Many critics have identified the affinities between French theorist Jean Baudrillard and American author Don DeLillo;however, this is the first detailed and sustained comparison between DeLillo's novels and Baudrillard's works. .....This thorough and thoughtful reading of both writers not only acknowledges their affinities but also exhaustively explores the ways in which their writings inform and illuminate each other. By examining DeLillo's novels within Baudrillard's theoretical framework, Marc Schuster has provided a rich critical milieu in which an informed reading of both writers' works may take place. A wealth of insights is offered to both the new reader and the established fan. DeLillo is a major force in American literature and, as a consequence, a collection like this, with allusions ranging from T.S. Eliot to Slavoj Zizek, will prove invaluable to scholars of all levels. Similarly, Baudrillard's place on reading lists, especially for critical theory courses, is guaranteed, making this book crucial reading for those with an academic or general interest.(Foreword ix-x)
This blog will extend Schuster's original contribution into other areas of Baudrillardian theory as it relates to DeLillo's Cosmopolis and to Cronenberg's film Cosmopolis starring Rob Pattinson, Paul Giametti, Juliette Binoche and Samantha Morton.
Since I am reading Cosmopolis very differently from all other reviews, including Schuster's, I read Eric Packer from the POV of a visionary hero rather than a billionaire, estranged from himself and everyone else who loses his fortune in one day. I am saying that he does not lose it but deliberately disappears it, vanishes it, in order to implode the system, as Baudrillard has suggested in his later work.
