This lacks some of the thrills and spills of Into Thin Air but is of the same class and caliber—and will make many readers...
A death-haunted saga of the scalers of heaven.
Mountaineering was, for many decades, a particularly British enterprise. To judge by the young men whom alpinist Chris Bonington recruited to climb with him in the 1950s and beyond, it was a British enterprise because its practitioners did all they could to escape “the villages, slums, and middle-class suburbs of post-war Great Britain.” Free spirits all, these climbers proved themselves on the Alps, scaling pitches of the Eiger and Mont Blanc that no one had scaled before, fearlessly riding the “Wall of Death.” Such testing done, “Bonington’s Boys” were ready for the Himalayas, when that wall became a most real thing; on their 1970 ascent of Annapurna, looking for all the world more “like a traveling rock band—the Beatles on their way to visit Maharishi Mahesh Yogi—than a traditional British mountaineering expedition,” Bonington and company lost one of their best mates. Death would become a constant companion, and the roll of those whom outdoor sportswriter and anthologist Willis (Adrenaline 2000, 2001, etc.) rightly considers to be the greatest climbing generation in history was severely thinned by weather, accident and misjudgment. Bonington himself was a capable leader, though it was not until he was 50 that he himself made the summit of Everest, guided along by ghosts. Willis gives in at times to the temptation to throw a few Monday-morning passes, but for the most part, he offers a faithful version of events as they are known to have occurred. A notable exception is the haunting close, when climber Peter Boardman, high atop Everest, awaits death, worrying that his friends would find him there, “skin dried and drawn up on his bones, hair gone white.” As indeed they did.
This lacks some of the thrills and spills of Into Thin Air but is of the same class and caliber—and will make many readers wonder why anyone would ever dare climb into the clouds.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-7867-1579-0
Page Count: 560
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2006
Early (who also edited the recent Body Language: Writers on Sport, p. 168, etc.) compiles a formidable team of contributors to render honor to a man bigger than boxing, bigger than sports. Can you imagine Ecco Press, with its hard-won literary reputation, publishing a book on any other sports figure of our time than Muhammad Ali? No one but Ali has inspired such a rich tapestry of writing from names as significant as Norman Mailer, Gay Talese, Ishmael Reed, Tom Wolfe, Murray Kempton, Garry Wills, Wole Soyinka, and Hunter S. Thompson, all of whom are represented in this volume. The collection is organized chronologically, beginning with perhaps the best boxing writer of them all, A.J. Liebling, who covered Ali’s first pro fight in New York, against the all-but-forgotten Sonny Banks. From there, the collection traces Ali’s singular career, from his two defeats of Sonny Liston through his affiliation with the Nation of Islam, his refusal to be drafted for combat in Vietnam and the subsequent stripping of his title, the epic battles with Joe Frazier and George Foreman, the slow winding down and his return to the spotlight at the ’96 Olympics. On the whole, the writers are so mesmerized by the sociopolitical implications of Ali that they sometimes forget to mention his fighting. Yet that seems appropriate, because Ali truly transcended sport, and much of the fascination of the book resides in watching the champ’s image evolve from poetry-spouting wiseguy to faltering elder statesman. In his brief essay, Wills observes dryly, “Modern Pindars sing the weirdest songs about Ali. They cluster around him trying to probe non-existent mysteries.” While that might be truthfully said about some of the contributions to this anthology (A. Bartlett Giamatti and Mailer offer particularly abstruse and bizarre thoughts), for the most part, this is a pleasure to read and a deserved and elegant salute to The Greatest.
Pub Date: June 18, 1998
ISBN: 0-88001-602-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The timing of this book’s release would lead many to assume that Earl Woods is cashing in on his son’s success—and they would be right. However, this is no mere exercise in literary exploitation. Woods’s new book (after Training a Tiger, not reviewed), with Chicago Tribune sportswriter Mitchell, asserts the power that self-reliance and positive thinking can have on one’s life. The book’s title refers to Earl’s sort-of mantra. He writes that playing through “is the ultimate manifestation of positive attitude; the belief that you can overcome, that you can keep going.” Using his experiences—of raising a prodigy, of dealing with racism, of going through the break-up of two marriages, of going to war—Woods shows how he has surmounted life’s obstacles and how he has passed these lessons along to Tiger. If the younger Woods’s success up to this point is any indication, Earl’s advice is sound indeed. Of course, this book wouldn’t be of much interest to Tiger fans if it didn’t contain stuff about him. So, Earl tells of Tiger’s carryings-on, both on and off the course, for instance, what it’s like to deal with stalkerazzi and party down with celebrities, ranging from the golfers Jack Nicklaus and Arnie Palmer to the duchess of York. And having gained our attention, Earl holds forth on a variety of topics, including what a jerk he thinks Aussie golf pro (and perpetual hard-luck story) Greg Norman is, and what he thought of golfer Fuzzy Zoeller’s racist remarks, made last spring after Tiger won the Masters. Earl even finds time to offer interesting theories about country clubs and white power, and young athletes’ endorsement contracts. All this comes across as a proud father’s gushing. (b&w photos, not seen) (Author tour; television satellite tour)
Pub Date: June 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-06-270222-X
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1998
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