I am sorely lacking in my reading of Don DeLillo, one of America's greatest writers. I've read Libra and Underworld, and now I can add one of his earliest books, Great Jones Street, from 1973. In a nutshell, it's about the excesses of fame and the dying of the counterculture.

As I mentioned in my review of Joe, though good music was still being made in the early '70s, the hippie ideal was gone. Soon it would be the "me" decade. DeLillo's book is about the disillusionment of a rock star and about drugs, and at that time I suppose they were intertwined.

"Fame requires every kind of excess. I mean true fame, a devouring neon, not the somber renown of waning statesmen or chinless kings. I mean long journeys across gray space. I mean danger, the edge of every void, the circumstance of one man imparting an erotic terror to the dreams of the republic." So says DeLillo's narrator, rock god Bucky Wunderlick, who has just abandoned a tour in Houston and holed up in his girlfriend's dingy apartment in Greenwich Village, on the title street. He is just shy of 26, but is facing an existential crisis.

He is visited by an array of characters, including his manager, Globke, his guitarist, Azarian, and then his girlfriend, Opel. shows up. Opel has a package that needs to be delivered, a "product," that turns out to be a powerful drug that shuts off the part of the brain dealing with language. Many people want it, but Bucky doesn't have it--Globke's assistant, Hanes, has it. Opel throws him a birthday party: "Several days later people of various sorts appeared in the room. Some I knew; others were unknown to me. I sat in the bowl-shaped canvas chair. Opel led the celebrants around me. I nodded, blinked and occasionally touched another’s jutting hand. I had little to say but was sure no one would mind. They already knew my voice. It was my presence they were eager to record, the simple picture of man-in-chair, a memory print to trade for other people’s time. Slowly the room began to fill. It became obvious."

Bucky talks to almost no one, except a writer living upstairs who struggles to find a genre (he tries child pornography--that is, children having sex with each other, but turns to financial writing) and a woman living downstairs with a severely disabled son. There's a British rock star named Watney who wants to bid on the drug, and carries with him an airline bag full of bubblegum cards with his picture on them. Eventually Bucky will meet Dr. Pepper, who is sort of the omnipotent force of the book.

Great Jones Street is very reminiscent of the beats, and in particular William S. Burroughs. I couldn't help but think of Dr. Benway from Naked Lunch when Dr. Pepper arrives. The book is full of truths that are handed down to an amused and indifferent Bucky, who is obsessively glib (when someone says "Peace," he says, "War."

The book also includes song lyrics of Bucky's, a news story about him lighting a flight attendant on fire, and a panel discussion with a bunch of intellectuals in which he says, "What I’d like to do really is I’d like to injure people with my sound. Maybe actually kill some of them. They’d come there knowing full well. Then we’d play and sing and people in the audience would be frozen with pain or writhing with pain and some of them would actually die from the effects of our words and music."

Many have figured that Bob Dylan was the inspiration for Bucky. A paragraph like this one is certainly Dylanesque: "The telephone sat on four phone books stacked on the floor. One candle burned, the other did not. I exhaled on the window. There was a loud sound in the pipes, the hollowing-out of dank iron. Opel’s collection of pennies filled two ice trays in the refrigerator. The bathtub was full of used water." This sounds a lot like the atmosphere surrounding the song "Visions of Johanna."

What I couldn't tell was whether DeLillo is an admirer of Dylan's or was mocking him. The lyrics written are somewhat Dylanesque, though not as good as Dylan's best. There is a lot of talk about his "Mountain Tapes," which he made on his own in Woodstock (where Dylan lived) and are a mystery--certainly this is a reference to Dylan's "Basement Tapes."

There is a lot of rich language in Great Jones Street--I was stopping to highlight constantly. There isn't a throwaway line, and we get such great similes as "Rarer than a pair of blue suede shoes in Tierra del Fuego."

Wondering what DeLillo actually thinks of Dylan is intriguing, considering Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature, which probably means DeLillo never will.

This is the close of the book, which also gives Bucky a little touch of Elvis: "Meanwhile the rumors accumulate. Kidnap, exile, torture, self-mutilation and death. The most beguiling of the rumors has me living among beggars and syphilitics, performing good works, patron saint of all those men who hear the river-whistles sing the mysteries and who return to sleep in wine by the south wheel of the city."

