Intermission

By R.Z. Sheppard

GREAT JONES STREET by DON DE LILLO 265 pages. Houghton Mifflin. $5.95.

Bucky Wunderlick, the all-purpose sensibility of post-'60s exhaustion, is a rock star sick of mainlining on fame. In Don de Lillo's latest novel, he leaves his band and retreats to a dismal converted loft to watch the roaches crawl over the unwashed dishes in the sink.

Bucky's girl friend Opal is in worse shape. Poisoned by drugs and suffering from chronic time lag due to constant travel, she can barely distinguish herself from her luggage. Meanwhile, the schlock rock of the '70s goes on. (For a flesh-and-blood reference, see the recent issue of Rolling Stone, in which Drag Star Alice Cooper says: "The sicker all you kids get, the greater the shows we'll have for you.")

In a time of excess, "everything is marketable," says Bucky's neighbor, a hack writer who lives on canned tomato soup and saltines. He is working on a new literary form: pornography for children. Globke, Bucky's anxious manager, is a winsome monster because he is totally aware of what he is. "I'm not new money, new culture, new consciousness," he says. "I emerge from a distinct tradition. Bad taste."

Author De Lillo would probably not be disappointed if Bucky Wunderlick is read as Jesus Christ Superstar in the urban wilderness. Bucky is last seen recovering from a language-erasing drug. It is suggested that he has been purified. But by nudging his hero toward the truly mythic, De Lillo overextends a book that is otherwise distinguished by a cool, clinical touch. As he demonstrated in two previous novels (Americana and the much overpraised End Zone), the author has a knack for chill atmosphere, satiric caricature and witty dialogue. He is also a good literary mechanic who knows how to assemble spare parts from older writers like Nathanael West, Paul Bowles and William Burroughs, and drive off with them. "

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