Completists' Club discussion

copied & pasted from wikipedia w/slight edits:

Novels
Americana (1971)
End Zone (1972)
Great Jones Street (1973)
Ratner's Star (1976)
Players (1977)
Running Dog (1978)
Amazons (1980) (under pseudonym "Cleo Birdwell")
The Names (1982)
White Noise (1985)
Libra (1988)
Mao II (1991)
Underworld (1997) (see also Pafko at the Wall, the prologue of Underworld which was published separately in Harper's in Oct. 1992)
The Body Artist (2001)
Cosmopolis (2003)
Falling Man (2007)
Point Omega (2010)

Short story collections
The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories (2011)

Short stories
The River Jordan (1960)
Take the "A" Train (1962)
"Spaghetti and Meatballs" (1965)
"Coming Sun.Mon.Tues." (1966)
"Baghdad Towers West" (1967)
"The Uniforms" (1970)
In the Men's Room of the Sixteenth Century (1971)
Total Lost Weekend (1972)
Creation (1979)
"The Sightings" (1979)
"Human Moments in World War III" (1983)
"The Ivory Acrobat" (1988)
"The Runner" (1988)
"Pafko at the Wall" (1992)
"The Angel Esmeralda" (1995)
"Baader-Meinhof" (2002)
"Still Life" (2007)
"Midnight in Dostoevsky" (2009)
"The Border of Fallen Bodies"
Hammer and Sickle (2010)
The Starveling (2011)

Plays
The Engineer of Moonlight (1979)
The Day Room (first production 1986)
Valparaiso (first production 1999)
Love-Lies-Bleeding (first production 2005)
The Word for Snow (first production in 2007)
ScreenplaysGame 6 (2005)

Significant essays
"American Blood: A Journey through the Labyrinth of Dallas and JFK" (1983)
"Salman Rushdie Defense" (1994) (Co-written with Paul Auster)
"The Artist Naked in a Cage" (1997)
"The Power of History" (1997)
"A History of the Writer Alone in a Room" (1999)
"In the Ruins of the Future" (Dec 2001)

i've got the names, white noise, mao ii, the body artist, point omega & all the stories in the angel esmeralda knocked out, along with a collection of essays on white noise.

I've read:

Americana
End Zone
White Noise
Underworld
The Body Artist

I have a long way to go...

You mean there's been no DeLillo thread all these years!?

I might end up with DeLillo=Completionization, so I'll keep score here ::


Americana (1971)
End Zone (1972)
Great Jones Street (1973)
Ratner's Star (1976) -- my next DeLillo?
Players (1977)
Running Dog (1978)
Amazons (1980) (under pseudonym "Cleo Birdwell")
The Names (1982)
White Noise (1985)
Libra (1988) -- or else this as my Next?
Mao II (1991)
Underworld (1997)
The Body Artist (2001)
Cosmopolis (2003)
Falling Man (2007)
Point Omega (2010)
The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories (2011)

stories in esmeralda:
Creation (1979)
Human Moments in World War III (1983)
The Ivory Acrobat (1988)
The Runner (1988)
The Angel Esmeralda (1995)
Baader-Meinhof (2002)
Midnight in Dostoevsky (2009)
Hammer and Sickle (2010)
The Starveling (2011)

& then the rest aren't. i want to read underworld too, the title story in esmeralda is apparently an excerpt along w/pafko at the wall & it rocked (the story, haven't read pafko). another hefty tome of delillo's is ratner's star, which is a sort of cult favorite, i gather.

Aidan wrote: "another hefty tome of delillo's is ratner's star, which is a sort of cult favorite, i gather. "

I've got Libra and Ratner's lined up as DeLillo 2 & 3 ; but I want to get my pro/con vote in on Underworld first (you know it'll be pro!)

I have White Noise and Underworld sitting on my shelf at home. Any suggestions as to which one I should read first?

Dharmakirti wrote: "I have White Noise and Underworld sitting on my shelf at home. Any suggestions as to which one I should read first?"

As one who himself relies extensively upon rumor, I'd say White Noise first ; probably because it seems to be the more centrally located DeLillo, the less ambiguously 'important' (remove quotes!). I mean, it's representative of something.

i know of someone who didn't like white noise at first & gradually came around to it, but who found underworld much better/more accessible. that said, i didn't like delillo until i read white noise, & now i intend to read everything the man's written. so.

& nathan's right, re: white noise as a representative work.

Thanks for the input. I think I'm going to start White Noise tonight.

Yeah, I actually found Underworld pretty bloated and ponderous. Some fabulous stand-alone sections, though, granted. White Noise is all highlights, however.

Nate D wrote: "Yeah, I actually found Underworld pretty bloated and ponderous. Some fabulous stand-alone sections, though, granted. White Noise is all highlights, however."

Ditto...