I'm going to be dropping some Infinite Jest spoilers throughout this review. So don't read this review if you haven't read Infinite Jest. Seriously, don't read this review. Or read it until I say I'm going to drop a major DFW spoiler (not really I ended up not being nearly as spoiler-ific as I thought I would be, but there is till a major thing said that I believe knowing would make a first reading of Infinite Jest less interesting).

I have a new theory about Infinite Jest and maybe others have had this theory too, or maybe I'm just full of shit, but I think a key to understanding parts of Infinite Jest might be the early works of Don Delillo. I haven't read all of the early Delillo novels yet so this is only a working theory, but my general thesis is that in at least some of the novels from White Noise and earlier there are themes that DFW is specifically dealing with. Delillo's second novel End Zone I would suggest is some of the inspiration for the Tennis Academy in DFW and may even suggest eschaton as a response to scene where one of the characters talks about football and war by saying football isn't a metaphor for war, war is war it needs no metaphors. Maybe one day I'll write my review for End Zone and go into the book a little more.

Delillo's third novel, Great Jones Street is about a rock star who runs away from the tour he's on with his band, packs it all up and moves back to a small studio apartment in the East Village. A bunch of themes are going on in the book, stuff about the nature of celebrity and revolt and music and things like that, but also in the book is a mysterious drug that is mostly referred to as The Package. The Package is stolen from a government lab by some dirty hippies who give it to the main character to hold on to. The hippies are part of a commune called Happy Valley who believe that privacy is the most important freedom worth fighting for, and that privacy is being stripped away from the American (or Amerikan as they might write it) people. They have invaded on the privacy of the counter-culture rockstar hero who is in the process of trying to escape from the shine of the public (that is simplified but go with it) and it's the existence of The Package that drives much of the action in the book. No one knows what The Package will do if you take it but everyone knows that it's got to be heavy shit and everyone wants it. It's from the government so everyone figures that there has to be some kind of serious war / terrorist use that the drug could be used for, but that it must also be some kind of super-amazing new drug that will radically alter something. No one knows what, just that they want it.

The competing groups who want The Package will go to any lengths to get it in their possession, but unfortunately for them the goods are no longer in the hands of the rockstar. Unfortunately for the people looking for the elusive Package and for the main character who can't even just hand over the goods and have everyone leave him alone.

That is all a really idiotic book report version of the part of the book. Now here comes the DFW spoiler. Turn your head, or don't, but if you think you'll ever read Infinite Jest turn away now!

The Package is similar to The Entertainment in Infinite Jest. It is just as elusive, just as sought after and just as cloaked in mythology and speculation. Also the characters who everyone thinks would have access to the grail of sorts in both books are just as clueless to it's whereabouts and ultimately become victims to the item in question. In Great Jones Street The Package is a drug. At the end of the book (this isn't a spoiler, or it should be but it's on the back of the fucking book, seriously) the drug is discovered to mess with the language part of the brain. Someone taking the drug has language literally removed from them, they no longer have access to being able to speak they are still aware of the world but they lack the ability to experience the world in language, or at least to express anything. The rockstar is given the drug and falls into this state, but ultimately to his own despair language returns and he eventually goes back to normal after a few weeks.

One of the big mysteries in Infinite Jest is what happened to Hal. There are quite a few valid theories about what could have happened to Hal. DFW leaves clues all over the book pointing to a few different solutions to the question, and I don't think there is a definite answer, but the Hal of the books first chapter is in the same state as Bucky (the rockstar) is while he's being affected by The Package. With someone as meticulous and aware as DFW, and knowing that he had read Delillo I can't help but wonder at the similarities, even to the way that the two items, The Package and The Entertainment are referred to in their respective books. I would like to say that Hal ingested The Package, and that if that were the case he'd eventually regain his use of language and end up being ok (this is a whole other topic, was Hal ever ok? and then there is the Wittgenstein aspect of language and what would it mean in a Wittgenstein sense to lose the total use of language, what would that make us and the world around us? What does that mean for a concept of the self? And can we even be thought of as a self without the use of language? What would we be then? And since there is the difficulty of interiority and exteriority throughout Infinite Jest does the loss of the use of language not only trap one's self (and do we have a self without the other's gaze, and the language implicit in that gaze?) but also liberates the self in a crypto-Buddhist sort of way? But more importantly Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein because this points back to Broom and it's language that is at stake with The Package (but of course I'm drawing conclusions where there isn't even explicit relations)). Equating the two through their respective uses in the two books could it be said that Hal is a victim of the The Entertainment? Maybe The Entertainment isn't so entertaining as much as numbing that it shuts down the language part of the brain. The part of the brain that would say I'm hungry and drive a human to go eat, or that would say, stand up, and you'd stand up and leave. What is the ultimate in entertainment if it is not stupefying?

