DeLillo e Bruegel: dalla sovrapposizione di due trionfi al recycling come chiave d'accesso per l'immortalità

The Triumph of Death is both the title of Pieter Bruegel’s painting and DeLillo’s Underworld prologue: what is the connection between the medieval panorama of skeletons and the novel’s opening scene? The description of the painting and the garbage rain during the baseball match at the Polo Grounds point out two im- portant elements: death and waste, both related to the activity of recycling, that has a fundamental meaning in the novel. In this «rococo exercise in coincidences», re- cycling is the way of pursuing the illusion of immortality: from the beginning, then, DeLillo gives the reader one of the keys opening the doors of his postmodern Hades.