// War Literature

This piece by DeLillo is arguable the most “positive” work that we have read thus far in class. with the exception of the minor battle for the winning ball towards the end of the introuction, this piece is relatively quarrel free. Rather than being centered around war and the effects that it is having on the society, DeLillo centers it on the famout pennet between the Giants and the Dodgers. At first when reading this piece and bearing in mind that we are in a Literature of War class, I kept anticipating something gruesome to happen–perhaps a bomb to explode in the center of the field, soldiers to bombard the crowds due to a possible bomb threat, or something graphic and exciting that would make my heart race (like many of the other things that we have read/watched in class). Surprisingly, after 20-30 pages, I realized that I was more concerned with the game and the stories of the crowd members than anything else. The imagery provided through DeLillo’s elaborate use of words provided an escape for what I expected in this text. This realization drove me to consider and realize that during times of war it was activities and events (baseball games) that provided the same escpe for members of society. Without moments such as these where individuals are provided with the opportunity to come together and submerge their thoughts and focus outside of the negative media that they encounter daily (especially in reference to war), people would probably go insane. DeLillo seems to attempt to do the same thing in this introduction and successfully achieves this–atleast I think so.