This is all just conjecture, but I'm going to continue on reading through the early Delillo to see if I can find more ways to talk out of my ass.

I recognize brilliant lines, compelling ideas, a fervent mind, great precision, but this one--and all DeLillo--lacks heart. What does this guy care enough about to make this and his other books necessary? It's a Dos Passos-like achille's heel for me. Still, I think he understood the naturalistic elements of the music business better than any other writer who's taken on the rock novel.

hmmm turns out it's a good idea to actually read your favorite author from time to time

After a couple of disappointing DeLillo reads recently, Great Jones Street had the feel of a DeLillo on the verge of hitting his peak years. In 1979, when asked about how he came to write about a rock star, DeLillo said: "It's a game at the far edge. It's an extreme situation. I think rock is a music of loneliness and isolation.... A man with a half-shattered mind, alone in a rented room." And that's exactly what he gives us. His third novel is narrated by the revered and temporarily retired American rock star Bucky Wunderlick, who is so burned out and eaten up by the insanity of the demands upon him that he's holed up in a tatty room on New York's Great Jones Street attempting to recuperate from the wounds of fame, and plot out a new direction for himself as an artist. But of course, things aren’t allowed to go as smoothly as that. Dropping out of his group's national tour at the height of his fame, we meet him as he secretly sets up a weak imitation of a life outside his public identity, and DeLillo describes the pre-art-scene neighbourhood exceptionally well; they evoke exactly the aura of quiet, pensive, anguished lives going on in an atmosphere of industrial emptiness that suits the events that promise to take place. A kind of eerie, post-destruction silence, pervaded by an air of panic. His manager pleads with him to get back on tour, crazed fans bang on his apartment door, and on a more sinister level he and his band become the targets of a Charles Manson style cult. Bucky claims to be doing nothing at Great Jones Street, but The Happy Valley Farm Commune (an earth-family whose goal is to return the idea of privacy to American life) thinks that his nothing is actually really something. This comes as no surprise to Bucky because he already assumes that his legion of followers will think his disappearance from the tour is not merely a withdrawal, but rather a period of playing the waiting game. We learn he has an elaborate retreat in the mountains, complete with recording studio, that is famously hard to get to. But that is part of the problem: it is famous. The mountain retreat appears in the novel in flashbacks only, in an interview for a magazine that is held here before Bucky abandons the tour. In this interview, it is revealed, through the presence of Bucky's ever-present aides that even in his supposedly hidden retreat, he is always surrounded by people vying for his time, attention, and presence.
The novel is one of the more serious works to be written about Rock and roll, and I would even go as far to say that it's frightening, as DeLillo dishes out images of doom, death and decay, turning it into a sullen and cautionary tale about the price of fame and the high risks of living the artistic life.
I did find the story convoluted a bit towards the end, and wish certain characters, like Opel, Bucky's doomed lover, featured more, but this work is less dense, and grounded in more of an emotional way than some of his other novels. A solid 4/5

DeLillo paints a dour picture of our rock star Anti Hero, Bucky Wonderlick. He is sensitive, but also needy. Needy of the attention he is destined, in his mind, to receive as a rock star. The plot was ok, but the resolution didn't feel quite right. I would have loved more details about Bucky's music and career, but that was not in the cards. Plus, Bucky Wonderlick is a stupid name, lol.

