Yet another book from what is essentially an unending stock of novels
that I either got for close to nothing from Fopp or actually for nothing at the
good old Books for Free shop.
I loved DeLillo’s White Noise,
had mixed feelings about Underworld,
and saw Cosmopolis as a “DeLillo
meets absurdist Paul Auster, meets Joyce, meets Minority Report” kind of pastiche. There is clearly nothing wrong
with any of those four ingredients, but this mix just doesn’t work for me.
The novel, despite its shortness, ends up being crammed with ideas that
are potentially interesting but surely overwhelming, and Eric’s frequent
meetings with his wife are just too dreamlike for me (so much so that I was
afraid they would turn into something like the bathroom scene in The Shining). There is also too much
death around (including that of his bodyguard which is, honestly, absolutely
gratuitous).
This is not to say that the novel is uninspiring – there are plenty of
interesting points raised about our expectations from society and about human
nature (why does Eric ultimately hope that the rap star he idolizes died in a
gunfight and not of a common heart attack? Why does he confront Benno Levin
when he tries to kill him instead of running away from him?) – but it’s just,
well, a bit much (ado about nothing).
