Running Dog is your typical contemporary thriller. It does not concentrate on postmodernism, stream of consciousness, or existentialism. It rather follows a journalist (what better to develop a thriller?) who seeks to uncover a mystery, and she did not expect to find what she found. I'm not sure I appreciate how Hitler was portrayed in this, but I liked the message behind it.
 
History is True

very brisk read. started off strong but about halfway through I realized I was pretty indifferent to what happened to each person despite this master conspiracy that each character was troubled with. I’d like to read more DeLillo but think I’ll hold off for a bit after this one, maybe not the best place to start?

Video review

A thriller about the world of erotica where the secret agents keep doing it and the porn dealers keep shooting each other.

DeLillo's writing attempts to match the complexity of the politics of the era, the complexity of his characters by his writing style. He will make you work on it for the sake of making it fair to his characters. It wasn't easy for them why it should therefore be easy for you, the reader.
It took me quite a while to finish as it doesn't flow as much as I wished it would. It's almost like a screenplay. The surprise at the end is worth the read. All in all not my favorite genre, I prefer the absurd DeLillo, akin to his writing style in "The Itch".

Enjoy this old book reader, the language will slap you, you have been warned.

"All men are criminals. All women are Mafia wives."

"What is it like, secrecy? The secret life. I know it's sexual. I want to know this. Is it homosexual?"
"You're way ahead of me," he said.
"Isn't that why the English are so good at espionage? Or why they seem so good at it, which comes to the same thing. Isn't it almost rooted in their national character?"
"I didn't know the English controlled world rights."
"To what?"
"Being queer," he said.
---
This book operates like a film, but rather like an ultimately very well made noir pulp rather than a pretentious art house film. In plot, but also in style - the prose seems to take a notion from the Antonioni school (who gets referenced) of fixing in on tiny little details of the physical world, ignored by the monomaniac characters. The dialogue here is part of the very blossoming of the trademark Delillo style (robotic delivery, nonsequitur replies, comically ridiculous), and when the prose leaves the tepid physicality it takes advantage of being prose and not film to generate dozens of half-cognizant quips that get almost excessive, but occasionally with telling irony ("*History is true.*"). I mean this as a compliment, a very clever and careful use of the medium, though it does get tedious. The plot itself is the wild, pseudo-gritty chase the premise offers: in fact it resembles a Pynchon novel with its abundant mass of characters, each aspiring to suaveness and conspiracy but in reality being incompetent goons who can barely manage to follow along with their own grand designs, mentally or logistically. In a strange note, it concludes with a Beckett-esque move, in which the characters, who are all essentially disfigured pseudo-humans whose existence is completely contingent upon their being film-like characters, reach the end of their plot, and find nothing except a distant whiff of their lost humanity that is ultimately lost on them. The liberated office drone sees the Hitler sex tape but are bored when it turns out to depict Hitler sadly trying to entertain children as they unwittingly are being murdered as part of the Nazi mass suicide, the tender tragedy of which is lost on them; the expert con-man shirks his conspiratorial duties and elopes with a very unusual type of hooker before being pensively murdered; the magazine reporters constantly trying to exploit these shenanigans for their own jouranalistic profit just end up just dysfunctionally banging each other. Like most works of Beckett, after the disfigured humans are milked for every comedic moment their modern-day neuroses can provide us, we get to see a very sincere and human moment that suddenly casts a retrospective sad light, as we realize that the hucksters we see are subhuman at their own expense, and arguably at our own.

This strikes me as an important and often-overlooked book in the chain of early DeLillo's events, and indeed a necessary stop for anyone curious as to how he got from Americana to White Noise. DeLillo's early novels, particularly the trio of End Zone, Great Jones Street and Ratner's Star, feature these long stretches where DeLillo wanders away from his plots (never the tightest in the world even at his peak, not like it's a big deal (I almost typed "beak deal." I'm a silly person) or anything) and decides instead to explore whichever ideas he's trying to get across, as well as some brand-shittin'-new ideas that don't seem to have much connection with what's at hand; think the underwear-sharing episode in Great Jones Street or a bulk of Ratner's Star (End Zone isn't as guilty, if guilty's even the word I'm looking for). This tendency of his can be charming as hell, and the discussions are pretty much always intelligent, but you sometimes have to wonder how much control the guy had over his early work; they're, objectively speaking, pretty self-indulgent books.