Una giovane rock star rintanata in una stanza squallida si trova ad aver suo malgrado a che fare con una comune agricola facilmente alterabile e lo sviluppo di una droga sintetica. Mentre valuta se e come tornare in pista, ci sono persone che a turno vanno a trovarlo, con richieste diverse. Parte così così, poi si assesta in linea con altri suoi libri di metà anni Settanta (Cane che corre, Giocatori).
Al solito: cupo, freddo, cerebrale. Trama sbilenca, che sembra non andare a parare da nessuna parte. Lo stile e la precisione delle frasi vengono prima di tutto, giustamente. Ha diversi punti memorabili, in particolare quando entra in scena il vicino di casa scrittore, Fenig (la storia della pornografia per bambini è una fucilata), alternati a capitoli di vuoto mistico. Direi ovvia fonte di ispirazione per David Foster Wallace. Preferisco End Zone, uscito l’anno prima.  

[74/100]

The book that made me understand just what's so disconcerting about DeLillo. See, the guy writes weird shit, but a lot of writers write weird shit that don't give me the same prickly feeling the best DeLillo does. No, what makes DeLillo such an odd writer is the combination of the weird shit he writes about and his chilly, almost journalistic tone, and this novel combines the both of them to the fullest effect out of what I've read so far. This particular volume ties reclusive rock stars, drugs, linguistic theory, and domestic terrorists as though it was casually commenting on the weather, complete with the usual exchanges featuring humor so deadpan it's sometimes hard to tell when you're meant to laugh.

And it's a little rough around the edges. The rock lyrics presented don't quite come off as rock lyrics, although they're interesting as both social commentary and examinations of language. They have a Jim Morrison feel, which will probably send half the people who read this but haven't read Great Jones Street running to them and the other half running from it. There are also moments where DeLillo gets so lost in expressing his ideas and drawing connections that he forgets to tell a story or develop his characters, leaving you with conversations between people about passing underwear all around the country.

So (and I bet End Zone is the same way), it's in some ways a retreat from Americana, and in other ways an advance. The characters still need work from a developmental perspective, but he's worked out how to make them fascinatingly strange without tumbling into Ratner's Star's excesses. You get masters of disguise, writers of porn for children, unscrupulous businessmen, and of course, domestic terrorists and our reclusive rock star. It's no masterpiece, but it sure is a fun ride.

The least engaging DeLillo I've read. It's never interesting. He doesn't seem to understand that lyrics incorporated in music doesn't stand on their own.

Rock e vuoto.

Un romanzo strano, dal cuore profondamente dondelilliano, che parla di creatività, linguaggio, stasi e alienazione. Sospeso, ma allo stesso tempo rumorosissimo.
Tra quelli che ho letto, il suo più pesante e faticoso (me lo sono trascinato per almeno un mese), ma che viaggia sempre a livelli altissimi e che, terminata la lettura, lascia annichiliti.
Il finale, fortemente evocativo, non so perché, mi ha ricordato il cinema di Antonioni.

briefly, I found this to have interesting post-modern dialogue, typical of both the post-modern genre and of my other DeLillo reads.

Дон Делілло продовжуючи пошук нових тем для дослідження, цього разу приходить до роману про рок-музиканта, де музика не головне. Сам герой Bucky Wunderlick (чи існує цікавіше та веселіше ім'я в творчості Делілло?) виступає просто у ролі падаючої зірки. Причому шлях падіння обрано ним самим. А точкою приземлення виступає квартира на однойменній вулиці Ґрейт-Джонс-стріт.
Це історія, що увібрала в себе купу актуальних тем та проблем. Як глобальних на рівні всієї країни, так і приземлених до рівня пари поверхів. Малопопулярна вулиця стає умовним центром Америки, а події роману немов психоделічна платівка Боба Ділана, що обертається на осі, якою виступає квартира.
Сам же Бакі Вандерлік, немов голка, що прямує доріжками по цій платівці, продовжуючи створювати звучання життя, від якого так втікав. Цікаво, що в фіналі, коли платівка завершиться, то його чекає шипіння поступово переходяче в тишу (чи спойлер це?))

Дон Делілло зобразив зіпсований світ, де втрата моралі призводить до руйнації колективності. Ця країна дещо хворіє. В інтерв'ю Адаму Беглі про "Ґрейт-Джонс-стріт" Дон сказав: "Хвороби на вулицях, божевільні люди, які розмовляють самі з собою, культура наркотиків розповсюджується серед молоді. Ми говоримо про початок 1970-х років…"
І що іронічно, ці слова актуальні для будь-якого року.

Між наркотиками та музикою в романі часто виставляється знак рівно або приблизно рівно