A Knight’s Tale

Within the sports world, there are few more compelling figures that Bob Knight. The long-time coach of the University of Indiana, recently resigned from the head coaching job at Texas Tech, few coaches aroused such passionate prosecutions and defenses by commentators and fans. Patrolling the sideline as he did, with his famous scowl and that volcanic temper seething just below the surface at all times, he seemed capable of  things both wonderful and terrible. And there is evidence to support both – he took an undertalented team to the national championship in 1986-87; and he famously threw a chair across the court during a game in 1985. The celebrity Bobby Knight is an angry caricature. But what about the private Knight?

John Feinstein set out to discover this when he wrote Season on the Brink about the 1985-86 Indiana University basketball team. The book is over 20 years old now, but deserves a reading from every fan of college sports, not just basketball. Given access to all aspects of team life during the year, the book gives the reader a rare glimpse into the day-to-day workings of a major college basketball team, and more interestingly, gives the reader the chance to spend some time under the tutelage of Bobby Knight. Knight is most known for his explosive outbursts of anger, yet many of his players would go to the wall in his defense. He is widely regarded as a master basketball teacher and tactician, but was essentially run out of Indiana, where he had coached for 29 years.

The Knight that Feinstein presents us with is one who is constantly nagged by his own insecure need to win, and his unwillingness to take any of the blame when things go wrong. It is always the players who don’t do correctly what he teaches them, or who don’t try hard enough, or who don’t care enough. And make no mistake, nobody cares as much about winning as Knight himself. Feinstein points out that Knight has a good relationship with Digger Phelps – something that continues to this day – but would probably be different if Knight did not have a career winning record against Phelps.

Knight never considers the suggestion that part of the problem with his team might be his own methods of motivation; or his own approach. To his credit, he does at times attempt a softer approach, but these are often short, token interludes. One of the more fascinating aspects of the book is Knight’s relationship with his player Steve Alford, who famously went on to become a successful coach at Iowa and at New Mexico, and from whom Knight is now estranged.

Knight has his defenses. He is known to be generous. He graduates a high percentage of his players. He rarely has players that get in trouble with the law. Yet it is the more spectacular misdeeds that attract the eye and ultimately, define the persona.

Knight’s misdeeds are many and documented – just check his wikipedia entry if you don’t believe me – and the year chronicled in the book contains none of the more famous or recent ones. But it is a good illustration that sometimes the public persona is not softened by the private personal, but rather is reinforced.

Feinstein’s writing is, of course, excellent. It is extremely readable, simple and direct, with no hint of the hubris that infects some sportswriters (though Feinstein does have a regular comment on NPR, something that isn’t good for sports guys). The book is a fantastic read, and well worth purchasing if you are a sports fan. This is one book that still stands strong 20 years later.

 

DC Not So Confidential

Tales from political insiders often promise much in the way of revelation and instead reveal little more than ego-driven chest pounding. Indeed, one only needs to crack Bill Clinton’s Ben Hur-esque My Life to see one who looks on himself as perhaps the most gifted and effective (and verbose) leader ever. However, in DC Confidential, former British Ambassador to the USA Christopher Meyer gives a memoir of a career in which the author was often not the biggest personality in the room. The question is whether Meyer is gracious enough to get out of the way and let the reader observe the true power-brokers with whom Meyer must deal on a daily basis.

For the most part, he does. Meyer’s stories of encounters with American presidents Clinton and Bush, British Prime Ministers Thatcher, Major, and Blair, as well as other luminaries such as Al Gore, Rupert Murdoch, Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and others are often illuminating. That is not to say that Meyer is shy about sharing his own impressions; he is not. But often one is able to take Meyer’s candid shots and compare them to what one knows of the people’s public persona.

Meyer is also able to paint portraits that are not complete, but in many ways more intimate than what that person’s public profile. His portrayal of George W. Bush as a quick learner, someone who was in charge of his people, and a politician’s politician reveals a different side of Bush than is normally seen. Meyer compares Bush to other natural politicians Clinton and Blair, those who instinctively connect with the very people from whom they want to garner support. On the other hand, both Gore and Kerry are portrayed as intelligent wonks who were ineffective campaigners, a trait which likely cost both of them their respective elections.

