August 4, 2001 - A few odds and ends that have turned up.
New York Observer - "Eighteen Pages of Genius - then Modernist Mandarinism" by Laura Miller ran on Jan. 29, 2001 on page 20.
No one writes more exhilarating set-pieces than Mr. DeLillo, but he's not especially good with character and plot - something of a liability when it comes to writing novels. He doesn't really do dialogue; his people either chat aimlessly or launch into monologues, decanting data and theories.
Frankfurter Allgemeine - "Ich bin Laura. Aber immer weniger" by Verena Lueken ran on March 1, 2001. Translation: "I am Laura. But always less so." (maybe this should say Lauren...)
April 22, 2001 - An Italian edition of The Body Artist is now out. (thanks to Gianluca).
Body art (The Body Artist), March 2001, Einaudi, translated by Marisa Caramella, ISBN 88-06-15666-7, hardcover.
April 3, 2001 - Found a few more things out on the web:
Here's a link to a review in flakmagazine by Eric Wittmershaus appeared on Feb 7, 2001.
Another review that appeared in the Baltimore Sun by Michael Pakenham.
And one more: "Don DeLillo's Bum Luck" on DeLillo and the appearance of The Body Artist from Reason by Nick Gillespie.
The German edition is due out soon:
German newspaper Die Zeit ran two DeLillo related pieces: one a translation of DeLillo writing entitled "Der Narr in seinem Zimmer" (may be translated as "The Fool in his Room" - this is a translation of the piece "A History of the Writer Alone in a Room" - see the Other Writing page for details) and a review "Das Leben, der Tod, die Kunst" by Martin Lüdke. (thanks to Daniel Medin)
March 20, 2001 - I've noticed The Body Artist on a couple of the California bestseller lists, charting at about number 7.
March 7, 2001 - An audio version of The Body Artist has been released on both cassette tape and CD. Laurie Anderson is the performer. Salon had posted an excerpt of the reading (now gone).
Also found the Salon review by Maria Russo, that appeared on Feb 21, 2001.
"DeLillo asks the smaller, more itchy philosophical questions: whether someone is the same person from moment to moment, for example. He seems to want to make his readers burrow inside themselves; he'd like them to look at their own versions of reality from a new, unprotected emotional perspective, deprived of all the padding with which we tend to face the hard truths of human existence."
Feb 27, 2001 - The Body Artist is out in England, and the reviews are in (thanks to Richard Layne).
The Guardian - "Reality, unplugged" review by Giles Foden, February 17, 2001.
This refusal to accept the straightforward, rather backward naturalism of much contemporary writing has won DeLillo plaudits. But others have muttered darkly about how difficult he is.
The Observer - "The library in the body" review by Tim Adams, February 11, 2001.
If Underworld required the reader to think of Joyce, The Body Artist brings to mind, in the wariness of its prose, Beckett. Having spent most of his writing life revealing what of the present moment language might nail down, DeLillo here examines the substance of experience it can only grope towards.
Daily Telegraph - "Mind the gaps" review by John Lanchester, February 11, 2001.
The Times - "The body in question" review by Scott Bradfield, February 14, 2001.
This is a short, moving novel about traversing the abstract spaces dividing one human body from another.
The Sunday Times - "Twisted sister" review by John
Sutherland, February 11, 2001.
Also, a funny report by Michael J. Agovino entitled "DeLillo, Live" about DeLillo's reading at the 92nd St Y in NYC on Feb 5, which appeared in Newsweek dated Feb 16 (thanks to Richard Romeo).
These were 'DeLillo heads,' benign youngish men, nerdy, but not-at-all smarty-pants pretentious, kind of sweet. Many seemed to have known each other.
Feb 25, 2001 - A couple more items to report:
San Francisco Chronicle - "DeLillo's Bursts of Brilliance" review by David Kipen, appeared in the February 7, 2001 issue.
The New York Times - in an interview with author Rick Moody, he is asked about DeLillo, and Moody gives a lengthy reply (it's about midway through the piece). The interview ran Feb 25, 2001. Here's a chunk: "what's really fascinating to me now, is how the unit of composition in DeLillo is not the novel. You know, it's this way he has of working where sort of each little discrete chunk that he's working on has to be perfect."
