I read a review of Don DeLillo’s novel Zero K that suggested we can overlook any novelistic values, such as character or plot development, and just revel in the exquisite sentences the author has so masterfully constructed for us. Okay, DeLillo does write well but I have yet to swoon over anything he wrote.
I have read a great deal of DeLillo and my personal response in general is that he is a good novelist but if you pay attention to the hype you will most certainly be disappointed. I don’t dislike Don DeLillo but compared with the likes of William Gaddis or Saul Bellow he is a second tier writer (in there with John Irving, Tom Wolfe, and maybe Thomas Pynchon).
A Celebration of Reading 