Everything about Cosmopolis totally explained
Cosmopolis is
Don DeLillo's thirteenth novel. It was published by
Scribner on
14 April 2003.
Plot summary
Cosmopolis is the story of Eric Packer, a 28 year old multi-billionaire asset manager who makes an
odyssey across midtown
Manhattan in order to get a haircut. The stretch
limo which adorns the cover of the book is richly described as highly technical and very luxurious, filled with television screens and computer monitors, bullet-proofed and floored in
Carrara marble. It is also cork lined to protect against street noise, though unsuccessfully, Packer notes.
Like
James Joyce's
Ulysses,
Cosmopolis covers roughly one day of time and includes highly sexed women and the theme of father-son separation. Packer's voyage is obstructed by various traffic jams caused by a presidential visit to the city, a funeral procession for a
Sufi rap star and a full-fledged riot. Along the way, the hero has several chance meetings with his wife, seeing her in a taxi, a bookstore, and lying naked in the street, taking part in a movie as an extra. Meanwhile, Packer is stalked by two men, a comical "pastry assassin" and an unstable "credible threat." Through the course of the day, the protagonist loses incredible amounts of money for his clients by betting against the rise of the
yen, a loss that parallels his own fall. Packer seems to relish being unburdened by the loss of so much money, even stopping to make sure he loses his wife's fortune as well, to ensure his ruin is inevitable.
Reception
Reviews for
Cosmopolis were generally mixed to negative, especially compared to many of DeLillo's previous novels. While Peter Wolfe of the StlToday.com called the book "eerily brilliant" and that it "confirms Don DeLillo's place among [thebest writers] elite", other reviewers weren't as enthusiastic. John Updike wrote in
The New Yorker that while "DeLillo’s fervent intelligence and his fastidious, edgy prose... weave halos of import around every event", that "The trouble with a tale where anything can happen is that somehow nothing happens."
Several reviewers praised DeLillo's style, including David Kipen of the
San Francisco Chronicle who wrote "DeLillo continues to think about the modern world in language and images as quizzically beautiful as any writer now going" who otherwise panned the novel. Jessica Slater of the
Rocky Mountain News also liked the prose but was overall dissatisfied, writing "His style, as always, is unique and insightful, but for all he packs into that one day in April, he fails to show us anything we haven't seen before."
Further Information
Get more info on 'Cosmopolis'.
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