And it's not like DeLillo was ever the tightest novelist in the world, but unless Players beat this one to the punch, Running Dog strikes me as the book where DeLillo started to pay more attention to plot, to the chain of events itself. This style would hit its peak with Libra, which I think is the most streamlined of the man's novels, or maybe the underrated Cosmopolis. It's not like DeLillo's ever going to strip his books down to just the barest facts that make understanding his narrative possible, and I don't think he'd be the same if he ever did, but at the same point, I don't think he ever would've broken through to his current major novelist status if he hadn't worked a little heavier in the x, therefore y, therefore z mode. In White Noise, for example, the Airborne Toxic Event hits, toxic chemicals from it enter Jack Gladney's system, Jack Gladney finds and steals Barbara's Dylar, revelations about the Dylar come to light. If you think I'm banking on you having read a decent amount of DeLillo here, you're right; it's hard to imagine anyone who isn't already a DeLillo fan reading reviews of this book.

Anyway, to business. Running Dog is a thriller. If I'm not mistaken about Players, it's DeLillo's second. He likes this mode; the Names, Libra, and Mao II all also fit into it. I generally don't like thrillers, but DeLillo's no mere airport novelist, and while aficionados of the genre might argue that he's too chilly to get the requisite suspense across, he more than makes up for it with the profound sense of dread and paranoia in his novels. This one's notable for packing so much of it in that the novel feels like it's ready to explode; it's fascinating to see how convoluted things get as the characters circle closer to the Hitler sex tape at the center of all this. Don't be fooled for a minute into thinking this book is as puerile as it could've been given its subject matter, by the way; as usual, DeLillo has a lot to say. Here it's about eroticism and fascism. And he does it with more forward motion than he had with his previous novels. Plus there's the usual virtues of DeLillo's novels: the calculated prose, each word seemingly weighted for maximum impact; the deadpan humor; the remarkably original concepts. You might want a character sheet, what with all these organizations stepping on each other's toes, and there isn't a lot by way of resolution, but DeLillo's fans can't go wrong.

ahhh what is this? really wasn't into it from the CSI TV opening but it grew on me as i went. if end zone was a controlled burst of semi-abstract expressionism this was like a loose haze of superabstract commerciality - cliches and commentaries rolled into one - nothing too out there but like a spy thriller coming apart at the seams - and though not quite like anything else I've enjoyed from DeLillo - more cheaply violent, more overtly thrillerish - ends up being something i like anyways quite a bit, almost like a total blueprint for a William gibson novel, thinking of the blue ant books specifically. (i kept forgetting this was the 70's, feels like these characters ought to be on laptops.) a lot of floating around talking to a lot of severe government agents, cultural speculators, and private intelligence professionals. there's a kind of shaggy dog story in this (har har) and its payoff is actually fantastic - much preferred running dog's film to the final big reveal of jim's film in infinite jest. a lesser delillo for sure, but good, in its own way.

I know DeLillo is considered a seriously good writer. I was looking forward to reading this book. The curious thing is it just left me flat. Some writers are more interested in the telling of the story than the conclusion. I believe Chandler might agree with that. The ending of this book (no spoiler alert) seemed so nonchalant, and not in a smart, cool way. I feel like I'm missing something but, at this point, I have no interest in reading more of DeLillo. If any of you read this and disagree, I would love to hear from you.

I just couldn’t care about anything that this book offered, if anything. Characters were boring and too many of them, none of whom were developed probably. I didn’t even care what was on the supposedly pornographic film. Just dull.

Read this years ago – heck decades ago! — and liked it very much. Heck, I’ve quoted from it. Reading it now, it seems just a bit sensational for the sake of being sensational, and maybe even clichéd. But I think that’s because the world has caught up to DeLillo: The jangled prose, deep cynicism, mordant humor, people talking at and through each other, conspiracies, violence. Not sure if this will hold up over the decades like White Noise, Underworld though.

