Underworld (DeLillo novel)
Encyclopedia
Underworld is a postmodern
novel
published in 1997
by Don DeLillo
. It was nominated for the National Book Award
, was a best-seller, and is one of DeLillo's better-known novels.
In 2006, a survey of eminent authors and critics conducted by The New York Times
found Underworld the runner-up for the best work of American fiction of the past 25 years; it garnered 11 of 125 votes, finishing behind only Toni Morrison
's Beloved
with 15 votes.
executive, who leads an undirected existence in late 20th century America
. His wife, Marian, is having an affair with one of his friends.
The events of the novel span from the 1950s through the 1990s. The characters in the book respond to several historical events, including the Cuban Missile Crisis
and nuclear proliferation
.
The novel is divided into eight sections:
. (The prologue, Pafko at the Wall
, was written on its own before the novel.) In the ninth inning, Ralph Branca
pitches to Bobby Thomson
, who hits the ball into the stands for a three-run homer, beating the Dodgers 5-4 and capturing the National League
pennant. Known to baseball fans as "The Shot Heard 'Round the World"
, the fate of that ball is unknown, but in DeLillo's novel, Cotter Martin wrests this valuable ball away from another fan who has just befriended him and runs home. Cotter's father, Manx, steals the ball and later sells it for thirty-two dollars and forty-five cents.
Branca and Thomson are never given much screen time, and Jackie Gleason
and Frank Sinatra
only put in cameos, but other historical figures become important parts of the story. J. Edgar Hoover
muses on death, loyalty and leather masks while comedian Lenny Bruce
faces the Cuban Missile Crisis by impersonating a hysterical housewife shrieking, "We're all gonna die!"
Early in the novel it is revealed that Nick Shay was in a juvenile detention center for murdering a man, but it is not until near the end of the book that we learn the details of his crime. After being released from the detention center, he is sent to a Jesuit reform school
in northern Minnesota.
In the epilogue, we learn that Nick and Marian remain married despite infidelity on both sides. In fact, Nick indicates their relationship is much improved as he has opened up to her about his past – a subject that had always much-interested her and that he had been unwilling to discuss.
Several critics did note that it was overly long and could have benefited from some additional editing. On Salon.com, Laura Miller wrote that “Nick's secret, the one that supposedly provides the book's suspense, proves anticlimactic."
In May 2006, The New York Times Book Review
named Underworld as a runner up for the best work of American fiction of the previous 25 years.
The well-known literary critic Harold Bloom
, although also expressing reservations about the book's length, has said Underworld is "the culmination of what [DeLillo] can do" and one of the few contemporary American works of fiction that "touched what I would call the sublime," along with works by Cormac McCarthy
, Philip Roth
, and Thomas Pynchon
.
, a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Hoover first sees the painting while at the baseball game; the painting was reproduced in Life
and pieces of it fall on him when someone in the stands above tears up the magazine and tosses the pieces. Later in the book he obtains a print of the painting.
Several segments of the novel are named in homage to other works. Das Kapital
is Karl Marx
's magnum opus
, "Long Tall Sally
" is a song by Little Richard
also famous as a cover by The Beatles
, and "Cocksucker Blues
" is an infamous unreleased Rolling Stones song and film. "Better Things for Better Living Through Chemistry" was an advertising slogan for DuPont
.
and the whereabouts of the ball hit by Thomson are a recurrent element of the book. The book also employs Lenny Bruce
’s reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis
and Soviet Union's
atomic weapons program (including their testing grounds
in Kazakhstan
).
DeLillo has said that the front page of The New York Times on October 4, 1951, inspired Underworld.
.
Underworld was a nominated finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize
.
In addition, Underworld was the winner of the 2000 William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
.
Postmodern literature
The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain characteristics of post–World War II literature and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature.Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is hard to define and there is little agreement on the exact...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
published in 1997
1997 in literature
The year 1997 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Tom Clancy signs a book deal with Pearson Custom Publishing and Penguin Putnam Inc. , giving him US$50 million for the world-English rights to two new books . A second agreement gives him another US$25 million for a...
by Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo is an American author, playwright, and occasional essayist whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries...
