![]() ![]() This brilliant opening, juxtaposed with the first atomic detonation made by the Soviet Union on the far side of the world, launches a cold war narrative with the sub-theme of late-20th century American subconscious, a longstanding DeLillo preoccupation.įrom this numinous date in US popular culture, DeLillo marches with growing confidence through the second half of the 20th century, loosely following the fate of the missing baseball. Underworld opens on 3 October 1951 with one of the most famous baseball games ever played, the Brooklyn Dodgers versus the New York Giants, in which Bobby Thomson made the Shot Heard Round the World, hitting the ball deep into the crowd. Such ideas were possibly reinforced by DeLillo’s quotable opening line: “He speaks in your voice, American, and there’s a shine in his eye that’s halfway hopeful.” ![]() ![]() ![]() In his review, the novelist William Boyd wrote, “In Underworld, we have a mature and hugely accomplished novelist firing on all cylinders… reading the book is a charged and thrilling aesthetic experience and one remembers gratefully that this is what the novel can do.” The Observer also described it as “an epic to set alongside Moby-Dick and Augie March” (Nos 17 and 73 in this series). From its first appearance in October 1997, a moment I remember well as the Observer’s literary editor, Underworld was spoken of as a towering performance and hailed as that elusive literary hippogriff, the great American novel. ![]()
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