When I hold you in my arms; And I feel my finger on your trigger; I know nobody can do me no harm; Because, Happiness is a warm gun, oh yes it is

"Saigon, shit. I'm still only in Saigon. Every time I think I'm going to wake up back in the jungle. When I was home after my first tour, it was worse. I'd wake up and there'd be nothing... I hardly said a word to my wife until I said yes to a divorce. When I was here I wanted to be there. When I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle. I've been here a week now. Waiting for a mission, getting softer. Every minute I stay in this room I get weaker. And every minute Charlie squats in the bush he gets stronger. Each time I look around the walls move in a little tighter. Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins they gave me one."

Oh yeah...... The Beatles and the NRA; and Captain Willard in a hotel room. They just seemed connected after reading Don DeLillo's Running Dog.

Published in 1978 and written in 4 months according to the author and in a light manner (“I knew I wasn’t doing utterly serious work, let me put it that way.” Interview Mark Binelli https://www.guernicamag.com/intensity...). So what does Don give us. A mish-mash might say ‘a detective novel, an investigative journalist, the smut / porn / erotica industry, an espionage / deep cover double type shape-shifter, the Mafia, the CIA, murder and violence, and sex and sex substitutes... and lots of it. Sounds like a winner to get picked up. Do you ever get the feeling when you are reading a particular book that maybe you shoulda sort of read this one after that one or maybe this author before that author? After about 50 pages more or less, I strongly felt that way. This is film-noir for the novel or more rightly, the other way round. Those first few pages of the prologue and the opening sections just reek of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. And the more you read of Running Dog the more it seems that DeLillo was intending to write a screenplay perhaps looking for an immediate Hollywood pick-up ... or maybe this is just what he wanted to do.... to write a Holllywood-esque treatment of themes that interested him and get it out there.

Of course the other author that it smacks of is James Ellroy. Tight prose, similar themes – almost the same flavour as The Cold Six Thousand, hard-nosed characters and flawed gems that we can and cannot relate to and underneath it all some sort of running thread of morality.

Everyone is after the unseen-but-alleged-to-exist can of original film from the Hitler bunker. It’s got value, maybe intrinsic historical value but that’s not what DeLillo’s characters are after. It is the entrepreneurial value as a commodity and the hoped-for value as a pornographic item showing Hitler and entourage in the final Götterdämmerung of the Second World War and the fall of Berlin and demise of Hitler and the Nazis. Fascism, Power and Pornography. Grab it and Go, Don!!!

De Lillo puts a lot of characters into this short (for him) book. However only a few are fleshed out to any great extent. We get

Lightborn – the dealer in erotica, seemingly not too successful but well-connected
Moll Robbins – not in the top rack investigative journo for past-it mag Running Dog
Glen Selvy – not what he seems, ever, spy / deep undercover / hunk / senatorial aid
Grace Delaney – shabby editor of Running Dog with a past
PAC / CORD and Deep Radial – Intelligence operations funding covert actions more like systems themselves outside of any control
Lomax - a camp PAC/CORD guy and Selvy’s immediate boss but who wants to get out but cannot
Christopher Ludecke - the trannie German immigrant who had access originally to the film canister along with his wife
Senator Percival - investigating and investigated by PAC/CORD and an avid collector of erotica
Richie Annbrister - young pornographer and entrepreneur, deep covered and protected
Earl Mudger - Kurtz-like figure who was at least in charge of Radial Matrix and made his name for his various exploits in Vietnam but now wants also to get away from it and hand-make knives.
Talerico - a Mafia boss now based in Toronto and specialising in smut
Nadine Rademacher - Nude storyteller, ingénue and , what......, page filler?

And that’s not even all the characters. Others are thrown in lightly. Very few get given full parts like, some only having a sense of walk-on roles. Only Robbins and Selvy get more fully fleshed. Moll Robbins – hey .... whaddabout we play on Moll Flanders and that hack Harold Robbins and his association with pulp soft-porn celeb trash? OK.... why go there.

