It is so refreshing to actually understand a book's plot!
I am anxious to find out what connections Delillo makes between the prologue and Nick Shay's narrative-- how the ball ended up in Nick's hands, the relationship between Nick and Kara forty years ago (an affair?), etc. I'm anticipating some sort of connection between bombs and baseballs, but I'm not quite sure what to make of it yet.
I'm sure this will make more sense as I read further, but I'm not sure about the significance of the prologue's title-- "the triumph of death," which was also the title of the painting that fascinates J. Edgar Hoover. While everyone else is celebrating the triumph of the Giant's huge win, climbing over seats and rushing into the field, Hoover is completely fascinated with the image of the dead and rotting bodies. Delillo mentions that Hoover is somewhat of a germaphobe, yet he "loves this stuff." Then he focuses on the audience: "Admit it--you love it" (50).
A link to an image of the painting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Thetriumphofdeath.jpg
Wikipedia says that the painting has been interpretated as an "allegoral representation of the horrors of war," and it is also a commentary on death's indiscriminancy-- it takes anyone and everyone. Death ultimately triumphs (no matter who wins a baseball game).
Hoover, the one with the knowledge of the Soviet's atomic bomb, "a man whose own sequestered heart holds every festering secret in the Western world" (51) is fascinated with disturbing images of death, but only in images; "he finds a fascination in the cankers, lesions, and rotting bodies so long as his connection to the source is strictly pictorial" (50). I feel like this, along with "Admit it--you love it" forces the readers to consider this. We may be a society fascinated with violence, lust, greed, and even death-- as long as it doesn't happen to us.
Some more information, found on http://perival.com/delillo/underworld_triumph.html
It turns out the painting really DID appear in Life in 1951 !
"The Bruegel painting that gives the prologue its title, "The Triumph of Death" does appear in the October 1, 1951 issue of LIFE magazine, pages 66-67, in a story on the Prado museum. Here's the magazine's caption:
The final conquest of humanity by death was symbolic subject for artists during the Middle Ages, but the symbolism took on a grim reality in Pieter Bruegel's day when the armies of Spain swept over the Low Countries, ruthlessly crushing the native uprisings. In Bruegel's painting, done about 1562, the agents of death spare no one. Their bony hands touch king, cardinal, pilgrim and peasant. A fool hides under a table to escape the pale rider on the pale horse, who drives the living into a chamber of doom. Far away, ships and fortresses go up in flames, and on a stark hillside two skeletons toll the death knell of the world."
okay, so I realize that I keep commenting on my own entry, but I don't feel like this deserves its own post.
There was an explicit connection made between bombs and baseballs on page 172. I knew it was coming, so I was pretty excited when I came across it:
"Marvin said, 'Which the whole thing is interesting because when they make an atomic bomb, listen to this, they make the radioactive core the exact same size as a baseball.'"
Marvin Lundy has some pretty eccentric theories (ex: Gorbachev's shifting birthmark), so it makes sense that he tries to uncover some connection between the 1951 pennant game and the soviet atomic test. But I liked that he made a PHYSICAL connection between the two, because I felt like I needed that connection to be made. It makes things more interesting.