. It was nominated for the National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
, was a best-seller, and is one of DeLillo's better-known novels.
In 2006, a survey of eminent authors and critics conducted by The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
found Underworld the runner-up for the best work of American fiction of the past 25 years; it garnered 11 of 125 votes, finishing behind only Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved...
's Beloved
Beloved (novel)
Beloved is a novel by the American writer Toni Morrison, published in 1987. Set in 1873 just after the American Civil War , it is based on the story of the African-American slave, Margaret Garner, who escaped slavery in 1856 in Kentucky by fleeing to Ohio, a free state...
with 15 votes.
Plot introduction
Underworld is a non-linear narrative that has many intertwined themes. A central character is Nick Shay, a waste managementWaste management
Waste management is the collection, transport, processing or disposal,managing and monitoring of waste materials. The term usually relates to materials produced by human activity, and the process is generally undertaken to reduce their effect on health, the environment or aesthetics...
executive, who leads an undirected existence in late 20th century America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. His wife, Marian, is having an affair with one of his friends.
The events of the novel span from the 1950s through the 1990s. The characters in the book respond to several historical events, including the Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
and nuclear proliferation
Nuclear proliferation
Nuclear proliferation is a term now used to describe the spread of nuclear weapons, fissile material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information, to nations which are not recognized as "Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the...
.
The novel is divided into eight sections:
- Prologue – The Triumph of Death (3 October 1951; this section has been published separately, as a novellaNovellaA novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
, under the title Pafko at the Wall) - Part 1 – Long Tall Sally (Spring-Summer 1992)
- Part 2 – Elegy for Left Hand Alone (Mid-1980s – Early 1990s)
- Part 3 – The Cloud of Unknowing (Spring 1978)
- Part 4 – Cocksucker Blues (Summer 1974)
- Part 5 – Better Things for Better Living Through Chemistry (Selected Fragments Public and Private in the 1950s and 1960s)
- Part 6 – Arrangement in Gray and Black (Fall 1951 – Summer 1952)
- Epilogue – Das Kapital
Explanation of the novel's title
DeLillo said that the novel’s title came to him as he thought about radioactive waste buried deep underground and about Pluto, god of death. The waste and byproducts of history, dissected and discussed throughout the novel, constantly resurface from the underworld (or, subconscious) of the American population despite their best attempts to repress and bury things they would rather forget. Further connections and connotations about the title can be made between part of the novel's subject matter (mafia criminals in New York who Nick Shay fantasises may have had his father killed), and the 1927 gangster film of the same name.Plot summary
The novel opens on October 3, 1951, when a boy named Cotter Martin sneaks in to watch the New York Giants play the Brooklyn Dodgers at the Giants' home field Polo GroundsPolo Grounds
The Polo Grounds was the name given to four different stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used by many professional teams in both baseball and American football from 1880 until 1963...
. (The prologue, Pafko at the Wall
Pafko at the Wall (novella)
"Pafko at the Wall", subtitled "The Shot Heard Round the World", was originally published as a folio in the October 1992 issue of Harper's Magazine. It was later incorporated as the prologue in Don DeLillo's magnum opus novel, Underworld, with minor changes from the original version, such as a new...
, was written on its own before the novel.) In the ninth inning, Ralph Branca
Ralph Branca
Ralph Theodore Joseph Branca is a former starting pitcher in Major League Baseball.From 1944 through 1956, Branca played for the Brooklyn Dodgers , Detroit Tigers , and New York Yankees...
pitches to Bobby Thomson
Bobby Thomson
Robert Brown "Bobby" Thomson was a Scottish-born American professional baseball player. Nicknamed "The Staten Island Scot", he was an outfielder and right-handed batter for the New York Giants , Milwaukee Braves , Chicago Cubs , Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles .His season-ending three-run...
