Customer Reviews

Pafko at the Wall: A Novella

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1 star:		(4)

 

 

Yes, if you've read Underworld then there's no need to buy this book, and yes, it's a cynical ploy to release this already published and republished story as a new hardcover. I'd be irritated with Delillo if this weren't one of the most magnificent things I've ever read. I also enjoy the cover. I'd never seen that photograph before and hence never understood the story's odd original title. Why Pafko, mentioned in the text only once or twice? But there he is, forever, watching the ball sail over his head and into Cotter Martin's hand. Like Nick Shay said, the ball is about losing, not winning. Buy this book and give it to someone who'd never pick up an 800 page book. Give it to a baseball fan.

...the fact that this great work has been published previously (first in Harper's back in 1992, then in altered form as the Prologue to Underworld in 1997) does not alter the fact that it is great. Pristine. Phrase-perfect. Sustained in tone. It speaks in your voice, American. Buy it for your old man who loves baseball but has no patience for this contemporary-lit mishegoss. Buy it for that girl you're trying to impress who loved White Noise but can't stand baseball. Buy it for the 12-year-old nephew you're trying to turn on to the glories of great fiction. Buy it. Oh yeah, and if you haven't actually read it yourself, do that too. It's the 50th anniversary of Bobby Thompson's homer, for chrissake.

Who cares about Underworld? I didn't go near it. Separating this classic from that tome was the best marketing move anyone's ever done. This book should be in the public domain anyway. Imagine taking a baseball game, exploding it into one of the world's greatest historical events as seen from various characters' points of view, and at the same time encapsulating the dawning of a new moment in world history. Every sentence is sharp and detailed, anticipating the next. And then when Thomson hits the home run, Delillo freeze frames each second like you're in a car crash, making sure you're aware of everything that's going on. It's one of the best books ever written.

I haven't read Underworld, so when I bought this book, all I knew was that it was about "the shot heard round the world" and that was good enough for me. Having grown up in Brooklyn and having lived in a house with three brothers and a father who were all avid Giant fans, this is something I've heard about my whole life. I wasn't even walking in 1951 so I certainly don't remember that day but what I do remember is it's being discussed in my home, ad nauseam, for as long as I can remember. In honor of my now deceased father and my very alive three brothers, (who followed the Giants and remained Giant fans as they went on to San Francisco), I have taken it upon myself to learn more about that fateful day in Dodger history when Giant fans all over New York roared in unity as Bobby Thomson's strike of the bat ended the Dodger season in 1951.

DeLillo's attention to detail is so vivid that I actually felt as if I was hearing Russ Hodges announce the game. The book is full of nostalgic remembrances especially when he talks about one of the Giant sponsors - Chesterfield cigarettes. Between innings, Hodges actually instructs the audience to stay right where they are and "light up a Chesterfield." Can you imagine saying that today? And I found that the trivia about the large CHESTERFIELD sign in centerfield lighting up the "E" when an error was made is stuff my brothers don't even know about. I can't wait to hit them with all this info when we get together this holiday season. As a matter of fact, I've already asked one of my brothers if he knew who was playing left field when Thomson hit the ball and he didn't know. So much for the baseball trivia experts in my family.

I also enjoyed DeLillo's portrayal of the young Cotter Martin as he struggled to grab Thomson's ball from under the seats and his race out of the Polo Grounds as he clutched the much sought after ball. While I thought I would enjoy the Frank Sinatra/Jackie Gleason references, I found them to be the least desirable part of the book.

The bottom line is that I enjoyed the book and now feel quite comfortable discussing this episode in baseball history with the best of them. I did have one question though -- If Bobby Thomson was "hot" that day and already had two hits (one of which had driven in a run), why did Branca take the chance of pitching to him? With men on second and third, I would think he would have walked him and taken his chances with the then rookie "Say Hey" Willie Mays. After finishing this book, I did some further research on this game and found that others have asked this same question. I guess I did learn something growing up as the only girl in that family of all boys. By the way, they're all getting a copy of this book for Christmas this year. It's a definite MUST for the "true" New York Giant fan.

Pafko at the Wall, a story that would evolve into Delillo's Underworld, is a must for any baseball fan. It describes in Delillo's beautiful writing the "shot heard round the world", Thompson's famous home run. This novella easily holds up apart from Underworld and is a wonderful one sitting read.

And I really believe that. This is the opening section of *Underworld* (1997), and it originally appeared in Harpers--so, when I saw it in stores, I thought "why re-release this as a BOOK?"

Then, I read it. It stands on its own as a novella--and it's not *just* about baseball, either, so don't let that mislead you or put you off. It's about *everything*. Maybe you don't wish to read the lengthy *Underworld* (though the themes and characters and plotlines here run through the entire novel)--but at LEAST read THIS.

And while I own the novel, I'm pleased to own this, too--and if you like DeLillo and wish to turn others on to his work, this is what you give them. I've given copies to several people, and use this brilliant work in my "Writing a Novella" Creative Writing class. I don't test the students, or ask them to try to emulate the work--I just ask them to read it.

Their jaws drop open every time, just as mine did--and does.

First things first - this is a brilliantly-evoked account of the Giants/Dodgers playoff game that ended with the "Shot Heard Round the World". It is also the opening section of DeLillo's novel Underworld. Like most of the other reviewers of this book, my main beef is "Why should one bother to buy this extract?" In context, this is only the beginning of a long exploration of American history in the 50 years that separate us from that game - particularly the Cold War, which could be said to begin on that day with news of the Soviet Union's atomic test reaching the US. The historic baseball goes weaving from hand to hand binding the stories together. If you're a DeLillo fan, then, don't buy it for yourself. If you want a taster of his work, perhaps buy it as an entry-level sample but be prepared to fork out for it all over again if you decide you need to read the full novel. Best of all, buy it as a gift for someone who's unlikely to be a DeLillo reader, now or in future, but is a fan of baseball and/of 50s Americana. It's great stuff, but its appeal in this format is just pretty limited.

Canonization of a modern classic, or contract fulfillment? A mere eight months after the slender "The Body Artist" comes the even slenderer "Pafko at the Wall": first published ages ago in Harper's magazine, then reappearing in revised form as the first section of DeLillo's lumbering, intermittently brilliant novel "Underworld." Now, on the fourth anniversary of "Underworld"'s publication, here it is again. Granted, it's a tour de force, and deserves as wide an audience as possible, but the thought of Scribner expecting readers to pay as much for this as they could pay for 800-plus pages of "Underworld" in paperback--or two copies of the "Underworld" hardcover from nearly any superstore remainder table in the United States--boggles the mind.

Well this has to be a classic, but describing it as a new 2001 novella by Delillo is a sure way to rile Delillo fans like me, who almost ordered it on reflex. It turns out to be the first part of Underworld. While Underworld is, in my view, one of the great books of this decade, the publisher should at least warn potential buyers that they may already own this book. On the other hand for those who find it hard to stick through an 800 page book, this sample delicacy might be a good introduction to the art of Delillo. As for me I prefer the original Underworld, or Body Artist, a completely mesmerizing novella about the same size as Pafko.

Having suffered through all of Underworld, and having concluded that I should have stopped reading right after the excellent prologue (which essentially comprises this book), I was amused to see that DeLillo has released this as a "novella". Compelling reading to be sure, but why bother?

I suppose this book is easier to carry around and read in bed than the beginning of Underworld, amounting to less than a hundred pages. But it is difficult to justify spending good money on a prologue to a longer novel with an eerie, attractive cover depicting the World Trade Center, that can be found for less money on bookstore bargain racks throughout the country. Like P.T. Barnum once said, . . . "there's a sucker born every minute."