Meyer, as ambassador to the US, also has some interesting observations on its culture and people. Usually, however, these do not cross the threshold to real insight, but rather exist clearly as observations from an outsider. As an American reader, I felt like Meyer observed astutely, but never really delved deeper into why America was the way it was. Perhaps this is the curse of the lifelong civil servant – to understand the way things are, but never to ask why. On this count, though Meyer makes several good observations that I daresay many Americans have never articulated. One in particular stands out. When Meyer is describing presidential elections, he spends some time discussing how successful candidates often present themselves as outsiders, and he points out several examples. As I was reading it, I couldn’t help but think of Obama and his current message of “Change/hope/more change.”

Meyer’s idealogical/political biases are evident throughout, seen especially in his distaste for New Labour and the “Third Way” movement in politics. Meyer is a Tory, but spent several years serving a Labour government that comes in for much criticism. At times, this is a slight burden for the book.

The books great selling point is that Meyer was in Washington on 9/11 and during the run-up to the Iraq War. His observations on this count are interesting, but not often revelatory. It will dispel some of the more readily accepted leftist myths about the desire for war in Iraq. The books is well-written and very readable, and one who has an interest in American politics of the last 10 years or so will find it interesting.

 

Marcus Luttrell, Lone Survivor

Marcus Luttrell’s Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 is a tough read. It’s not that it is poorly written or terribly boring. Au contraire, it is engaging from the very beginning and, despite a few awkward turns of phrases, will captivate any reader. The reason it is such a tough read is because it is sure to evoke emotions and empathy from the most hardened reader.

 

The book is mostly autobiographical, recounting how a boy from east Texas eventually joined the United States Navy and made his way into its elite SEAL teams. But it especially focuses on a military operation he was part of in Afghanistan in which his entire reconnaissance team and a rescue party was killed by Taliban fighters.

 

Petty Officer Luttrell amazingly lived to tell the story. I don’t want to recount any more of it here though. It would never do justice to what Luttrell and his friends went through. If you want to know more about this hero and those who sacrificed their lives for their country, you’ll have to read it for yourself. You will not regret it.

 

Eat. Pray. Love.

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
Elizabeth Gilbert

 

For those of you not in the loop of suburban book clubs—this book is all the rage. I received it as a gift. I hope it was given to me because I am known as someone who likes to travel, eat, and pray. I prefer this to the rather less flattering possibility that it was given to me because I am known as a self-absorbed, hedonistic, spiritual lightweight.

 

The book is billed as a kind of spiritual travelogue. At age 30 Elizabeth Gilbert suffered a full-blown existential crisis brought on by the realization that she did not want to have a baby. Rather, she wanted to get a divorce and set off on a very high-class version of the classic road trip. She spent a year eating in Italy, meditating in India, and whatevering in Indonesia.

 

I picked this book off a shelf at a neighbors’ house on New Years Eve (it was an effigy burning party with pirate costumes optional) and asked the hostess what she thought of the book. Her reply: “That woman needs some real problems.”

 

The book’s organization is modeled on the japa mala—strings of Indian prayer beads. The japa mala has 108 beads, the book has 108 short chapters. The book is further divided into 36 chapters for each country that Gilbert visited. These short chapters are the perfect length to read while sitting in the car waiting for sweaty middle schoolers to finish soccer practice and fantasizing that you too could be fully spiritually developed if only you were on a beach in Indonesia. The book is spiritual chick lit. Occasionally, it verges on theological porn.

 

Gilbert is an accomplished and charming writer. There is, however, a limit to the amount of time that I can be charmed by the whinging of a rich white woman on a Grand Tour. I found that limit to be approximately 50 pages.

 

Her positive self-talk is particularly inane. “I’m right here. What can I do for you?” she writes to herself. “I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with you.” Please. Please. For the 21^st century could we possibly declare self-love the “love that dare not speak its name.” We’ve all heard quite enough.

 

Very few people have the resources and freedom to take a year off to think about life. Those of us who have taken “the road more traveled” will have to learn to experience pleasure without three months in Italy… We will have to self-actualize in the basement doing laundry… We will have to find ourselves in the parking lot of Target… For that project this book offers very little.