, who hits the ball into the stands for a three-run homer, beating the Dodgers 5-4 and capturing the National League
National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League , is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball, and the world's oldest extant professional team sports league. Founded on February 2, 1876, to replace the National Association of Professional...
pennant. Known to baseball fans as "The Shot Heard 'Round the World"
Shot Heard 'Round the World (baseball)
In baseball, the "Shot Heard 'round the World" is the term given to the walk-off home run hit by New York Giants outfielder Bobby Thomson off Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca at the Polo Grounds to win the National League pennant at 3:58 p.m...
, the fate of that ball is unknown, but in DeLillo's novel, Cotter Martin wrests this valuable ball away from another fan who has just befriended him and runs home. Cotter's father, Manx, steals the ball and later sells it for thirty-two dollars and forty-five cents.
Branca and Thomson are never given much screen time, and Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason was an American comedian, actor and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, especially by his character Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, a situation-comedy television series. His most noted film roles were as Minnesota Fats in the drama film The...
and Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
only put in cameos, but other historical figures become important parts of the story. J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...
muses on death, loyalty and leather masks while comedian Lenny Bruce
Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
faces the Cuban Missile Crisis by impersonating a hysterical housewife shrieking, "We're all gonna die!"
Early in the novel it is revealed that Nick Shay was in a juvenile detention center for murdering a man, but it is not until near the end of the book that we learn the details of his crime. After being released from the detention center, he is sent to a Jesuit reform school
Reform school
A reform school in the United States was a term used to define, often somewhat euphemistically, what was often essentially a penal institution for boys, generally teenagers.-History:...
in northern Minnesota.
In the epilogue, we learn that Nick and Marian remain married despite infidelity on both sides. In fact, Nick indicates their relationship is much improved as he has opened up to her about his past – a subject that had always much-interested her and that he had been unwilling to discuss.
Characters in Underworld
- Nick Shay – The novel’s protagonist and a waste management executive. He spends much of his life trying to come to terms with his father’s disappearance.
- Marian Shay – Nick’s wife.
- Rosemary – Nick’s mother.
- Jimmy – Nick’s father who disappeared when Nick was 11. He and his family lived near Arthur Avenue, Bronx. Jimmy was a small-time bookie who had a reputation for never writing anything down. He went out for a pack of Lucky StrikeLucky StrikeLucky Strike is a brand of cigarette owned by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and British American Tobacco groups. Often referred to as "Luckies", Lucky Strike was the top selling cigarette in the United States during the 1930s.- History :...
cigarettes and never returned. - Matty – Nick’s little brother. Very skilled at chess in his youth, but then gave it up. He served in the military in VietnamVietnamVietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
and then worked for the U.S. government in the development of nuclear weapons. However, he soon finds he is uncomfortable with his choice of career and leaves to join a think tankThink tankA think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
. - Klara Sax – An aspiring artist who has a brief affair with Nick when he is 17 years old and she is in her 30s and married to Albert Bronzini with a young daughter. She and Albert divorce some time later (this is her first marriage). In all, she married three times, but divorced all three men. Nick goes to see Klara in the early 1990s when she’s directing a project to paint decommissioned Cold War era bombers.
- Albert Bronzini – Klara’s husband and Matty’s chess instructor.
- George the Waiter
- Marvin Lundy – An avid baseball memorabilia collector who devoted his life to obtaining the home run ball hit by Thomson. He was obsessed with tracing the ball all the way back to the game, but was unable to do so. He sells the ball to Nick Shay.
Literary significance and reception
The response from critics was very positive with David Wiegand of the San Francisco Chronicle declaring Underworld DeLillo's “best novel and perhaps that most elusive of creatures, a great American novel." The novel has been called ambitious and highly powerful.Several critics did note that it was overly long and could have benefited from some additional editing. On Salon.com, Laura Miller wrote that “Nick's secret, the one that supposedly provides the book's suspense, proves anticlimactic."
In May 2006, The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...
named Underworld as a runner up for the best work of American fiction of the previous 25 years.
The well-known literary critic Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...