Feb 12, 2001 - A nice long review by John Leonard:
New York Review of Books - "The Hunger Artist" review by John Leonard, appeared in the February 22, 2001 issue.
Leonard identifies three faces of DeLillo: "poster boy for postmodernism," "bombhead," and "Secret Sadhu." The Body Artist is the work of the Secret Sadhu, he claims. "Since he is smarter that we are, better informed, and a lot more sensitive to beauty and dread, trust him."
Feb 10, 2001 - Here are a few more reviews that have appeared since last report:
New York Times Book Review - "Ghostbuster" review by Adam Begley, appeared on February 4, 2001. Begley opens, "If you haven't yet woken up to the beauty of Don DeLillo's sentences, here's your chance."
Toronto Globe and Mail - "Don DeLillo does miniature" review by Charles Foran, appeared on January 27, 2001 (no longer online).
Jan 24, 2001 - The book is out (at least at some stores)! I found an autographed copy in San Francisco, which is certainly part of a limited set. Lots of DeLillo material floating around right now, and I need to thank the many folks who have kept me informed. Here's what I know about at this point:
Fresh Air radio - Maureen Corrigan reviewed The Body Artist
on Fresh Air on January 23, 2001.
Here's a link
to the page for the show, where you will find the RealAudio of
the review.
Feed Magazine - Has a co-written review called "Dissecting The Body Artist" (no longer online) in the form of an email exchange. Appeared Jan 22, 2001.
Time Magazine - review "Shadows from Beyond" by Paul Gray in the January 29, 2001 issue, page 65. Here's the wrap-up:
If Lauren really is, despite her belief to the contrary, unstrung, or if her experiences with Mr. Tuttle actually stem from some perfectly comprehensible workings of the grief mechanism, DeLillo isn't saying. There is no moral to The Body Artist, no wrap-up of lessons learned, only an unforgettable vision of the shattering effects unexpected death wreaks on the living.
Newsweek - review "Dark Tale" by Malcolm Jones in the January 15, 2001 issue.
New York Times - review by Michiko Kakutani on Jan 19, 2001.
Esquire - review by Sven Birkerts in the February 2001 issue, page 38.
Talk - "The Novelist of the Now" in the February 2001 issue, page 115. Consists of quotes from people talking about DeLillo's influence, etc. The people quoted are Jonathan Franzen, Rick Moody ("After you read White Noise you can't go back to Tom Robbins and think it's that great"), David Foster Wallace ("I am a huge, drooling DeLillo fan"), and Gerald Howard (editor of Libra), who relates a couple of DeLillo anedotes, one of which is the time someone mistakenly thought DeLillo was William Gaddis. "I'm sorry, you've made a mistake," DeLillo said. "I'm Thomas Pynchon." (thanks to Andy Roe)
Nov 1, 2000 - A piece in the Village Voice (Nov 1-7 issue) entitled "Slim Fast Fiction" by David Bowman mentions the forthcoming The Body Artist in describing recent short fiction. The book is summed up as a "curious tale of a woman who may or may not be alone in a rurual hours situated in Stephen King's Maine."
Oct 21, 2000 - The Body Artist bandwagon has started rolling. First onboard is Speak magazine, with the piece "Smells like Don DeLillo" by John Lardas in Fall 2000 issue #20. Some memorable lines: "I a humble apprentice. I have absorbed and digested Don DeLillo whole. I am the fungus that lurks invisibly between his toes." Though he doesn't come out and say it, I suspect Mr. Lardas has been a visitor here more than once...
August, 2000 - According to a recent Scribner catalog, the book will be published in February 2001, and is 128 pages long. The one-sentence description in Publisher's Weekly: "After her husband's suicide, a woman invites a man into her home who can foretell the future." (Thanks to Richard Romeo for this update).
February 6, 2000 - The New York Post reported on Sunday, February 6, 2000 that Scribner will be publishing DeLillo's next book, entitled The Body Artist. The article is by Keith Kelly, and is very cleverly titled "DeLillo Proves He's a Real Arti$t" - it appeared on page 55 in the Business section.
In the item, Scribner publisher Nan Graham is quoted: "It's the other side of the world from 'Underworld,'" says Graham, who adds, "It's about time and human perception."
Back to DeLillo's novels.