Happy Wednesday, everyone! Woah! Just like that, we are already in the last quarter of the year. How time flies! I hope the year has been kind and great to everyone. I know life isn’t a walk in the park, but it is my fervent prayer that everyone’s year is going well. I hope that the coming months will usher in blessings and positive news for everyone. I hope the rest of the workweek goes smoothly.
That said, the middle of the week also brings a fresh WWW Wednesday update. WWW Wednesday is a bookish meme originally hosted by SAM@TAKING ON A WORLD OF WORDS.
The mechanics for WWW Wednesday are quite simple: you just have to answer three questions:
- What are you currently reading?
- What have you finished reading?
- What will you read next?
What are you currently reading?
It’s already the middle of the week, which means we have only two more days until the weekend. I hope everyone makes it through the workweek. After a couple of damp weeks, the sun is finally shining here in the northern part of the Philippines. But this seems to be an ominous sign. The super El Niño phenomenon threatens the country. Still, I fervently hope it will not be as devastating as forecasted. Reading-wise, I am currently in the midst of a foray into the works of American writers. American literature has always been a staple of my annual literary journey. With American literature being one of the most readily available bodies of literature, I guess one can never escape it. I also realized that I have several works of American literature in my ongoing reading challenges. Still, I have some works by American writers in these challenges that I have yet to read. As such, this journey, which commenced in September, has spilled into October.
Among the books that are part of my reading challenges is Don DeLillo’s Underworld. It was through must-read lists that I first came across the American writer. Interestingly, DeLillo has long been part of the conversation surrounding the Nobel Prize in Literature. However, the award seems to have remained elusive, as it was awarded to Canadian writer Anne Carson the previous week. Regardless, this does not preclude me from wanting to explore DeLillo’s works further; Underworld is the second novel of his that I have read. Originally published in 1997, Underworld opens with a prologue that recounts how a young Black boy named Cotter Martin attended a National League baseball game between the New York Giants and their rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers. The scene is a fictionalized account of the Shot Heard ’Round the World, the home run Bobby Thomson hit on October 3, 1951. The home run secured the National League pennant for the New York Giants against their crosstown rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers.
In DeLillo’s account, Martin caught the game-winning ball. Among the spectators that day was FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who was informed during the game of the second Soviet atomic bomb test. Martin then ran home with the ball in hand, hoping to keep it as a memento of this memorable day. Martin’s father, Manx, however, had other ideas. The family was struggling financially, so Manx took the baseball without his son’s permission, intending to sell it to help make ends meet. The story then moves to the early 1990s, when the novel shifts its focus to Nick Shay, its main protagonist. Nick eventually ended up with the baseball, although nobody believes him. When we first meet him in 1992, Nick is living in Arizona. He is a waste-management executive married to Marian, but their marriage is unhappy. At the beginning of the story, Nick drives across the desert in search of an artist named Klara Sax, who is famous for repainting abandoned military aircraft.
Through flashbacks, we learn that his life changed when, as a teenager, he accidentally shot a man. Nick was also deeply affected by his father’s abandonment of the family when he was young. His father disappeared after going out to buy a pack of Lucky Strikes. As Nick grew older, he and his brother Matt preferred to imagine that their father had been killed by the Mafia. The novel is divided into six parts and unfolds in reverse chronological order. The second part is set in the 1980s and early 1990s, when Marian begins her affair with Brian Glassic, Nick’s colleague. Meanwhile, Nick was able to acquire the baseball from an avid baseball memorabilia collector named Marvin Lundy after Brian met Lundy on a trip to New York City to see the Fresh Kills Landfill. Nick contributed to the downfall of his marriage by being unfaithful. In the late 1970s, during a waste-management conference, Nick had an affair with a woman named Donna.
Trash is prominently featured in the story, with Nick’s profession being its most explicit manifestation. However, trash, in DeLillo’s world, takes various shapes; interestingly, the novel was tentatively titled Trash or Summa Americana. As the story moves forward, it becomes evident that it examines the postmodern exploration of trash. DeLillo vividly captures its intersection with violence and politics in the contemporary United States. However, the novel ultimately emerges as a meditation on concealment. Trash, after all, is an object of societal disdain, something we would rather conceal. DeLillo takes this idea further by using trash as an allegory. Trash transforms into a reflection of who we are as individuals and as a society. At over eight hundred pages, Underworld is quite a hefty read. I am about to complete it, and I am looking forward to seeing how it all unfolds.
