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Originally Posted by Victoria
Was it about post war disillusionment?
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Aha! Another rather odd aspect. I think we can take the book as occurring in roughly 1950. But Malamud, deliberately I think, gives Tuesday, October 1, as the date of the deciding game, which places it out of time. The last Tuesday, October 1 was 1946, which is too early. The next Tuesday, October 1 was in 1957, after publication. But I digress.
My real point is that a scant five years after the war, it's as if it didn't happen. I can believe that people were putting the war years behind them as fast as possible, much easier in the US than other places. But still. What, for example, did Roy do during the war? He'd have been in his late 20s and presumably draft fodder. Was his belly wound one of those blessings in disguise, keeping him out of the war?
I was especially struck by the gift of the Mercedes-Benz, which struck me as distinctly odd in that time and context. Why not a Cadillac?