I think he attacks original sin in the 1950s Nick section. Guiltless individuals hypnotized into membership in a guilty, impossible We? But I think he does find individual Americans guiltless.
God and history are pretty inhuman, to my mind; and radical doubt was presumably intense in the Goddiest times (imagine that underworld). I think the days of order are represented to Delillo by the sophisticated tribalism of the semi-segregated New Yorkers, with their ubiquitous, defining inherited forms--so powerful that violations of individual ones were readily shrugged off, or anticipated. Kind of a means of ignoring history and defusing metaphysical speculation, I'd say: God as the sum total of the words, pictures and program events associated with him. Roots and ritual, though, yeah.
I guess Delillo's take on the Cold War is, that period in which communities of love didn't have a fighting chance.
Notice that trying to do X is never a practical answer. Doing X is. And the X was undoable, too big. Making what little y's, z's and o's one can is the proper philosophical answer, but one can understand some emotionalism and defeatist behavior among the X fans.
Interesting how the baseball game stands for both American victory over Europe post-WWII, with its military, bomb, intact infrastructure etc. and the eventual Cold War 'victory' (though it's an open question if our souvenir ball for that victory is still real, i.e. if the victory's meaningful). All the connections are interesting...I think that's why Underworld doesn't come across as critiquing interpretation, overall: Delillo keeps doing it.
I think I might park my phrase at "these were the things that we saw in those days, we survivors."
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-01-22 04:00 am (UTC)God and history are pretty inhuman, to my mind; and radical doubt was presumably intense in the Goddiest times (imagine that underworld). I think the days of order are represented to Delillo by the sophisticated tribalism of the semi-segregated New Yorkers, with their ubiquitous, defining inherited forms--so powerful that violations of individual ones were readily shrugged off, or anticipated. Kind of a means of ignoring history and defusing metaphysical speculation, I'd say: God as the sum total of the words, pictures and program events associated with him. Roots and ritual, though, yeah.
I guess Delillo's take on the Cold War is, that period in which communities of love didn't have a fighting chance.
Notice that trying to do X is never a practical answer. Doing X is. And the X was undoable, too big. Making what little y's, z's and o's one can is the proper philosophical answer, but one can understand some emotionalism and defeatist behavior among the X fans.
Interesting how the baseball game stands for both American victory over Europe post-WWII, with its military, bomb, intact infrastructure etc. and the eventual Cold War 'victory' (though it's an open question if our souvenir ball for that victory is still real, i.e. if the victory's meaningful). All the connections are interesting...I think that's why Underworld doesn't come across as critiquing interpretation, overall: Delillo keeps doing it.
I think I might park my phrase at "these were the things that we saw in those days, we survivors."