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Reticent [Student] Talks Baseball, Not Books
I’m obsessed with the way so many (male) American writers possess a long-enduring fascination with baseball. Considering that I’m a bookish twenty-something who’s equally obsessed with American culture, American literature, and the American pastime, this composite obsession should come as no surprise.
It’s always reassuring to find another kindred spirit to have a mental dialogue with. (And it definitely makes me feel better about filling my tumblr with baseball posts.) The most recent example: this old NYT article about Don DeLillo in the aftermath of the great home run race of ‘98.
THE power of memory is one of Mr. DeLillo’s great themes, and he talks of it easily, in flowing descriptive sentences with long silences in between, unafraid to be seen thinking carefully before he speaks. Though he dislikes interviews and seemed physically pained by a camera’s lens a few inches from his face, he readily agreed to talk about baseball, not as a tired literary metaphor for American life but as a portal that Americans have traditionally used to transcend their lives.
(indirect h/t: kmm)
