Don DeLillo's Underworld: A Reader's Guide

Continuum Contemporaries

by John N. Duvall

This is part of a new series of guides to contemporary novels. The aim of the series is to give readers accessible and informative introductions to some of the most popular, most acclaimed and most influential novels of recent years - from 'The Remains of the Day' to 'White Teeth'. A team of contemporary fiction scholars from both sides of the Atlantic has been assembled to provide a thorough and readable analysis of each of the novels in question.

Genres: Nonfiction, Criticism

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 21, 2002

Reviews

[Маx Nestelieiev · Rating 4 out of 5]

small but valuable introduction to DeLillo`s masterpiece. it contains some interesting suggestions, but its main audience is students.

[Quinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

mildly useful, insofar as it contextualized the novel, but literary analysis tends to be painful insofar as it makes claims that are underspecified, I.E. what does "Underworld opens a site wherein historical thinking becomes possible" actually mean?

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very helpful guide to Delillo's massive doorstop of a book. Unlike the Continuum guide to "White Noise," I felt like I actually got a bit more out of the source text for reading this. The author connected several elements that actually helped sharpen my thinking while I work on the review for "Underworld." At the same time, it's still a study guide written to a template, and so it's hard to give it anything more than a "liked it" rating. If you've recently read "Underworld" and want a coherent (if not terribly daring) opinion about it, give this a shot.

[Alistair Montague · Rating 3 out of 5]

Underworded

Are all the monographies in this series so good? I wish all monographies were.
Concise, clear, sharp, well-written. Makes me yearn for more, and it would get 4 stars if only it were longer. Although, even short as it is, the author at times gives the impression of having done all the thinking for the reader.

A few typos.

[Doug]

Brian recommended this book to me as a 'gateway' to DeLillo.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This guide helped me somewhat understand Underworld. Mostly it just reminded me of a bunch of things I had forgotten by the time I finally made my way through it.