Don DeLillo, among the greatest contemporary American authors, download all the blame on his characters. The "fault" in question is its lucid and pitiless analysis of American society, which gives us - for romance novel, as were so many pieces of a mosaic - a more complex picture. DeLillo "merely" to build the stage: "Project architecture more than I do not develop a philosophy" - said in an interview with Europe during the presentation of his latest novel, Cosmopolis, published by Einaudi - and then simply let the characters move in it. Eric Packer, the protagonist of Cosmopolis, a young billionaire around the streets of New York as a postmodern Ulysses.
"I'm never too sure how the novel take shape," says DeLillo, who began to write without aim to treat "a particular aspect of culture." But then "something happens that simply fills the novel with a sense of the culture around it (the reference is in particular the monumental fresco of the Underworld, also published by Einaudi). Eventually, he notes, are "the same people to create that world." Characters that he "does not judge," and do not necessarily share the views.
How Vija Kinski in Cosmopolis, because important, DeLillo is only that that view is "consistent with the character and the novel, the character is true, in fact. What Kinski is a case in which the lead character in the author 'in certain aspects of the culture that surrounds us. "
Particularly vivid in the work of DeLillo is always the issue of media on American society, just take the scene in Underworld where the husband forces his wife to watch yet another replica of a murder filmed live, the infamous Texas Highway Killer: 'I have to send it, why are there just for this, to provide our own diversions. Or, as in Cosmopolis, repetition of images of the death of Arthur Rapp on the screens of technological limousine protagonist: "He knew that they would continue to transmit until late at night, our night, up to exhausting the emotional impact or until all world had not seen. " Without speaking of Valparaiso, the play that sees the life of a married couple "chopped" by microphones and cameras to interview interview. "This is the way we live - we said - we are surrounded by these images all the time. It 's something that I personally could not ignore. "
Don DeLillo is at pains to point out they did not feel a "media critic" because its objective remains to "read" that exists. But the absence of negative prejudices against the same media only makes sharper eyes of those who, like him, "try to dissect everything about the culture." His work is in fact looking for something deeper than a criticism of the media, and the same culture "is something much deeper than it appears at the cinema."
A culture, American, that there are those who can interpret because, although soft power: the so-called "soft power".
How to say the sum of all aspects of American culture that are able to influence other peoples and cultures.
"I think a part of American culture come into every room in every home, every life, and it causes a lot of anger and frustration in the rest of the world." "I think it's a very powerful factor," he observes, "but I wonder if other nations are doing enough to stop this influence. Or they should. "
The issue of culture and nationality is a key in his biography interesting reading. Don DeLillo was born in the Bronx in '36, a family of Italian origin. And in a neighborhood composed mostly of Italians. Who criticizes him for having rejected its origins, the author recalls that he wrote stories about his childhood in the Italian quarter, "but then I was not a good writer." And the study says, led him to open up, wanting to embrace a broader culture. As American writer, and not just Italian-American.
Leaving behind the "label" of ethnicity, says DeLillo, an author can explore any aspect of the culture he chooses, without respecting the restrictions imposed by someone else.
Nor those represented in the audience: "I have in mind a particular person for whom I write."
DeLillo has instead very clear idea of the importance of "language itself, this is what I pay attention: the words." This comes first, "then is the character development and the unfolding of events." Those of fiction, and historical ones, "Do not think I want to explain the story" ends "but I try to put my stories in it."
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