End Zone by Don DeLillo
Huge young men who are vacuum-packed into shoulder pads and sparkling helmets play football with fierce fervour at Logos College in West Texas. Gary Harkness, a confused and disoriented running back, experiences sporadic fits of nuclear delight during an unusually successful season; these episodes are fed and protected by his dread of and fascination with nuclear war. The terminology of football and nuclear war—the language of end zones—become equivalent among weirdly afflicted and recognized players and their significance deteriorate as the collegiate year progresses. Don DeLillo tackles the analogy of football as war with rich, original zeal in this wonderfully humorous, introspective novel.
End Zone by Don DeLillo
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The scene is a small college in Texas. The football team is the centre of attention as they strive to get to the 60-yard line in a game against a team they are aware is superior. The movements are transmitted using established codes. They are severely battered. The fact that the supporters have sustained serious physical injuries is not fully understood by them. They only observe the action and the codes. The hero-narrator excels in an ROTC program offered by the college. Although the terminology of technological warfare is used, the importance of the harm done to humans cannot be fully understood. This novel, according to the author, is not about fighting.
End Zone is a study and critique of attitudes toward aggression and violence as seen through the eyes of Gary Harkness, a football player for a small-time college in Texas. Emmett Creed, a menacing, omnipotent figure, is appointed as the new head coach to boost the team’s performance, along with a group of specialized trainers who act as extensions of Creed’s aggressive philosophy—the use of extreme aggression to win games.
As Gary philosophizes hysterically with his roommates, colleagues, girlfriend, or alone himself in the desert, the book alternately features humorous violence and dark themes. Even though he claims to be a pacifist, he attends warfare seminars where he is educated on “the first-strike survivability capacity of our nuclear weapons.” This masterfully written second book by one of our best modern authors contrasts the devastating effects of nuclear war with combat on the football field as its theme.
