End Zone

"End Zone" is like a Delillo primer: it introduces and develops his major themes, gives a taste of his absurd, over-the-top dialogue, and treats its genre conventions playfully. A football novel, "End Zone" is hardly a football novel- its a football-as-ritual novel, and as such it's about conceptions of identity and nuclear anxiety, and how language develops and even designates the forms of both these things. Delillo is concerned with language first- always- and how it shapes the stories we tell that make up who we are. This is about language as a distancing device used to subvert the passage to death. Which, come to think of it, is what pretty much all his books are about. In fact, "End Zone" is such a concise introduction to Delillo that I'd pretty much demand that anyone wisheing to read his stuff start here. It'll make the others much, much easier. "End Zone" is packed with scenes of men shouting in elaborate code languages and with obvious symbolic tableau. Which is fine. Delillo is rarely a realist, and he's never one here. He's diagnosing the human condition down to the moment and the place. His books might leave America but they're always about this country, and "End Zone" is no exception. It's a visionary novel, and a fine one at that. It's also very, very funny. It's pretty much a comedy from beginning to end- and it's a good one. Delillo is always humorous, but rarely is he half as funny as he is here on nearly every page. "White Noise," which is extremely funny at times, has nothing on "End Zone"- this book has the distinction of containing the funniest and best sex scene I've ever read. Every sentence in the scene is an ironic bombshell, all eroticism and absurdism brilliantly commingled. But, as always with Delillo, the laughter may sometimes get stuck in the throat; his books are, invariably, about our shared national tragedies, and they never fail to chill one to the very core of one's being. Scenarios of mass death are described in almost perverse detail by the characters in this novel. It's the only Delillo novel to have made me queasy; it may have even numbed me in its entertainment of horror. And this in a book that never has a character die on the page. "End Zone" is a fine novel- powerful, thought-provoking, and hilarious. It runs on a finely tuned thematic engine, and has devastatingly precise prose. Had Delillo not written "The Names," "White Noise," "Mao II," "Underworld," and "Libra," "End Zone" would still be a 20th century American classic.

I loved this book. It's odd in a number of ways, all of which I liked a lot, though I imagine they might turn off other readers. First, it's about football and it really gets into the mechanics of the game. Non-fans might feel a little left out reading a four or five page description of a team's 60-yard drive. These scenes are gritty and journalistic; you get a real sense of it. Then there's the loopy conversations of the players. They're all at a football school in the desert, suffering in the sun, running and wrestling on the hard dusty fields. In their spare time they have earnest, sophisticated discussions about the nature of existence. Not realistic, but the combination completely worked for me at a metaphorical level. Hard work, hot sun, hard thinking, fights. Isn't that just what we all want?

This book superficially deals with two cultures: football in the strange land of West Texas, and the new era of destructive modern warfare. While many morals and parables can be made out of Gary Harkness' excellent and lucid narrative, that he is a modern man in existential despair for example, Delillo's novel insightfully looks at a rational's chronic attempts at figuring out what it all means. Of course, what results is an entirely subjective account of life, but it's one that shuns bigger pictures and individual and cultural differences, embracing instead the need for a more primal experience based purely on the senses, such as football, or even warfare. In this account, bombing Germany means the same as nuking France. It makes no difference, just as bringing in a black football player into a racist land becomes only a footnote. The characters are colorful and you can learn much about human nature just by listening to what they have to say and by watching their body language. Overall, this is a bizarre book that has moments of fantasy, darkness and humor.

I couldn't agree less with the reader from Boston, MA. "End Zone" is about as unified a book as you're likely to read. It is quite obviously a parable with football standing in for nuclear war. As such, it is impossible to break it down into several component stories. There is an obvious beginning, middle and end: you have the arms build-up and the machismo of the preparation for war; the war itself, which is notably the shortest part of the book; and, finally, the long, painful and bizarre aftermath. There's no question that the rich, humorous characters add to the enjoyment but their stories serve the larger plot. The book makes no sense if you can't see it in its entirety. You might as well watch Wildcats if you think this is a simple football book.

I've read the first two paragraphs of DeLillo's "End Zone" perhaps a hundred times and always marvel at the clarity, economy, and power of his direct, adjective-free writing style. This book has influenced my writing as much as any (I'm a newspaper reporter/editor).Two of my favorite books are "football" books: This one and Roy Blount Jr.'s "About Three Bricks Shy of A Load," an inside-the-team-bus account of the Pittsburgh Steelers' 1973 season. Both are peopled with characters human, flawed, appalling and funny; both use quotes in fresh and startling ways; and both are terrific slices of the American Pie.