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ameliasbooks's review against another edition
I read a couple of DeLillo's books years ago which I liked, but this one is as bad as something by Philip Roth.
Although the topic seems very interesting, you are made aware right from the start that this is a story most likely only men will enjoy. And I was out the moment two men started talking aboutwriting child porn just for fun without any further reflection on it. Even with being meant satirical by DeLillo, it's not funny. And it also wasn't funny, the year this book was written, please spare me that argument.
Although the topic seems very interesting, you are made aware right from the start that this is a story most likely only men will enjoy. And I was out the moment two men started talking about
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse and Sexual assault
bsaur's review
challenging
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
jdfromparis's review against another edition
2.0
I wish I could give this one a higher grade as I usually like DeLillo no matter his quirks, but this simply didn't work out for me. The beginning was engrossing but the whole thing soon devolves into a wacko-paranoid plot that didn't make much sense. Not to mention that the song excerpts are terrible (although it might be voluntary). All in all, it feels like a first draft and passed page 35 the book has very few saving graces.
Too bad. Time to read Cosmopolis again I guess, as it partly deals with identical ideas.
Too bad. Time to read Cosmopolis again I guess, as it partly deals with identical ideas.
lucalrbass's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.5
blueyorkie's review against another edition
3.0
Don DeLillo, born in 1936 in the Bronx district of New York, is an American writer. Author of short stories, plays, screenplays, and articles, he is best known for his novels. But unfortunately, Great Jones Street, his second novel (1973), was only translated by us in 2011. And let's say it right away, it's not his best, even for me, who is an admirer of this writer.
Don DeLillo is not always an easy-to-read author, so with this novel, either you'll get hooked from the first pages, or you'll give up right away, and in this case, you'll join those who see it as big nonsense - which I can understand but who I didn't dislike.
Let's try a summary of the plot: Bucky, the narrator, a rock star in the grip of a spiritual crisis, abandons his group without warning and goes to hide in the seedy apartment of his girlfriend Opel, absent, located in Great Jones Street, in Manhattan, New York. He wants calm and solitude, but he will surround by a pack of undesirables of all stripes, eager for various reasons to bring him back into the world which continues to turn inexorably.
Some, like Dr. Pepper or Bohack, want to get their hands on a mysterious package given to Bucky by a third party, possibly containing a new drug with unknown effects of great interest to the Happy Valley farming community split into two rival currents. ; Globke, his manager, wants him to get another package (!) containing recordings/demos made by Bucky in his chalet in the mountains.
As the reader ventures – it is the case to say it – in the novel, he has the distinct impression of reading the confessions of a paranoid drug addict. Bucky is the literary synthesis of all the symbolic figures of rock, stars of the star system: crushed by a world celebrity, unwittingly becoming a kind of messiah for a public eager for the slightest of his gestures, his slightest word, or any belch. His existential crisis resembles a depression tinged with paranoia, which gives his words a questioning echo for the reader: who are these people who contact him and hold a particularly twisted, even incomprehensible language? Is it a pure invention of his brain or a distortion of reality? Is he on a chemical trip?
This fact is why reading this novel is complex. Either you let yourself be carried away by these ramblings that will stun you by the overflowing imagination of Don DeLillo, or you give up. Suddenly, we are entitled to ask not "How can we read that? but rather, how does a writer manage to "write that?" But beware, this three-dimensional balancing act holds! In this verbal delirium, slip theories and attempts at explanations (which we will accept or not).
Of course, behind the form, there is the substance. The writer is not content to swing stories at the bite-me-the-knot for free. He brings out the heavy artillery to denounce. I quote in bulk: rumors and the manipulation of words (he predicts Twitter?), conspiratorial paranoia with this drug which would be a creation of the government to deprive its opponents of language, the economy market ("If there is not yet a market for a lambda product, a new market automatically develops..."), the media, a particular success ("Megadeceit. Big mouth. Unimaginable insults. Pious lies to the small week. Pukes of all kinds. Betrayal of friends that we brag about. These are the things that give you stature in this industry."), the relationship between art and money. And in the middle of all this (modern Society), Man (Bucky) is a prisoner of his role/habit (rock star).
The novel, which is not the best of the author but with the acceptable excuse of being only his second work, is complex to read but not without charms for those interested.
Don DeLillo is not always an easy-to-read author, so with this novel, either you'll get hooked from the first pages, or you'll give up right away, and in this case, you'll join those who see it as big nonsense - which I can understand but who I didn't dislike.
Let's try a summary of the plot: Bucky, the narrator, a rock star in the grip of a spiritual crisis, abandons his group without warning and goes to hide in the seedy apartment of his girlfriend Opel, absent, located in Great Jones Street, in Manhattan, New York. He wants calm and solitude, but he will surround by a pack of undesirables of all stripes, eager for various reasons to bring him back into the world which continues to turn inexorably.
