October 9, 2007
My first Don DeLillo. Not for people who use the word postulate. My experience was almost entirely ruined by the used copy I received which had notes in the margins. It says "Help" when Jack Gladney talks about Hitler on multiple pages (Has this person never heard of Hitler?), it says "sheesh" when his son, Heinrich, goes into a long-winded ramble about brain chemistry and how he couldn't know what he really wants. The best of all the marginal note stupidity from anonymous though, is the discussion the Gladney's have on the way to the mall, chapter 17. The family is making idle small talk, trying to remember the name of the "...surfer movie I saw once where they travel all over the world." They go back and forth incorrectly guessing the title, before getting swept away into another discussion. This reader wrote "never ending summer" underneath the last guess. YOU ASSHOLE. Who the hell were you trying to impress here? You knew the real name of the movie so you thought you would write it down in the margin? These are fictional characters, not your dumb-ass modern lit class. And the jackass got the name of the movie wrong - it's ENDLESS SUMMER, you dumb fuck. Good book.