Cosmopolis, by Don DeLillo

Format: Paperback 224 pages
Published: 02 April 2004
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Back cover blurb:

It’s a stunningly eventful day in the life of Eric Packer, a multi-billionaire who owns a forty-eight-room apartment and a decommissioned nuclear bomber and who has recently married the heiress of a vast European fortune. Sitting in his stretch limousine as it moves across the middle of Manhattan, he finds the city at a virtual standstill because the President is visiting, a rapper’s funeral is proceeding through town, and a violent protest is being staged in Times Square by anti-globalist groups. Eric’s bodyguards are worried that he is a target and, indeed, he is – although the danger, as it turns out, is not from protesters or political assassins but from an anonymous man who lives in an abandoned building.

‘One of America’s smartest and most disturbing writers’ – “The Times”.

‘DeLillo shapes a rhetoric for our age’ – “Observer”.

My review:

OK, so I admit I only picked this book up (figuratively – I read it on my Kindle) because of the announcement last week that the lovely Robert Pattinson is to star in the film adaptation, directed by David Cronenberg, which will begin filming soon. As a result, I read it with GQ HHH pictured in my mind as the protagonist Eric Packer… and what a nice image that was. *sigh*

Robert Pattinson, photographed by Nathaniel Goldberg for GQ, April 2009

But to be honest, I’ve got to hope the screenplay is much better than the book. All the way through I kept thinking Cosmopolis was very much like Martin Amis’ Money, one of HHH’s favourite books, which I loathed. It’s an interesting idea for a book, but it was just so oddly written. I got very confused keeping track of which “he” the author was talking about at times.

Nevertheless, I think it will make a great film, and I’m giving it three cupcakes for potential Pattinson nudity. And if he says “Give me the eggplant” – or preferably “give me the aubergine” – I will die a happy woman!

My rating: 3/5