''Cosmopolis'' is a novel by American writer

Don DeLillo Donald Richard DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenwriter and essayist. His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, sports, the complexities of language, perf ...

. His thirteenth novel, it was published by Scribner on April 14, 2003.

Plot summary

''Cosmopolis'' is the story of Eric Packer, a 28-year-old multi-billionaire asset manager who makes an odyssey across midtown

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

to get a haircut. He drives around in a stretch limo, which is richly described as luxurious, spacious and highly technical, filled with television screens and computer monitors, bulletproofed and floored with

Carrara marble Carrara marble, Luna marble to the Romans, is a type of white or blue-grey marble popular for use in sculpture and building decor. It has been quarried since Roman times in the mountains just outside the city of Carrara in the province of Massa ...

. It is also cork-lined to eliminate (although unsuccessfully, as Packer notes) the intrusion of street noise. Packer's voyage is obstructed by various traffic jams caused by a presidential visit to the city, a full-fledged

anti-capitalist Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economic system, such as so ...

riot, and a funeral procession for a

Sufi Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, r ...

rap star. Along the way, the hero has several chance meetings with his wife and sexual encounters with other women. Packer is also stalked by two men, a comical "pastry assassin" and an unstable " credible threat". Through the course of the day, the protagonist loses incredible amounts of money for his clients by betting against the rise of the Yen.

Reception

Reviews for ''Cosmopolis'' were generally mixed, especially compared to many of DeLillo's previous novels. Peter Wolfe of the '' St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' called the book "eerily brilliant" and that it "confirms Don DeLillo's place among he best writerselite."

John Updike John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth Tar ...

wrote in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' that "DeLillo's fervent intelligence and his fastidious, edgy prose... weave halos of import around every event". Walter Kirn criticized the novel in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', writing "Beware the novel of ideas, particularly when the ideas come first and all the novel stuff (like the story) comes second. ''Cosmopolis'' is an intellectual turkey shoot, sending up a succession of fat targets just in time for its author to aim and fire the rounds he loaded before he started writing." Also in the ''New York Times'',

Michiko Kakutani Michiko Kakutani (born January 9, 1955) is an American writer and retired literary critic, best known for reviewing books for ''The New York Times'' from 1983 to 2017. In that role, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998. Early life ...

described the novel as "a major dud", with a "hokey, contrived storyline". Several reviewers praised DeLillo's style, including David Kipen of the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The pa ...

'' who wrote "DeLillo continues to think about the modern world in language and images as quizzically beautiful as any writer now going". Jessica Slater of the ''

Rocky Mountain News The ''Rocky Mountain News'' (nicknamed the ''Rocky'') was a daily newspaper published in Denver, Colorado, United States, from April 23, 1859, until February 27, 2009. It was owned by the E. W. Scripps Company from 1926 until its closing. As ...

'' also liked the prose but was overall dissatisfied, writing "His style, as always, is unique and insightful, but for all he packs into that one day in April, he fails to show us anything we haven't seen before".

Film adaptation

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

director

David Cronenberg David Paul Cronenberg (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror genre, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation ...

adapted the novel for the screen in 2011, starring

Robert Pattinson Robert Douglas Thomas Pattinson (born 13 May 1986) is an English actor. Known for starring in both big-budget and independent films, Pattinson has ranked among the world's highest-paid actors. In 2010, ''Time'' magazine named him one of the 10 ...

as Eric Packer. Cronenberg's film version premiered at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films ...

on May 25, 2012, and met with mixed reviews.

References

External links

* . * . {{Don DeLillo 2003 American novels American novels adapted into films Novels by Don DeLillo Novels set in Manhattan Novels about stock traders Novels set in one day