, although also expressing reservations about the book's length, has said Underworld is "the culmination of what [DeLillo] can do" and one of the few contemporary American works of fiction that "touched what I would call the sublime," along with works by Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
, Philip Roth
Philip Roth
Philip Milton Roth is an American novelist. He gained fame with the 1959 novella Goodbye, Columbus, an irreverent and humorous portrait of Jewish-American life that earned him a National Book Award...
, and Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. is an American novelist. For his most praised novel, Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon received the National Book Award, and is regularly cited as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature...
.
Allusions to other works
The novel has J. Edgar Hoover utterly intrigued by The Triumph of DeathThe Triumph of Death
The Triumph of Death is an oil painting on panel, painted c. 1562 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. It is in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.The painting is a panoramic landscape: the sky in the distance is blackened by smoke from burning cities and the sea is littered with shipwrecks. Armies of...
, a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Hoover first sees the painting while at the baseball game; the painting was reproduced in Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
and pieces of it fall on him when someone in the stands above tears up the magazine and tosses the pieces. Later in the book he obtains a print of the painting.
Several segments of the novel are named in homage to other works. Das Kapital
Das Kapital
Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie , by Karl Marx, is a critical analysis of capitalism as political economy, meant to reveal the economic laws of the capitalist mode of production, and how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production.- Themes :In Capital: Critique of...
is Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
's magnum opus
Magnum opus
Magnum opus , from the Latin meaning "great work", refers to the largest, and perhaps the best, greatest, most popular, or most renowned achievement of a writer, artist, or composer.-Related terms:Sometimes the term magnum opus is used to refer to simply "a great work" rather than "the...
, "Long Tall Sally
Long Tall Sally
"Long Tall Sally" is a rock and roll 12-bar blues song written by Robert "Bumps" Blackwell, Enotris Johnson and Richard Penniman , recorded by Little Richard and released March 1956 on the Specialty Records label....
" is a song by Little Richard
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...
also famous as a cover by The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, and "Cocksucker Blues
Cocksucker Blues
Cocksucker Blues is an unreleased documentary film directed by the noted still photographer Robert Frank chronicling The Rolling Stones' North American tour in 1972 in support of their album Exile on Main St..-Production:...
" is an infamous unreleased Rolling Stones song and film. "Better Things for Better Living Through Chemistry" was an advertising slogan for DuPont
DuPont
E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company , commonly referred to as DuPont, is an American chemical company that was founded in July 1802 as a gunpowder mill by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. DuPont was the world's third largest chemical company based on market capitalization and ninth based on revenue in 2009...
.
Allusions to actual history, geography and current science
The novel incorporates a number of historical events. The prologue is about "The Shot Heard 'Round the World"Shot Heard 'Round the World (baseball)
In baseball, the "Shot Heard 'round the World" is the term given to the walk-off home run hit by New York Giants outfielder Bobby Thomson off Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca at the Polo Grounds to win the National League pennant at 3:58 p.m...
and the whereabouts of the ball hit by Thomson are a recurrent element of the book. The book also employs Lenny Bruce
Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
’s reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
and Soviet Union's
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
atomic weapons program (including their testing grounds
Semipalatinsk Test Site
The Semipalatinsk Test Site was the primary testing venue for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons. It is located on the steppe in northeast Kazakhstan , south of the valley of the Irtysh River...
in Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
).
DeLillo has said that the front page of The New York Times on October 4, 1951, inspired Underworld.
Awards and nominations
In 1997, Underworld was a finalist for the National Book AwardNational Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
.
Underworld was a nominated finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize
1998 Pulitzer Prize
-Journalism:-Letters:* Biography or Autobiography** Personal History by Katharine Graham * Fiction** American Pastoral by Philip Roth * History...
.
In addition, Underworld was the winner of the 2000 William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
The William Dean Howells Medal is awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Established in 1925, it is given once every five years, generally in recognition of the most distinguished American novel published during that period, although some awards have been made to novelists for their...
.
External links
- "Underworld by Don DeLillo" by Ted Gioia