The Boys of Summer
This is a book about young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and then went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the team that broke the color barrier with Jackie Robinson. It is a book by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. This is a book about what happened to Jackie, Carl Erskine, Pee Wee Reese, and the others when their glory days were behind them. In short, it is a book about America, about fathers and sons, prejudice and courage, triumph and disaster, and told with warmth, humor, wit, candor, and love.
Product Details
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
"At a point in life when one is through with boyhood, but has not yet discovered how to be a man, it was my fortune to travel with the most marvelously appealing of teams." Sentimental because it holds such promise, and bittersweet because that promise is past, the first sentence of this masterpiece of sporting literature, first published in the early '70s, sets its tone. What follows only gets better, deeper, more sentimental, and more bittersweet. The team, of course, is the mid-20th-century Brooklyn Dodgers, the team of Robinson and Snyder and Hodges and Reese, a team of great triumph and historical import composed of men whose fragile lives were filled with dignity and pathos. Roger Kahn, who covered that team for the New York Herald Tribune, makes understandable humans of his heroes as he chronicles the dreams and exploits of their young lives, beautifully intertwining them with his own, then recounts how so many of those sweet dreams curdled as the body of these once shining stars grew rusty with age and battered by experience. It is the rare sports book that cannot be contained by the limitations of its genre; it is equal parts journalism, memoir, social history, and poetry.
Review
"To writer Roger Kahn, the old Brooklyn Dodgers National League baseball team is a forever a priceless violin and he is the bow which must play upon it. This isn't a book; it's a love affair between a man, his team, and an era." -- Christian Science Monitor
"A work of high purpose and poetic accomplishment. The finest American book on sports. I commend it without qualification." -- James Michener
"Kahn's book is marvelous...a splendid historical work. It is about youthful dreams in small American towns and big cities decades ago, and how some of these dreams where fulfilled, and about what happened to those dreamers after reality and old age arrived. It is also a book about ourselves, those of us who shared and identified with the dreams and glories of our heroes." -- Gay Talese
"Roger Kahn has achieved the near impossible in his The Boys of Summer by writing two splendid books in one, neither of which, strangely enough, is a sports book although baseball is the central theme of both. To Mr. Kahn, 'people' is the name of the game, and it's a game he plays with brilliance, insight and thoughtfulness. To say that I 'enjoyed' the book is to say that winning a World Championship is 'interesting', owing a derby winner 'nice', and starring in the Super Bowl 'fun'." -- Bill Veeck
"What most people look for in a book is a good story. Roger Kahn gives us about fifteen of them woven into one coherent narrative that is moving and funny and sentimental (about people and things that merit sentiment) and cynical (about those that don't)." -- Ring Lardner, Jr.
About the Author
Roger Kahn, a prize-winning author, grew up in Brooklyn, where he says everybody on the boys' varsity baseball team at his prep school wanted to play for the Dodgers. None did. He has written nineteen books. Like most natives of Brooklyn, he is distressed that the Dodgers left. "In a perfect world," he says, "the Dodgers would have stayed in Brooklyn and Los Angeles would have gotten the Mets."
Customer Reviews
Memories of Mid Century Urban Baseball
Another baseball classic written by a middle aged reporter about the life and times spent when he was young and there were Dodgers in Brooklyn.
"Dem Bums" resided in mid century Flatbush where the resident fans always cried "wait until next year!" and Roger Kahn provides 442 pages of sheer baseball delight.
Kahn's prose gives a sense of community and family in New York's most populated borough. You can sense that in visioning a walk on a mid summer's night in Brooklyn, in which you can follow the evening's game on residents radios on your stroll to wherever.
Kahn relates the many varied personalities that formed this eclectic group. The frustrations of winning pennants but losing World Series'. The madness of losing a pennant on the last day of the season. And the ultimate embarrassment of losing to them "Gints" in the so called "Miracle on Coogan's Bluff".
All told, an exciting story lived out in real time in Brooklyn in mid century urban America. Oh those memories! Kahn tells the good and the bad. The triumphs and the heartaches. The book gives a true reflection of baseball emulating the ups and downs of life.
In the end, Mr. Kahn follows up on the post baseball careers of these fine men. Some are bitter and others are reflective and grateful. This is a classic book telling a story which all baseball fans would appreciate.
Hall of Fame Book
The genius of Roger Kahn's THE BOYS OF SUMMER is that it ultimately isn't about baseball. It is about the character of a group of men who magically matched the character of a place. The greatness of these Dodgers, the greatness of Brooklin was their perseverance in the face of defeat. And that, according to Kahn, is what makes them enduringly great.
A must read. Deserves its reputation as a classic.
The Great American Game
Baseball is integrated into the national consciousness unlike any sport. Football may be our most popular sport now, but baseball is intrinsically linked to our past and our future. The Boys of Summer is a semi-biographical tale of Mr. Kahn as a young reporter embedded with the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950's. Written in a whimsical style befitting America's Past Time, Kahn weaves a complex tale of Jackie Robinson's Dodgers, experiencing everything from blind racism in the South, racial tension among players, the broken hearts after Bobby Thompson's "Shot Heard Round The World", elation of winning the pennant, and the heartbreaking losses to the hated cross-town rivals, the Yankees. It is a well-crafted glimpse into baseball history. It humanizes baseball legends such as Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella, and Robinson himself as they lived their lives both during and after baseball.
The strength of this novel is Kahn's uncanny ability to strip away the legend, showing the humanizing flaws of the players, while maintaining their place as some of the most colorful and historically significant players in baseball history. The writing style has clear journalistic influences, it flows well, doesn't bog you down with needless metaphors, and delivers the facts quickly. Another unique aspect of this novel is how strongly Kahn's love of the game shows through. You make an emotional connection with these players in much the same way he himself developed that connection. Though he was reporter, his love of the Dodgers was always foremost in his mind.
If you are a baseball fan this book must be on your list of must-reads. Though we live decades after these famous Brooklyn Dodgers, we mustn't forget the tremendous feats these players achieved (particularly Robinson), and their incredible contributions to baseball history. One of the best baseball books ever written, and a must read for any fan.
Related Links : Product by Amazon or shopping-lifestyle-20 Store
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น