Gracefully written and compellingly argued, this is one of the best books of the year and one of the best sports books ever...
A tour de force history of the Olympics in romanticized myth and politicized reality.
As thousands of athletes and hundreds of thousands of spectators and tourists prepare to descend on Brazil for the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games this summer, sports fans are getting a daily dose of information about potentially toxic waters clogged with human waste and tales of how facilities will not be completed on time. This all takes place against a backdrop of political and economic chaos in Brazil. There is nothing new in this intersection of Olympic planning gone awry and controversial political machinations in host countries. Indeed, as Goldblatt (The Game of Our Lives: The English Premier League and the Making of Modern Britain, 2014, etc.) shows in this fantastic history of the Olympics, far more rare were the instances of smooth planning and a lack of political chaos. The author traces the games back to their Hellenic roots, but he also places them in the context of the myths that emerged around them in the 19th century, as various efforts to revive Olympic-style games picked up pace, finally gaining a foothold with French aristocrat Baron Pierre de Coubertin, a self-mythologizing romantic who laid the foundation for many of the Olympic ideals that in most cases embody little more than invented traditions. Goldblatt, best known for his unparalleled books on soccer, has a fine grip on sports in general and an even better understanding of the politics of sport. He shows the myriad ways in which the attempts by International Olympic Committee power brokers to separate sport from politics were themselves deeply entrenched in conservative political mindsets, and he reveals the barrenness of most demands that participating athletes be pure amateurs.
Gracefully written and compellingly argued, this is one of the best books of the year and one of the best sports books ever written.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-393-29277-0
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
While the author may attempt to mirror this ideal, the result is less than satisfying and more than a little irritating.
A disjointed debut memoir about how competitive swimming shaped the personal and artistic sensibilities of a respected illustrator.
Through a series of vignettes, paintings and photographs that often have no sequential relationship to each other, Shapton (The Native Trees of Canada, 2010, etc.) depicts her intense relationship to all aspects of swimming: pools, water, races and even bathing suits. The author trained competitively throughout her adolescence, yet however much she loved racing, “the idea of fastest, of number one, of the Olympics, didn’t motivate me.” In 1988 and again in 1992, she qualified for the Olympic trials but never went further. Soon afterward, Shapton gave up competition, but she never quite ended her relationship to swimming. Almost 20 years later, she writes, “I dream about swimming at least three nights a week.” Her recollections are equally saturated with stories that somehow involve the act of swimming. When she speaks of her family, it is less in terms of who they are as individuals and more in context of how they were involved in her life as a competitive swimmer. When she describes her adult life—which she often reveals in disconnected fragments—it is in ways that sometimes seem totally random. If she remembers the day before her wedding, for example, it is because she couldn't find a bathing suit to wear in her hotel pool. Her watery obsession also defines her view of her chosen profession, art. At one point, Shapton recalls a documentary about Olympian Michael Phelps and draws the parallel that art, like great athleticism, is as “serene in aspect” as it is “incomprehensible.”
While the author may attempt to mirror this ideal, the result is less than satisfying and more than a little irritating.Pub Date: July 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-15817-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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