Don DeLillo and Society’s Reorientation to Time and Space: An Interpretation of Cosmopolis

Issue: 
1 (2008)
Pages: 57-70
Abstract: This essay reads Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis as a novelization of social theories of time and space as expressed across various academic disciplines. Changing conceptions of time and space point to an underlying change in the social structure. I thus view DeLillo’s novel as social theory. Economist Jeremy Rifkin recently wrote, “[t]he great turning points in human history are often triggered by changing conceptions of space and time. Sometimes, the adoption of a single technology can be transformative in nature, changing the very way our minds filter the world” (89). Eric Packer lives in a world with a multitude of adopted new technologies. His reflections on language embody this mental filtering. Cyber-capital, and digitization in general, represent these new technologies. Packer’s desire to “live on a disc” (105), epitomizes the novel’s portrayal of changing conceptions of time and space. This paper thus explores expressions of the inadequacy of contemporary language under these “turning points in human history.” It demonstrates how statements on language reflect society’s mental filtering or changing orientation to time and space. Cosmopolis could be viewed as a redescription project.
Cosmopolis tells the story of the twenty-nine year old ego-maniacal billionaire currency trader Eric Packer, whose sole raison d’être is to manipulate the electronic flow of capital on global financial markets. The story unfolds mostly from within his opulent high-tech limousine, from which the other characters are introduced. Most notably, Vija Kinski, Packer’s “Chief of Theory” (77), whose role serves to support the underlying themes as expressed by Eric Packer. The story unfolds over the course of one day. Packer travels from the wealthy Eastern districts in New York (5th Avenue), to the West side so that he can “get a haircut” (7) in Hell’s Kitchen, the working class neighborhood of his youth. Ultimately, he gets his haircut, both literally and metaphorically.

Comments

I find it interesting that,

I find it interesting that, like almost *everyone* who writes about this work, you ignored the two "confessions of Benno Levin" as if they were not even part of the novel; as if "Benno" was not one of the characters. Surely those sections either elaborate or juxtapose with the core themes in the rest of the novel?