Selvy though, is quite an apparition. After an assassination attempt on him (and as a bystander, Robbins) he starts to run, but from or to what? And why? What appears to be written is that Selvy is running to his destiny, a kind of act of apotheosis. But that kind of makes little sense. He only seems to realise it when he is on the outskirts of his original training camp but he’s kind of headed that way anyway. His training in the art of dealing death was, or is supposed to be a preparation for his own death? It’s perverse and illogical other than in some transcendent sort of way (we’ll come onto that). It is as if Selvy is merely a commodity of a process and to prove the process he has to die to see its true value. But the whole process is meant to be secret so the whole thing becomes a nonsense. There is an underlying theme of commoditization throughout this book. So the Selvy character is kind of... well.... just plain weird. And this is fiction not fact.

Reeking through it all is the power of sex. What fires them all to go after the film is the possibility that it might contain an orgiastic scene in the Hitler bunker with the main man himself taking a leading role. DeLillo can write a sex scene. Just enough. Not too much. Keep it on the erotic side rather than the hard core. But it is the associations with sex that pervade the book. This is from later in the book, with Nadine – who, wanting to be an actress has headed to New York only to end up working as a nude storyteller-with-add-ons in a flophouse off Times Square

”She kept on smiling, her eyes closed. When they were in bed together, everything about her suggested appealing healthiness. It bothered him. She seemed to think sex was wholesome and sweet.”

In Running Dog sex is never wholesome and sweet. It is power; it is control; it is fascistic Nazi associated; it is abusive; it is manipulative. Here sex is smut and pornography and perversion. Sex is abusive. Sex is secrets and secrecy. There is an interesting scene earlier between Selvy and Robbins prior to them getting it on where she expounds on sex and secrecy and where DeLillo really gets up to speed as the writer you know he is – punchy, full of underlying meaning, great dialogue, masterful, indicative of greater sense than just what is written down on the page.

Commoditization.... sex... and VIETNAM. It’s never far from the surface. For Ellroy it was Cuba and later Vietnam. But this was written in 1978 and was in the conscious thought of all of America and Americans. Another tie-in with Ellroy might be the fugue of the JFK assassination. Percival’s wife is hooked on reading the Warren Commission Report and its spin-offs and Ellroy is full of it. DeLillo and Ellroy almost feel like siblings. And the more you read of DeLillo the more you soak up like osmosis that Vietnam is a keystone in understanding American psyche for him and why it underlies much of this book.

All the characters in Running Dog appear to want to get out, to escape the path they are set on; from the sketchily filled-in walk-on parts to the main characters. Mudger recognises himself as a spent force. Lomax wants the country and his dogs; Selvy seeks his transcendence; Percival ditches his wife and takes up with a young piece of fluff. They all seem disillusioned and dying to escape, some quite literally. Gradually they all give up what they are either doing or trying to do. Which indeed is what happens to the characters vying for control of the film. In the end it’s almost as if they can no longer be bothered.

DeLillo cannot resist throwing in these bit parts from time to time. Mudger’s Vietnamese wife gets thrown in for seemingly only to provide a recess between one murder and its discovery like the Porter scene in Macbeth. And the pace of the writing, the chopping from one scene to another, the narration point changing – well it’s just like a screenplay, with scenes written simply to go over what we have already seen / read (the two seem almost interchangeable given the heavy correspondence here between screenplay and novel) so that the message is hammered home and we don’t miss a dimension. To resonate Tyler’s death he gives us Levi Blackwater (Jeezo – what a name, if you thought Moll Robbins was extreme!). He appears to be some kind of ascetic remnant of the training camp ready to provide the final pinches to the transcendence theme which is the apotheosis of Tyler. It’s kind of over-egging the cake with the chanting and Zoroastrian Tower of Silence / air burial thang and made me think of the theft of Gram Parsons body and attempted cremation in Joshua Tree. It had that sense of farce.

In the end, well, I couldn’t put it down. I HAD to get to the end. There is a sense that the whole book is somewhat deflationary, anti-climactic. Yes it reads like noir. Yes it reads like a screenplay. Yes it might make a decent fillum. And there is better noir out there and DeLillo has written better. Given the sense even from his own mouth that he just sort of knocked it off, should we take it seriously? Well there is this whole thing about sex as power and this commoditisation stuff going on as well as the disillusionment skank. Given all this then perhaps we might say that it is a bit of a period piece for the late 70’s as say Updike’s Couples was for the late 60’s. I did enjoy it.... but would I bother reading it again? Not really. There are bigger and better fish out there.