What have you finished reading?
The past week was rather hectic, especially as I had to deal with concerns at work. Further, Underworld’s heft made me focus on reading it. Still, I am glad I was able to complete at least one book. I have been focusing on books on my reading lists and challenges; this was, after all, the goal when I started reading works by American writers. The only book I was able to complete in the past week was Bret Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero. Like DeLillo, it was must-read lists that first introduced me to Ellis. Some of his works were recommended as must-reads. Among them is Less Than Zero, which is also listed as one of the 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. It was during the pandemic that I secured a copy of Less Than Zero. However, it sat gathering dust on my bookshelf, prompting me to reconsider including the book in my 2026 Top 26 Reading List.
Originally published in 1985, Less Than Zero is Ellis’s debut novel. Set in Los Angeles in the 1980s, the novel introduces Clay, a college student studying liberal arts who returns to his hometown for the holidays. The story focuses on his four-week winter vacation during his freshman year of college. His girlfriend, Blair, picks him up from the airport, but he finds her irritating. Evidently, Clay’s family is wealthy, as they reside in an affluent neighborhood. However, nobody is home when he arrives, prompting him to retreat to his bedroom, which has remained the same since before he left for college. Like any young man, he immediately tries to get in touch with his friends. However, his longtime friend Julian does not respond to his calls. He then sees his mother for a brief lunch filled with shallow conversation before going Christmas shopping with his sisters at high-end stores, where they spend their father’s money. He also visits a psychiatrist who mostly talks about himself. The novel, however, unfolds through fragmented vignettes of lavish parties, sordid encounters, and frantic drug use. Among the first parties he attends after coming home is one at his friend Kim’s house. Noticing that Blair is already high on cocaine, Clay looks for a drug dealer named Rip. He also meets some of his other friends, including Trent, a successful model. He brings along his friend Daniel, a student from his college. However, Daniel is uneasy at the party they attend. As he attends various parties, details of Clay’s relationship with his family are interspersed throughout the narrative. His mother is distant and noticeably unhappy. Like his sisters, she has learned to express herself through materialism. His father, on the other hand, is absent from most of the story; apparently, he is an important figure in the Los Angeles film industry. The one instance in which Clay encounters his father involves an awkward lunch the two have together, during which Clay notices the extensive plastic surgery his father has undergone to appear youthful.
All the while, Clay keeps trying to reconnect with Julian. When they eventually meet, Julian is a shadow of his former self. He has been struggling. He has become addicted to heroin and has become a male prostitute to pay his drug debts to Rip. Clay is disturbed by Julian’s physical decline and hopeless situation. However, he cannot offer real help. Still, Julian’s struggles loom over the story, becoming a recurring, haunting part of Clay’s vacation. Meanwhile, a chasm begins to develop between Clay and Blair. He becomes increasingly distant from her. He even tells his friends that they are no longer together. As the story moves forward, it becomes evident that Clay and his generation are a generation of drifters living a hedonistic life. They consume cocaine and party hard. They all seem lost.
The novel markets itself as the “shocking novel of the new lost generation.” Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises easily comes to mind. Both books chart the stories of generations who have become drifters. Clay and his ilk have become too indulgent. As they immerse themselves in parties, casual sex, and meaningless conversations, the hollowness of their existence increasingly becomes apparent. With each party he attends, Clay encounters emotionally drained souls. They have all become disconnected from their realities and from one another. They share an emptiness, a void they try to fill with drugs, alcohol, and temporary relationships. Less Than Zero also explores the intricacies of family relationships. Clay’s family and the families of his friends are hardly happy. Some of the characters are not even aware of their parentage. It is yet another void they try to fill through self-indulgence. Overall, Less Than Zero is an insightful read about the young and wealthy of Los Angeles.
What will you read next?
