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A comment on Shocks to the System: Don DeLillo’s Novels of the Cold War and Its Aftermath. Parent comment

Re:Shocks to the System: Don DeLillo’s Novels of the Cold Wa... by viscanti on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @04:52PM (#37328949)
The Recognitions by Gaddis gets you the 1950s in similar fashion (and it's clear he was a major influence on those postmodern tome style writers who came later). Pynchon has pretty good coverage of the 1960s. Then DeLillo and Ballard get you through the 1970s. It's fascinating how much history and culture you can pick up through some of these fiction writers.
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Re:Shocks to the System: Don DeLillo’s Novels of the Cold Wa... by flenserboy on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @10:21PM (#37331740)
Agreed on all counts. Pynchon and DeLillo are often linked together, but Pynchon and DD seem to be at least a generational half-step removed from each other. And Gaddis nails the 80s in JR back in the mid-70s.
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Re:Shocks to the System: Don DeLillo’s Novels of the Cold Wa... by viscanti on Thursday August 31, 2023 @01:45PM (#37340999)
> Gaddis nails the 80s in JR back in the mid-70s.

That's the thing with Gaddis. He's always a decade or two early. Only in retrospect can you really appreciate what he was doing.

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