Mao II in Around the World in 80 Books

Jun 07, 2014 Bogdan rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: new-world

I had pretty high expectations before starting it, as I have seen some extremely appreciative articles about him and his books. I expected a novel in the style of contemporary realism. Instead I got a novel full of interminable descriptions, lack of actual events and also centered on characters thoughts. Just the type of literature that I don't like.

The premise is hard to find. DeLillo probably wanted to write this novel in order to draw attention to several events from contemporary history that I had pretty high expectations before starting it, as I have seen some extremely appreciative articles about him and his books. I expected a novel in the style of contemporary realism. Instead I got a novel full of interminable descriptions, lack of actual events and also centered on characters thoughts. Just the type of literature that I don't like.

The premise is hard to find. DeLillo probably wanted to write this novel in order to draw attention to several events from contemporary history that are unrelated. Taken together, the author thought that they may stand up for something, but I was unable to understand what was that. Especially as the characters seem not to be affected in any way by these events. This is why I will give it a 1.

Regarding the form, I liked three descriptions: the opening scene of a mass marriage of several thousands people from a religious group held on Yankee Stadium, the scenes from Beirut during Lebanese Civil War and the Tienanmen protests. But the rest of the novel was not at all interesting for me. Especially the dialogues were extremely poor as all characters spoke alike and it was pretty hard to follow it. I will rate it with another 1 for form, as I cannot ignore the important flaws for the sake of the couple good written pages.

In terms of originality, without being totally new, I believe the novel was pretty original, in terms of the 3 main events described and in terms of the approach used to incorporate these unrelated events in a story with minimal connections to these events themselves. Even though it had some originality, I do not think that in this context this was a good thing. This is why I will give it a 3 for the level of originality.

In terms of characters, I believe they are all just voices of the author, without too many distinguishable features. So I will rate it with a 1.

Regarding the complexity and difficulty, I must acknowledge that this novel was probably pretty difficult to write. And perhaps it ended up being so complex that I am unable to understand it thoroughly. So I will rate it with a 3 for complexity and difficulty, thinking that perhaps there is more hidden under the surface that I was not able to reach to.

In terms of credibility, there aren't too many debatable things in this novel. The 3 historical events I already mentioned are basically described journalistic like. Besides them there is only the Bill Gray story. As described in the synopsis he is a writer that has published only two novels severla years back from the present time, and works now on his third novel for few decades without managing to finish it. His story contains few facts but out of them, his self imposed isolation seems the least credible. Taking all into account my rating for credibility is 4.

The last criteria is edition. I enjoyed this little book published back in 1997 that I was still able to find in bookshops last year when I bought it. The paper was slightly too grey and it started to smell like some of my older books. Aside from that, I also was not able to understand the cover connection with the content. This are the reasons why I will rate it with a 2.

To summarize, I could not relate the story of Bill Gray (that anyhow has no actual conflict closure) with the 3 historical events I already mentioned are also present in the novel. Maybe just the point that contemporary literature ignores important contemporary events, but I don't believe it at all. All in all, my final rating for the novel is 2.14, which I will round it to a 2 on Goodreads system.


+--------------------------+-----------------+
| Criteria | Rating |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Premise | 1 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Form | 1 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Originality | 3 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Characters | 1 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Difficulty/Complexity | 3 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Credibility | 4 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Edition | 2 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Total | 2.14 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+