Spoiler: you don't get to see Hitler you-know but the book kind of winds up being about the Phoenix Program anyway.

"Imperialist lackeys and running dogs."
- Don Delillo, Running dog



"The camera's everywhere."
"It's true." (pg 159)
"Landscape is truth." (pg 229)
"It's a fact. A truth. It's history." (pg 236)

This is one of DeLillo's earlier novels. Early, I guess. It came after:

1. Americana - 1971
2. End Zone - 1972
3. Great Jones Street - 1973
4. Ratner's Star - 1976
5. Players - 1977
6. Running Dog - 1978

So, it was his 6th novel. 40 years old I guess. I liked it. Basically, a bunch of people (reporters, senators, the mob, and secret government organizations) are all searching for an erotic film made in the Führerbunker in April of 1945. Is it a black and white pre-suicidal orgy? Is he in it? These groups are all connected in a paranoid and weary way to each other. Each is searching for something, but also a bit indifferent. It's a philosophical, moody novel. It is weird in a way only DeLillo can be. Playing tennis on a volleyball court. Dogs. Sex and pornography discussed obliquely. Fingers tapping on walls. Lots of discussion of motion pictures, art, technology. Always, the push West, into the desert. Dying.

There is also a pressence of Vietnam that hangs on this novel. It WAS written in 1978. The echos of Vietnam are still vibrating through America. Things are being sorted. Ideas are coalesing into themes. Things collected, recorded, taped. Flash. Things given names, polished. Polished ambiguities. And always money, power, corruption.

When the reviewer stops reviewing, what does it mean? Cut.

"Ya de entrada se trataba de un rumor poco factible. Casi nadie se lo tomó en serio. Asi pues, silencio durante más de treinta años. Hasta que hace unos meses el rumor resucita.
[…]
Existe una película, Una película sin montar. Una sola copia. El original de cámara, Rodada en Berlin, en el mes de abril de 1945."

Realmente no creo que esta novela se merezca las tres estrellas que le he dado, pero tampoco las cuatro, aunque ¿por qué tendemos a clasificarlo todo en una cifra para de alguna forma valorar algo? Es una tendencia para poder ubicarnos, pero ya digo que me parece un tanto injusto entre otras cosas porque es una novela que casi se lee sola, que me he leído prácticamente en dos días y por supuesto porque Don Delillo no es precisamente un mediocre; no me ha convencido del todo pero sí que tiene momentazos, eso sí, como retazos un tanto perdidos sin conexión con la trama general.

"Entras en un banco y te filman. Entras en unos grandes almacenes y te filman. Lo vemos cada vez más. Entras en un probador a cambiarte de ropa y hay alguien observándote a través de un espejo falso. También vigilan a los empleados: los espían con cámaras ocultas. Radares. Controles computerizados. Se internan en el útero y toman fotografías. En todas partes. ¿Y qué hacen? Tomar fotos. Filmar el mundo entero."

Fascinación es una especie de novela negra sobre conspiraciones, o un thriller, ¿o una comedia que no se toma en serio a sí misma?? Es muchas cosas y para ello Delillo usa una especie de mcguffin muy atrayente: existe una película inédita, sin montar, una única copia que se rodó en Berlin en abril de 1945, en el búnker de los nazis. El morbo está en que el rumor que corre es que es una película pornográfica sobre los excesos de los nazis en estos últimos días antes de que todo estallara y que en ella intervienen muchos personajes conocidos de la época.

"Hoy en día, esto es lo gordo. Las películas inéditas. La gente quiere alimentar sus fantasías."

Aunque hay un par de personajes a los que se podría considerar protagonistas que guían la historia, yo la considero más una historia muy coral porque intervienen tratantes de arte, coleccionistas pornográficos, dobles agentes, espías, periodistas, algún travestí, senadores, la CIA, asesinos a sueldos vietnamitas… y todos están de alguna involucrados para encontrar esta película perdida y deseada, cuyo morbo es como un halo que envuelve toda la historia. El morbo lo es todo, un morbo que de alguna forma fluirá hacia el objetivo de encontrar la película y visionarla… y en este aspecto Don Delillo es completamente justo y honesto, no nos engaña, al final nos compensará con la visualización de la película.

Es una novela que no he disfrutado del todo, porque se dispersa continuamente y algo irregular en muchos tramos pero sí que el talento de Delillo la envuelve en un halo de misterio, de prosa poética inesperada para un argumento tan rocambolesco y es esta belleza oscura y un tanto morbosa lo que le da a esta novela ese resplandor inesperado en muchos momentos.

"- Solo una vez te he visto fisicamente en acción. Aquella vez, caminando en dirección a mi casa. Saliendo de la limousina y acercándote lentamente al edificio. Lo recuerdo. Se me ha quedado grabado. Es la imagen más clara que conservo de tí. Fisicamente en movimiento. Te veo caminando. Te muestras indecisa, sin saber verdaderamente dónde estás."

