You are here: Home :: Area CULI :: Linguistics and literature

Clara Sarmento

The Angel in a Country of Last Things. DeLillo, Auster and the Post-human Landscape

Themes of isolation and urban alienation dominate Paul Auster's In the Country of Last Things (1987), Don DeLillo's short-story “The Angel Esmeralda” (1994), and DeLillo's Underworld (1997). Individual as well as collective memory arises from violence, war, and despair in a not merely fictional, post-human urban landscape. Unexpected images and revelations lie scattered in each corner of Auster's and DeLillo's geography of horror. DeLillo's New York underworld and Auster's imaginary country are peopled by characters and groups that practise their own art, speak or write in their own language, and worship their own miracles, thus building a secret legacy. The isolated individuals of these underworlds create their own rituals, beliefs, and myths: a whole collective memory emerges in a post-human landscape.

Arcadia International Journal for Literary Studies, Walter de Gruyter

Print ISSN: 0003-7982
Volume: 41, 07/2006
Pages: 147 - 159

Show full article (external site)

Show all available items of this journal

 

Area CULI