End Zone
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Product Description
Product Description
At Logos College in West Texas, huge young men, vacuum-packed into shoulder pads and shiny helmets, play football with intense passion. During an uncharacteristic winning season, the perplexed and distracted running back Gary Harkness has periodic fits of nuclear glee; he is fueled and shielded by his fear of and fascination with nuclear conflict. Among oddly afflicted and recognizable players, the terminologies of football and nuclear war--the language of end zones--become interchangeable, and their meaning deteriorates as the collegiate year runs its course. In this triumphantly funny, deeply searching novel, Don DeLillo explores the metaphor of football as war with rich, original zeal.
Book Description
‘Nobody, it seems, could write better than this. No one could have a clearer vision of the micro-circuitry of post-modern life’ Evening Standard Ostensibly, DeLillo’s blackly comic second novel is about Gary Harkness, a football player and student at Logos College, west Texas. During a season of unprecedented success, Gary becomes increasingly fixated on the threat of nuclear war. Both frightened and fascinated by the prospect, he listens to his team-mates discussing match tactics in much the same terms as generals might contemplate global conflict. But as the terminologies of football and nuclear war – the language of end zones – become interchanged, the polysemous nature of words emerges, and DeLillo forces us to see beyond the sterile reality of substitution. This clever and playful novel is a timeless and topical study of human beings’ obsession with conflict and confrontation. ‘Powerfully funny, oblique, testy, and playful, tearing along in dazzling cinematic spurts . . . A masterful novel’ Washington Post
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is one of DeLillo's early books which seem to get little of the attention heaped on his more recent efforts post-White Noise. However, along with 'The Names' this is one of his best, with his characteristic love of language already fully formed.
In this case the comparison he makes is between the language of American football, and that of nuclear holocaust - an idea that reappears in the first section of 'Underworld'. As a geeky Brit I know next to nothing about American sports, so it must be a testament to DeLillo's talents as a literary stylist that I remained fascinated by the often lengthy descriptions of games.
The most fascinating aspect, however, is the examination of nuclear language. DeLillo's insights into the hinterlands of late 70s detente are profound, and pre-date respected postmodern critiques which are seen as intellectual masterpieces.
None of this should take away anything from the fact that this is a great read - full of humour and the joy of language.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Please read this novel if you are interested in current American fiction. Delillo is an excellent writer, and this novel provides a great introduction to his style.
Read this book if you like humor, football, language, words, life and death. It is well worth your 10 bucks and 4 hours.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I'm a big DeLillo fan.
He's one of my favourite authors, Underworld is in my top ten favourite books.
I'm a huge admirer of his style of writing, his world view, his intelligence and the way he can craft poignant and moving novels around big ideas.
To date I have enjoyed every one of his books that I've read. So I picked up End Zone expecting the same.
It began okay, the style is intact, the control of language, the big idea. But somehow the novel just doesn't hold together.
By the end I was annoyed and disappointed with it.
Gary Harkness is a college American football player who over a season becomes obsessed with the possibility of nuclear war. The football becomes a metaphor for combat, the complicated plays become military maneouvers and Gary devours book after book about the man made apocalypse.
All familiar DeLillo territory. But End Zone falls short. There are stylistic blips, strange chapter structures, verbatim reproduction of lectures that run to 3 or 4 pages and have none of his sparkle, could be copied from textbooks. And whilst this book is funnier than most of his (White Noise excluded), the central metaphor is contrived and nowhere near as effortless as I would expect from DeLillo. The surrealism seems forced and self-conscious. The dialogue doesn't fit with the characters, the scenes have no cause and effect, just a series of vignettes tagged together.
Maybe the problem is one of translation, American football is unfathomable to my English mind. Maybe it doesn't seen as pertinent now cold war is just a memory and we've got different universal fears. But either way End Zone just doesn't ring true in the way I expect from a DeLillo novel.
This is an odd book, almost as if a lesser talent was trying to write a DeLillo book and not quite getting it right and left me empty.
He's one of my favourite authors, Underworld is in my top ten favourite books.
I'm a huge admirer of his style of writing, his world view, his intelligence and the way he can craft poignant and moving novels around big ideas.
To date I have enjoyed every one of his books that I've read. So I picked up End Zone expecting the same.
It began okay, the style is intact, the control of language, the big idea. But somehow the novel just doesn't hold together.
By the end I was annoyed and disappointed with it.
Gary Harkness is a college American football player who over a season becomes obsessed with the possibility of nuclear war. The football becomes a metaphor for combat, the complicated plays become military maneouvers and Gary devours book after book about the man made apocalypse.
All familiar DeLillo territory. But End Zone falls short. There are stylistic blips, strange chapter structures, verbatim reproduction of lectures that run to 3 or 4 pages and have none of his sparkle, could be copied from textbooks. And whilst this book is funnier than most of his (White Noise excluded), the central metaphor is contrived and nowhere near as effortless as I would expect from DeLillo. The surrealism seems forced and self-conscious. The dialogue doesn't fit with the characters, the scenes have no cause and effect, just a series of vignettes tagged together.
Maybe the problem is one of translation, American football is unfathomable to my English mind. Maybe it doesn't seen as pertinent now cold war is just a memory and we've got different universal fears. But either way End Zone just doesn't ring true in the way I expect from a DeLillo novel.
This is an odd book, almost as if a lesser talent was trying to write a DeLillo book and not quite getting it right and left me empty.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Minor De Lillo
If you like Don De Lillo, you will enjoy this light, surreal novel about American brutality. Conflating football and nuclear war makes some sense, and the characters seem like... Read more
Published on 28 Sep 2009 by The Outsider
Texas Football and Nuclear Annihilation
This is my favorite book. I have read most of DeLillo's other books and found them to be everything form pompous to strained to boring. But this is a gem. Read more
Published on 11 Jan 1997
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