Some, like Dr. Pepper or Bohack, want to get their hands on a mysterious package given to Bucky by a third party, possibly containing a new drug with unknown effects of great interest to the Happy Valley farming community split into two rival currents. ; Globke, his manager, wants him to get another package (!) containing recordings/demos made by Bucky in his chalet in the mountains.
As the reader ventures – it is the case to say it – in the novel, he has the distinct impression of reading the confessions of a paranoid drug addict. Bucky is the literary synthesis of all the symbolic figures of rock, stars of the star system: crushed by a world celebrity, unwittingly becoming a kind of messiah for a public eager for the slightest of his gestures, his slightest word, or any belch. His existential crisis resembles a depression tinged with paranoia, which gives his words a questioning echo for the reader: who are these people who contact him and hold a particularly twisted, even incomprehensible language? Is it a pure invention of his brain or a distortion of reality? Is he on a chemical trip?
This fact is why reading this novel is complex. Either you let yourself be carried away by these ramblings that will stun you by the overflowing imagination of Don DeLillo, or you give up. Suddenly, we are entitled to ask not "How can we read that? but rather, how does a writer manage to "write that?" But beware, this three-dimensional balancing act holds! In this verbal delirium, slip theories and attempts at explanations (which we will accept or not).
Of course, behind the form, there is the substance. The writer is not content to swing stories at the bite-me-the-knot for free. He brings out the heavy artillery to denounce. I quote in bulk: rumors and the manipulation of words (he predicts Twitter?), conspiratorial paranoia with this drug which would be a creation of the government to deprive its opponents of language, the economy market ("If there is not yet a market for a lambda product, a new market automatically develops..."), the media, a particular success ("Megadeceit. Big mouth. Unimaginable insults. Pious lies to the small week. Pukes of all kinds. Betrayal of friends that we brag about. These are the things that give you stature in this industry."), the relationship between art and money. And in the middle of all this (modern Society), Man (Bucky) is a prisoner of his role/habit (rock star).
The novel, which is not the best of the author but with the acceptable excuse of being only his second work, is complex to read but not without charms for those interested.
lawbooks600's review against another edition
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Representation: Black characters
Score: Five out of ten.
Well that was a unique reading experience. I wanted to read Great Jones Street when they got it last year but I put it off for months before finally picking it up. I glanced at the blurb, making it seem intriguing, but I lowered my expectations after seeing the ratings, and when I closed the final page, I thought it was average.
It starts with Bucky Wunderlick leaving New York in the 1970s after forgoing fame and fortune when he left his rock and roll band to pursue peace by travelling across the world in the opening pages. I enjoyed the beginning but Great Jones Street got stale from there as its slow pacing didn't do wonders for it as it disengaged me from the narrative. For a piece of literary fiction, Great Jones Street's plot is surprisingly simple even though it tries focuses on the theme of escaping from fame and riches. Tries. Still, it's superficial since the story is mostly about Bucky going to places and talking to so many characters I couldn't keep track of, and they were hard to connect or relate with. At least I interpreted a message saying being a celebrity has unintended consequences (which is true,) but making the narrative more engaging would've cleared everything up. The conclusion has slightly more action as Bucky arrives at a place called Happy Valley, where he takes a drug that makes him forget to speak until the last pages. What a finish.
Score: Five out of ten.
Well that was a unique reading experience. I wanted to read Great Jones Street when they got it last year but I put it off for months before finally picking it up. I glanced at the blurb, making it seem intriguing, but I lowered my expectations after seeing the ratings, and when I closed the final page, I thought it was average.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use
chillcox15's review
3.0
My first real disappointment of the Great Delillo Readathon: maybe I just wasn't on Don's wavelength here, but I found this to be pretty joyless where a lot of others seem to have found something a lot funnier and more insightful. I do see the "Delillo style" if there is one, start to take shape, but if his first two novels are a bit more in a realist vein, here he's veering more into early Pynchon.
Rankings:
End Zone
Americana
Great Jones Street
Rankings:
End Zone
Americana
Great Jones Street
ericfheiman's review
5.0
A pleasant surprise. DeLillo was one of the first "serious" authors I read. The Names, Libra, and Mao II were favorites from college. But after Underworld I thought maybe I had outgrown him and his postmodern leanings, as much as I loved that opus novel, too. But "Jones Street" is richly styled, full of interesting ideas, has some full-blooded and interesting characters, and even manages to transcend its period trappings of a squalid New York City downtown full of drifters and predators all wanting a piece of Bucky, the MIA mega-rock star holed up in his Great Jones Street apartment. Maybe now, I'll finally get around to White Noise...
combito's review
2.0
I can't really figure out whether i liked this book or not. I wasn't really into the plot, but both the dialogue and the poetry included in the book were nice.