Don DeLillo: The Angel Esmeralda

**miobrien** · 18-Nov-2011, 19:42

Been intrigued about this for a few months. I remember really enjoying a DeLillo short story in The New Yorker about two years ago.

Here's a review from Martin Amis.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critic...rbo_books_amis

There's a review by Sam Lipsyte on Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Angel-Esmerald...1644929&sr=8-1

**Liam** · 18-Nov-2011, 20:16

Amis's review is atrocious. It's like he never took Freshman Composition. You introduce the subject of your review in the very first paragraph. You don't spend it on Dickens, Shakespeare and Jane Austen. You can maybe get away with it in a full-length study of someone/something, since you have all the time in the world then, but in a short review this is not advisable. And it's true, I lost my patience by the end of the introductory paragraph and read the rest with clinched teeth.

Now how many people here are actually planning to read this collection?

**JTolle** · 19-Nov-2011, 07:35

Well, if for no other reason, I'll be reading it because just I'm obliged to consume as much DeLillo as I can for my thesis.

But also (and more sincerely), ever since I got really into his work and started digging-up and sniffing-out DeLillo's occasional essays and stories, I've believed that a collection of such writings would garner him a fresh audience. And with the way Lipsyte, Kakutani, Banville, and Amis, are championing The Angel Esmeralda, it looks like I'll probably be more in the right than the wrong on that one, and for that alone I'm excited to read it.

**Liam** · 19-Nov-2011, 16:57

You're writing your thesis on DeLillo? Poor man. Good luck, and try to pull through,

.

**Stiffelio** · 20-Nov-2011, 06:16

Originally Posted by JTolle

Well, if for no other reason, I'll be reading it because just I'm obliged to consume as much DeLillo as I can for my thesis.

Is your thesis solely on DeLillo or more broadly on American post-modern literature?

**dewio** · 25-Feb-2012, 12:04

I'm reading the Nine Stories at the moment, but on starting the title story I came to realize that it wasn't the first time for me to come across Edgar and the others.
As I don't subscribe to any US magazines, I can't imagine where.
Does anyone have an idea where a reader in the UK would have come across this piece before 2011?

**dewio** · 27-Feb-2012, 22:51

To reply to my own query, I realized and have just confirmed that this story appears as part of de Lillo's wonderful novel Underworld, published three years after the quoted date for the story (1994).