Cosmopolis: A Novel [Paperback]

Don DeLillo (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 30, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0743244257 | ISBN-13: 978-0743244251 | Edition: Reprint

“DeLillo’s most affecting novel yet...A dazzling, phosphorescent work of art.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“The clearest vision yet of what it felt like to live through that day.” —Malcolm Jones, Newsweek

“A metaphysical ghost story about a woman alone…intimate, spare, exquisite.” —Adam Begley, The New York Times Book Review

“A brilliant new novel....Don DeLillo continues to think about the modern world in language and images as quizzically beautiful as any writer.” — San Francisco Chronicle

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

DeLillo skates through a day in the life of a brilliant and precocious New Economy billionaire in this monotone 13th novel, a study in big money and affectlessness. As one character remarks, 28-year-old Eric Packer "wants to be one civilization ahead of this one." But on an April day in the year 2000, Eric's fortune and life fall apart. The story tracks him as he traverses Manhattan in his stretch limo. His goal: a haircut at Anthony's, his father's old barber. But on this day his driver has to navigate a presidential visit, an attack by anarchists and a rapper's funeral. Meanwhile, the yen is mounting, destroying Eric's bet against it. The catastrophe liberates Eric's destructive instinct-he shoots another character and increases his bet. Mostly, the action consists of sequences in the back of the limo (where he stages meetings with his doctor, various corporate officers and a New Economy guru) interrupted by various pit stops. He lunches with his wife of 22 days, Elise Shifrin. He has sex with two women, his art consultant and a bodyguard. He is hit in the face with a pie by a protester. He knows he is being stalked, and the novel stages a final convergence between the ex-tycoon and his stalker. DeLillo practically invented the predominant vernacular of the late '90s (the irony, the close reading of consumer goods, the mock complexity of technobabble) in White Noise, but he seems surprisingly disengaged here. His spotlighted New Economy icon, Eric, doesn't work, either as a genius financier (he is all about gadgetry, not exchange-there's no love of the deal in his "frozen heart") or a thinker. The threats posed by the contingencies that he faces cannot lever him out of his recalcitrant one-dimensionality. DeLillo is surely an American master, but this time out, he is doodling.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Unlike his sprawling masterpiece, Underworld, DeLillo's 13th novel is short and tightly focused, indeed almost claustrophobic. Most of the action takes place inside a "prousted" (cork-lined) stretch limo, as the reclusive financial wizard Eric Packer is chauffeured across Manhattan for a haircut. Thanks to a presidential visit, antiglobalization demonstrations, and a celebrity funeral, this journey takes up most of the day. Stuck in traffic, Packer anxiously monitors the value of the yen on the limo's computer. Using the car as his office, he summons advisors from nearby shops and restaurants. His physician gives him a rubber-gloved physical exam in the back seat as Packer discusses imminent financial ruin with his broker and angry crowds block the streets. This work most closely resembles The Body Artist in its brevity and straightforward narrative flow. However, the earlier novel was written in an uncharacteristically warm, poetic style, promising a new direction for this important writer, while Cosmopolis reverts to the standard DeLillo boilerplate, perceptive and funny but also brittle and cold. This, coupled with the book's dated 1990s sensibility, makes Cosmopolis a step backward rather than an artistic advance.
Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; Reprint edition (March 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743244257
• ISBN-13: 978-0743244251
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (121 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #485,189 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Don DeLillo is the author of fourteen novels, including Falling Man, Libra and White Noise, and three plays. He has won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Jerusalem Prize. In 2006, Underworld was named one of the three best novels of the last twenty-five years by The New York Times Book Review, and in 2000 it won the William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for the most distinguished work of fiction of the past five years.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 60 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A fine book. A worthwhile read. I hated it! March 5, 2005

By Linda Linguvic HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I was reluctant to read this novel even though it was highly recommended. That's because five years ago I read and reviewed "Underworld", another of this author's novels, and while I thought that the writing was brilliant, his world view was very disturbing. But I was curious about Cosmopolis. And it was short, a mere 209 pages long, a book I knew I could easily read in one sitting. It took me more than one sitting to read however. It actually took me several weeks. That's because every time I put it down, I was reluctant to pick it up again. Perhaps that's because it rings so true and its blows fall so close to home. And, of course, the disturbing world view I had expected was there in all its glory.

The characters aren't real. They're not supposed to be. Everything in this book is larger than life. And everything has an exaggerated bitter sting to it. The setting is New York City and the geography is familiar. It's some time in the very near future, when big-moneyed corporate executives rule the world even more than they do now. Eric, a 28-year old billionaire is one of them. The storyline is about him setting out to get a haircut and all the action takes place in a single day.

