnest). However, Delillo does create an eerie and unnerving mood which can be very effective and while his prose is often pretentious and self consciously `experimental', he does sometimes hit a rich vein of apocalyptic gloom, particularly when describing the New York streets (a bit like Dylan's Desolation Row in fact).
Overall I was left with the impression of a writer trying hard to be experimental at the expanse of a more fluid and identifiable style. Nevertheless, it's an unusual and often original piece of work that should be read by fans of Delillo as well as those readers interested in off-beat American literature from the 70s.
Overall I was left with the impression of a writer trying hard to be experimental at the expanse of a more fluid and identifiable style. Nevertheless, it's an unusual and often original piece of work that should be read by fans of Delillo as well as those readers interested in off-beat American literature from the 70s.
Format:Paperback
easily the worst delillo novel i've read. a total waste of time. i would recommend avoiding this novel until you've read everything else this great (but inconsistent) writer has produced. there's a consensus that 'white noise', 'libra' and 'underworld' are great novels and these are a good place to start. after these, i would recommend 'the names', 'end zone', 'running man', and 'americana' as very good novels. please, do not read 'great jones street' as an introduction to delillo. save it til last. if you have to read it at all.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
13 reviews
25 of 29 people found the following review helpful
A Diversion for DeLillo's Faithful
25 April 2000
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Read the first page of Great Jones Street and you might think you've stumbled across a new DeLillo novel about Kurt Cobain. "Perhaps the only natural law attaching to true fame is that the famous man is compelled, eventually, to commit suicide," DeLillo writes, with eerie foresight.
Unfortunately for contemporary readers, that Cobain imagery is likely to stick with you throughout this 1973 novel and become a distraction. Bucky Wunderlick, DeLillo's rock idol, is neither as tortured or talented as Cobain. As other critics have noted, his lyrics are awful. DeLillo doesn't have an ear for rock lyrics (or at least didn't in the early 70s.)
Like Running Dog, Great Jones Street is a great premise and an awkward delivery. DeLillo had yet to develop his signature style of putting subtext before story. He also hadn't developed his micro-detail style of painting an environment, which he used to such brilliant effect in describing the supermarket in "White Noise" and the Bronx of his youth in "Underworld." What we're left with is conventional dialogue-and-plot story telling -- which is what DeLillo has always done worst.
If you've read the masterworks of the DeLillo canon -- Ratner's Star, The Names, White Noise, Libra, Mao II and Underworld -- Great Jones Street is a worthwhile diversion. If you haven't read DeLillo's best, come back when you're done.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
70s Delillo forshadows his current visionary brilliance
14 Nov 2000
Format:Paperback
GREAT JONES STREET is a novel set in the 70's that is as relevant now as when it was first published. The main character - an AWOL rock musician - with shades of Dylan or Lennon attempts to escape the life of celebrity only to find his disappearing act, in mid tour, has made him that much more an enigma, raising the torch of his celebrity. With the much publicized saga of the late Kurt Cobain, an artist drained by commerce and ultimately destroyed by it, GREAT JONES STREET forshadows the struggle of artists within the system of commerce and capitalism of the United States. It is a novel about fame, and commerce, and the rights of the individual in society whether they be famous or not. It doesn't have the taught language of UNDERWORLD or the magnificent LIBRA but it is worth the time. A definite precursor to the grand themes of LIBRA, Delillo's finest novel.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Delillo's funniest
16 Dec 1996
Format:Paperback
I have read all of Don Delillo's novels and Great Jones Street stands among my favorites. Although many of his works are ultimately best described as "dark" (such as Mao II and Libra), Great Jones Street reveals Delillo's surreal comedic edge as he mocks the music industry (among other subjects). Like most of Delillo's works, this book is ultimately about a journey, but in Great Jones Street the path is laden with both subtle and not-so-subtle humor
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