Having recently finished "Cosmopolis" I can't decide if my mind has been blown or I'm underwhelmed. I'm leaning towards the latter. During billionaire Eric Packer's quest through New York for a haircut, I had a hard time shaking the hackneyed feel of the "rich guy does sleazy things before an existential crisis and epiphany" progression. Like other reviewers, I also occasionally lost track of who was speaking during DeLillo's sometimes lengthy dialogue exchanges and found myself guessing at times. I understand the "Ulysses" comparison and can appreciate the heightened relevance following the 2008 financial meltdown (notable since this book was published years before the crisis), but I felt myself giving up after Eric experiences a revelation during the dead rapper's parade. In a book of 209 pages (in my borrowed 1st edition), the parade felt like it lasted about one quarter of that total. The concluding pages felt more thematically fitting as Eric begins to fully understand how tragic, pathetic and complete his demise has become, but I get the feeling that this evolution in his sense of self could, and should have been handled in the short story format. With the exception of the particularly exciting, violent political demonstration that grips lower Manhattan while Eric's limo wanders through, so much of this book seems to be about his sexual escapades and his electronic gadgets. Maybe that's the point, but I just wasn't feeling it. I'll delve into some of DeLillo's earlier works at a later time, but I was surprisingly disappointed with "Cosmopolis."