Eric is in a white limousine which is equipped with every convenience the author could think of. He has several bodyguards too, and a market analyst who interprets data from world markets constantly. People visit him in his limo, including a doctor who gives him a daily physical. Eric also manages to have romantic encounters with three different women as well as his wife. He makes choices that have him lose his fortune in the stock market. His car is attacked by anarchists. He has to pause and watch a funeral for a rap musician. And he even gets involved in working as an extra in a strange and upsetting film. And, early on in the book, the reader knows Eric is hurtling towards real disaster.

But the book is more than this storyline of course. It is an indictment of the capitalist system that once held out such hope. It shows the shallowness of the people, making every single character seem like a little marionette on strings and the whole tale one big puppet show.

This is a fine book. It is a worthwhile read. I just can't help it though. I hated it.

Recommended only for literary buffs who relish discomfort.

64 of 71 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Prose but Pretty Dry April 30, 2003

By Jeffrey Leach HALL OF FAMEVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I should profess that I have never read a novel by Don DeLillo before diving into "Cosmopolis." Sure, I have heard of "White Noise," "Underworld," and "Libra" before, but decided to start with this new, short novel about a billionaire stock tycoon and his trip through the wilds of New York City. DeLillo seems to possess many fans in the literary world, rabid readers who devour everything this guy decides to pass off on the public. I usually see him associated with people like Pynchon or Gaddis, post-modern writers who create sprawling works of endless complexity and dubious quality. Since my experiences with the post-modern genre are slight at best, all I have to go on is my experiences with this book.

The plot seems simple enough. Eric Packer, a twenty eight year old Wall Street whiz, decides he wants to get a haircut. Moreover, he sets out on his excursion in a giant, cork lined white limousine with his bodyguards, advisors, doctors, and drivers in tow. Along the way, Packer undergoes a physical examination of a most personal nature, runs into his new wife at various places, witnesses an anarchist protest, gets attacked with a cream pie, becomes emotional about a rapper's funeral, and discovers someone is stalking him with a view to causing serious injury. There is little that ties these events and encounters together, as even the quest for a haircut often drops into the background when Packer bogs down in New York City traffic. Surrounded by computers and an endless flow of information, the billionaire spends most of his time waxing philosophic about the state of the world, the state of his mind, and the state of his attempt to make a killing off the Japanese yen. Ultimately, that is all this novel seems to do: throw out endless noodlings about the emptiness of life in the high tech, over stimulated information age.

DeLillo's writing style is the best thing going for "Cosmopolis." Infused with deep cynicism and a measurable detachment, it still crackles with crisp, short sentences that convey much with little ado. The problem comes when the language puts too much out there, when the reader starts to bog down under the endless litany of Packer's mental ramblings. Although this book is extremely short and can be finished in a day, it still seems too long at times. If there is any point to this tale, or at least where the point seems to assume clarity, it is when Packer and his "advisor on theory" discuss the meaning of the ticker boards with their endless scroll of information and the implications of self-immolating oneself to protest capitalism. Eric's accumulation of information threatens to overwhelm his existence because all he possesses is random bits of information. He cannot seem to tie it all together into any relevant meaning other than making money. There seems to be a germ of hope for him towards the end of the story, but most of the book is merely cerebral gymnastics.

The message of "Cosmopolis," about a man who has everything but wilts under his own inflated ego and goes off on a rampage, is definitely familiar. Bret Easton Ellis did something similar in "American Psycho," and he did it better. Eric Packer and Patrick Bateman are blood brothers, albeit relatives separated by about twenty years. When will these Wall Street archetypes' meltdowns have finality to them? Probably when the capitalist system finally collapses. In the meantime, we have people like Ellis and DeLillo dutifully reporting the carnage of undreamt of riches on the souls of humanity.

Many people out there are quite knowledgeable about DeLillo's body of work and the philosophy that powers them. I can draw no firm conclusions about this author from reading just one of his books. But I strongly suggest thinking twice before plunging into "Cosmopolis." It takes too much effort for too little return.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Think outside the box . . . WAY outside May 29, 2003

By Diana Poskrop

Format:Hardcover

The 'plot' is a limo ride through a major city. But it's a one-day excursion as much as is Joyce's 'Ulysses.' That one day may just as well be a year, a lifetime or an era. Time is distorted; events are surreal; what seems coincidental, isn't. Don't expect everything to make sense in a rational, cognitive way.

A man begins his day with everything, and ends it with nothing. His ideas, beliefs and body slowly lose their integrity. The story is not a puzzle with clearly edged chunks of interlocking pieces, but a constantly spinning web whose strands are spun by employees, lovers, a wife and a barber. As the story evolves, the man devolves. There's dry wit and Monty Pythonesque lunacy. There's the microcosm reflected in the macrocosm and vice versa. Even when inane, the ideas expressed are fascinating.

COSMOPOLIS sometimes enlightened me, and other times confused me. After my mind digests it a bit, I'll read it again.