
The Genius of Don DeLillo’s Post-Underworld Work (2016) - samclemens
https://www.vulture.com/2016/04/genius-of-don-delillos-post-underworld-work.html
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mlthoughts2018
I’m a big fan of DeLillo, but I absolutely hated Zero K - his worst writing by
far. It was a vapid, childish presentation of cryonics, dressed up in a bunch
of confused themes around vanity and selfishness. I was so excited for DeLillo
to write based on that premise, and so disappointed at the result.

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Bodell
I completely respect your opinion on this and would agree that Zero K is
jarring if your a fan of his earlier work.

However, I quite enjoyed it. It was short and to the point. It also reminded
me quite a bit of my own experience walking through the hospice ward in the
days leading up to my grandmothers death. The namelessness of it, the
religious iconography, even the traveling to a distant place (AR) and sleeping
there in the hospital. Because of this I feel it was not so much a book about
cytogenetics but how living people deal with death. The cryogenic part of it
could easily be supplanted with our religious beliefs that we will die and
wake up in a better world.

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mlthoughts2018
I think it was exactly this idea that made the book fail in my eyes. Cryonics
is patently _not similar_ to religion in the sense of being comforted by myth
or iconography and stories about waking up in a better place. Representing
wealthy cryonics customers as if they were borderline cult members is more
like surrealism than drama.

People who actually put money on cryonics overwhelmingly believe it’s got a
super low chance of working and that the world you might wake up in is just as
likely to have endemic social problems and suffering as our current world, or
possibly even be far worse in a lot of unsettling ways. People who care about
cryonics spend time obsessing over crazy philosophy of mind, AI ethics, and
far future forecasting ideas. They don’t go into it lightly with some fluffy
ideas of waking up in a peaceful utopia.

As a result, the characters in Zero K just don’t work. Their mix of naïveté
but hyper progressive awareness of scientific possibility, while also being
wealthy titans of industry for decades, simply doesn’t exist inside the same
person at once unless the characters are just purely vehicles for allegory and
symbolism, which is hardly what has made DeLillo’s other works notable.

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polytely
I have only read Point Omega and The Angel Esmeralda but I've really enjoyed
them. Which of his books should I read next? Are there any other authors
adjacent to DeLillo that are worth checking out?

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Mediterraneo10
When it comes to post- _Underworld_ DeLillo, as far as I am concerned his
major novel of that period, and really the only work that sticks in the memory
after a few weeks (and I have read them all) is _Falling Man_.

If you are asking about books from any period of his output, then _White
Noise_ can be recommended, I personally see it as his greatest achievement.
_Underworld_ gets a lot of hype due to its sheer length but I don’t find it
particularly impressive or moving.

