Charles Harrington/University Photography
Participants in the Sept. 25 poetry reading in Goldwin Smith Hall for the
Epoch Festival were, from left: A.R. Ammons, the Goldwin Smith Professor of Poetry; C.S. Giscombe, editor of
Epoch during the 1980s; Phyllis Janowitz, professor of
English; and Kenneth A. McClane, the W.E.B. Dubois Professor of Literature.
By Darryl Geddes
Standing ovations at readings are not a common occurrence, no matter how revered the author is. But the respect and adoration audience members had last Friday evening for the reader, Don DeLillo, brought them to their feet.
DeLillo read from his latest novel, Underworld, as part of the Epoch Festival, a celebration honoring the 50th anniversary of Epoch, Cornell's literary magazine. Epoch, which was awarded the 1997 O. Henry Award for best magazine, published an early work of DeLillo's 37 years ago.
"It was a stunning performance," said English Professor Stephanie Vaughn, a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow, of DeLillo's reading on Sept. 26 before more than 600 people in David L. Call Auditorium in Kennedy Hall. DeLillo, who is widely acclaimed, is a rare participant in such readings.
Vaughn introduced DeLillo as one of the "two or three best novelists in the country; the others being from Cornell."
"There's a special pleasure in hearing a writer read his or her work aloud," Vaughn noted. "It invokes the oral tradition and takes us back to the campfire where stories are told and chants are sung. A fiction or poetry reading gets us out of the chairs where we read alone and makes us into a single community again."
In his reading from Underworld, DeLillo portrayed the early life of Nick Shay, the book's central character, and his days of disarray in the Bronx. He concluded his reading with a present-day examination of Shay, who has become a semi-retired, solid-waste disposal executive whose life is now as organized and structured as his recycling routine of sorting glass, plastics and newspaper.
Audience members got an unplanned treat when DeLillo decided to follow his reading with an impromptu book signing.
Seventy copies of Underworld ordered by the Campus Store for the weekend and signed early Friday by DeLillo were sold out by the end of the weekend.
DeLillo's appearance was only a part of the Epoch Festival. A poetry reading Sept. 25 featured Cornell professors A.R. Ammons, Phyllis Janowitz and Kenneth A. McClane and former Epoch editor C.S. Giscombe, and a fiction reading Sept. 27 had 1997 O. Henry Prize winners Arthur Bradford, Cornell professor Robert Morgan, Patricia Elam Ruff and O. Henry Prize Stories editor Larry Dark.
Vaughn, who noticed many of her students among Epoch Festival audience members, said a weekend like this can be very inspiring.
"I think that hearing a good reading is like watching a good football game. In my neighborhood after the Super Bowl, you always see guys go outside and start throwing a football under the streetlights. I think a lot of writers went back to their desks with a special energy and joy this weekend."