When main character as well as narrarator Gary Harkness is needed to win
the final game for the Logo's college football team, all he has known changes. In the novel written by Don DeLillo, all aspects
of life that you would think never affect football do. The author does a unique job of introducing a talented gridlock college
football team from a military college in Texas with real live factors and human somewhat insanity. With the
reputation of being one of the best, the stress of the players for a perfect season may be the reasoning to the star quaterbacks sudden
change of mental state.
An interesting comparison the author uses is the
chaos and destruction of nucleaur war. It was used as a football term in the novel but as well as a comparison to
real life war. The main character Harkness becomes obsessed with the aspects of war, and begins to go into a frenzy of
disturbing play names and ideas. He becomes increasingly concerned with the idea of an apocalypse, a nuclear
event on a grand scale. At first it seems to be just a mere football code but, when he begins to use terms such as "overkill"
and "thermal hurricane" and speak merely of war the team begins to wonder if Harkness is more abut the game or the sick thought
of actual nucleaur terror.
While football is the main idea of the novel it is not overpowering.
The plays are explained and some football terms are used, but the author does a good job making the novel easy to read and
interesting for even the slightest of football fans. The main character is split into two but brings both sides into the other, while
he argues in the classroom abut warfare he brings it out to the feild as well. Overpowering many muscle-head jocks that are
soley concerned with having a perfect season. With the on again off again relations to nuclear attacks the book is all
the more interesting. It helps the reader become more involved and curious of the thoughts of the star player and where his
mind is actually at.
The author reaches an imperitive goal with the clarity of detail in the
novel. Between the football plays and the real life scenerios the reader is on the edge of their seats. I am looking foward
to redng some of DeLillo's other novels because I found his writting to be interesting and informative at the same time. I
would recommend this novel to football fans or even not so uch football fans.