El titulo original es Running dog, perro acosado, un término con la que concluida la guerra denominaban en Vietnam a los estadounidenses que abandonaban el pais, un término insultante para lo que ellos consideraban los sirvientes del capitalismo. Y aquí es donde Delillo brilla con luz propia porque aunque ésta es una de sus novelas de los inicios sí que encontramos la temática de fondo dónde es un claro maestro: el arte, las grandes corporaciones, la politica, el cuarto poder, auténticos estandartes de manipulación de la masa..., el problema es que Delillo lo narra de una forma un tanto fragmentada. Sin embargo, en mi caso es una novela que me ha merecido la pena y que he disfrutado. La traducción es de Gian Castelli Gair.

"Moll hallaba algo especial en aquellas imágenes. No era como un largometraje o un documental; no era como un noticiario de televisión. Resultaba tosco y primitivo, pero a la vez hipnótico, y no desprovisto de cierto elemento de misterio."

♫♫ ♫ Adore, Robert Levon Been

https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2022...

I dig the hell out of this book. And why not? A strong female protagonist (with great legs!), espionage, erotic antiques, and a mystery centered around a sex tape made in the Führerbunker during the last days of WWII. DeLillo's dialogue is modern and snappy as always. His images are spot-on. His pacing is tight. Toward the end, the narrative shifts focus from character to character, giving only a few paragraphs to each. It's exciting and appropriately climactic. The reveal of the Führerbunker film carries just the right amount of weight. Just a great, great book.

A masterpiece in many ways. All the Delillo touches in full evidence: haunting ambiguity, provocative concept, gritty atmosphere and clipped, droll digressions. The kind of book that inspires other writers.

Spero non sia la prova migliore di DeLillo perché, francamente, l'ho trovata piuttosto fiacca. Una trama esilissima, quasi un pretesto, a mezzo tra la spy-story e il thriller, una prosa involuta e non so quanto volutamente forzata, un finale (?) quasi zen che ci riporta a tutt'altri orizzonti, questi sono gli ingredienti di una delusione che spero sia solo contingente. Leggerò al più presto i lavori più celebrati dell'autore (Americana, Underworld) sperando di ricredermi!!!

I enjoyed reading Running Dog, though not sure I fully understand what happened. Story focuses on the acquisition of a possibly pornographic film of the last days in Hitler's bunker. Senator, CIA, PAC/ORD (secret organization) and a host of others are interested in the film. Starts with a murder of the person who possibly has access to the film. Definitely kept my interest.

Published in 1978, felt modern on some fronts and somewhat dated on others.

"Too much software, hardware, so on. Technology....Devices make everyone pliant. There's a general sponginess, a lack of conviction."

"By midnight he was on Interstate 95 north of Philadelphia....After a while he turned off the radio and rolled down his window. The highway was almost empty but a roar filled the interior of the car, an air blast so integral to travel on major routes that he couldn't break it down to component sounds. So much his own car. So much the sparse additional traffic. So much the power of the night."

"Moll was suspicious of quests. At the bottom of most long and obsessive searches, in her view, was some vital deficiency on the part of the individual in pursuit, a meagerness of spirit....Even more depressing than the nature of a given quest was the likely result...people came up against themselves in the end. Nothing but themselves..."

Odd story that I really labored through. Lots of narrowly drawn characters, none of which I cared about at all.

Addicting and delicious; hard to put down. Dellilo's prose, especially his choice of words, is as precise as a Fucking swiss mechanical watch. From the first Page to the last, he manages to maintain an elegant balance b/w difficulty and readability, which instantly puts the reader into a kind of 'flow state'. Before reading this I was 'planning' to read his other books like 'White noise' and 'Mao II' in future, but now, I know I HAVE to read them.

I am afraid that, although the book is well-written and suspenseful, I did not enjoy this novel. I have read several of the author’s books, all of which I enjoyed, but this one seemed to revolve around depravity, the obsession with sex and pornography of the characters. Admittedly there are people in the government who may be obsessed with pornography to the degree that the US senator in the novel is, to the extent that he has a cache of pornographic art hidden in a room to which a secret entrance is key, and there may be people who would pay an incredible price for sex tapes from Nazi Germany, I found the depravity and violence they resort to in the novel very tiresome. One character, a kind of ‘secret agent’, is very adept with weapons in the vein of 007. He’s intriguing, but the rest is rather disappointing.

An earlier DeLillo with the kind of curt, clipped speech, pregnant with meaning in as few syllables as possible, that you only find in novels and film noir. Interesting and good, but the ending feels like a bit of a letdown.

"La elección, en realidad, es una sutil forma de enfermedad."