Analyitics

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Delillo's Short Stories

I'm a huge Don Delillo fan. While I don't think that his recent work has reached the heights of Mao II or Underworld, every one of his novels has taught me somehting or has make me ponder something interesting that I hadn't thought of before. And make no mistake about it; Delillo is a novelist, having penned 15 books since 1971.

So it was with some surprise that I discovered that he has a collection of short stories out: The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories. Now, I've read a few of them; at least two were published in Harpers, and, if memory serves, I remember really liking "Hammer and Sickle" while "Baader-Meinhof"- not so much. This disparity in reaction may stem from the fact that these stories were written during a wide range of time: 1979 to the present day. I'm sure i'll pick it up, but i'm afraid I don't have very high expectations for it. What about you?

Related Posts:
Defending the Short Story
Delillo on Baseball

1 comment:

  1. I don't think I've ever read a DeLillo short story. In fact, I find it hard to imagine one. It just doesn't seem like his canvas.

    Perhaps that it why it has taken him so long -- 32 years! -- to generate a whole book's worth of short stories. Hopefully, this means they were all carefully written, that there are no throwaways.

    I don't know if I have high expectations, but I know I am interested.

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