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More DeLillo short stories:
The River Jordan: DeLillo's first published story (Epoch 10, never collected), from 1960, when he was 24 years old. Third-person portrait of the 70-year old Emil Burke, leader of the Psychic Church of the Crucified Christ, who has a small cadre of followers. The events span one day, with Burke first writing signs in the subway, then preaching to an uninterested crowd at night. Ends with Burke's financial backer leaving him to pursue more interesting/lucrative fringe religions. An uneven story; forgivable, since it was the first output of a very fruitful writing career. But still...it's hard to tell if DeLillo intends us to sympathize with Burke (as the meat of the story would suggest) or ridicule him (as the end of the story would suggest).
Take the "A" Train: DeLillo's second story, from 1962. First published in Epoch 12 (Spring 1962), collected in the rare "Stories from Epoch," edited by Baxter Hathaway and published in 1964 (sidenote -- the book also contains Pynchon's first story, "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna," which did not appear in the Pynchon short story collection "Slow Learner"). Third-person tale of Cavallo, a way down-on-his-luck loser who owes money everywhere. To evade his debts he takes to the subway, wondering how long he can live on the trains. Most of the story is related via Cavallo reminiscing: his elaborate wedding, his failed marriage, his overbearing father. A very downbeat, depressing tale, with no resolution.
Baghdad Towers West: From Epoch 17, published 1968, never collected. First-person story from a nameless narrator, obsessing/reminiscing about the three women who lived in the New York apartment he now rents. Parts of the story are great (such as the author's great interest in sleeping; he figures himself a sleeping connoisseur), others not so hot (the three women are a bit uninvolving, with the usual small-town-girl-in-the-big-city backstories). Has a funny ending in which the narrator attempts to initiate group sex with the women, with humorous results.
Creation: From Antaeus 33, published Spring 1979, never collected. First-person recount of a couple vacationing on a Caribbean island, and their desperate attempts to get back home. The island has only one airline, which is the definition of unreliable. Eventually the narrator's girlfriend is able to leave, as only one seat is available, and she has an important meeting to get to in New York. The narrator remains behind, in no hurry to leave, and has an affair with a German woman named Christa who seems to be on the run from someone or something. The tale is left open-ended and unresolved.
Human Moments in World War III: A fantastic story, first published in the July 1983 issue of Esquire, later collected in three books: "Great Esquire Fiction: The Finest Stories from the First Fifty Years" (1983); "Lust, Violence, Sin, Magic: 60 Years of Esquire Fiction" (1994), and "American Gothic Tales" (1996). The story is recounted in first person by a nameless narrator, who is stationed aboard a "recon-interceptor" spacecraft which orbits the Earth. Their mission is to monitor enemy troop activity and occasionally fire the spacecraft's lasers at planetside objects. So yes, this is a rare entry into the sci-fi genre for DeLillo, though the story is recounted in a run-of-the-mill style; the setting, the war, the spacecraft are all everyday things for the narrator. Not true for his shipmate Vollmer, however, who raises all the Big Issue questions, much to the narrator's dismay, who just wants to keep things on a mundane, everyday level. Not much happens in the story: they observe the Earth, they practice a laser-firing drill, they talk to Colorado Command. But still it’s a compelling tale, with the narrator dwelling on the Earth, on war, and on "human moments." Features a great scene where they somehow pick up "signals from radio programs of forty, fifty, sixty years ago." Ghostly transmissions which come in clearer and clearer; a haunting scene. The book cries to be extrapolated as a full-on novel, but I doubt this is something DeLillo will ever do. |
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