Cook. Drive. Laugh. Don’t take your problems too seriously. And if you are looking for a little escapist fantasy try a few pages of Eat. Pray. Love.

 

 

 

So you wanna be a Rock Star? You sure about that?

Slash
Slash with Anthony Bozza

For any child of the 80’s and 90’s, Guns N’ Roses defined the culmination of hard rock. I was 16 when I got a copy of Appetite for Destruction, and I knew things would not be the same after that. I mean, who can go back to listening to the facile hits of Poison, or Twisted Sister, or even Mötley Crüe (and I really liked Mötley Crüe) after one has heard the darkness, the hardness, the unprettiness of “Welcome to the Jungle” or “Paradise City”?

GNR really consisted of three excellent elements - Slash’s screeching guitar, Duff/Izzy/Stephen laying down the rhythm of the song, and then Axl’s vocals with his distinctive shriek. I was entranced by it. I listened to it over and over, and enjoyed each song for the little nuance that it would bring.

So it was with some interest that I began to read Slash’s rock bio, creatively titled Slash and co-written with Anthony Bozza. This being only the second rock bio I have ever read (the other was about Mötley Crüe - I told you I really liked them), I was interested to see how it was approached. And it did not take long for the main message of the book to sink in.

The rock-star life sucks. In fact, after reading this book, I don’t think I would really want to be a rock star. Sure, being up on stage in front of 50,000 people who all respond to everything you do would be an incredible rush, but it’s the rest of the time when it would be a drag. Both Slash’s story and the Mötley bio reveal - perhaps unintentionally - the unpleasant side effects of being a rock star.

And there are many unpleasant side effects: needing drugs/alcohol to get through the day; arguments with band-mates over money; performance and creative issues; being on the road for long, long stretches of time; the inability to maintain a steady, normal relationship because of the touring, drugs, groupies, etc; the fact that when you start out, you generally are great friends with the guys in your band, but if you make it big, this rarely stays the case; watching a high number friends die/kill themselves from drug-overdoses, alcohol poisoning, suicide, whatever; the required stints in rehab, and the relapses.

Slash and Bozza have done a good job of making a readable work. Nonetheless, the content is inevitably disappointing, as one discovers that the things that were big in the bands life during a certain period rarely mimic the romantic notions we had when we were fans of that band. For instance, I would’ve loved to have read more about the collaborative process that brought some of the songs together, but that is glossed over a bit so that Slash can talk about his living arrangements and who he roomed with. Not that the latter isn’t interesting, it’s just that I am reading this because of how much I loved the music. It’s not necessarily Slash’s fault, either, it’s just that he associates different things with certain songs than I do. It’s just the nature of the beast.

Yet, the book is still a fun read. There is enough backstage revelation to make the GNR fan happy. There are some incredible stories in the book - mostly having to do with narcotics - that are very entertaining, funny, and weird. Axl, of course, looms large, but the relationships between Slash and Duff and Steven are perhaps more interesting, and less known.

There is also the requisite presentation of Slash’s version of the breakup of Guns, detailing why he felt it necessary to quit when he did, and what he did to try to understand the route that Axl was taking. There is also good narrative on the formation of Velvet Revolver with Matt Sorum, Duff, Slash, and Scott Weiland from STP. For fans of GNR, this books is well worth the price.

 

Innocence

An Innocent Man
John Grisham

I have something of a love/hate relationship with John Grisham’s books. I loved The Firm and The Partner and The Testament. Real page turners, all. But I found The Client predictable and The Street Lawyer preachy and The Last Juror mostly just dull. A Time to Kill was in a category of its own, with both love and hate. I loved the first 95% of the book, but the ending was weak.

Which brings me to An Innocent Man, Grisham’s 20^th book and the 12^th of his that I’ve read (a fact I’m slightly embarrassed to admit publicly). This is the true story of Ron Williamson, an Oklahoma man who was convicted of raping and murdering a local teen in a galling travesty of justice. He was sentenced to die for these crimes that he did not commit. All of this information is available on the back cover of the book. It is also a summary of the book’s first 200 pages. And this is the problem with the book. Grisham wrote the first 200 pages as though the reader does not already know that Williamson would be convicted and sentenced to death. As if the reader would be in suspense. I found it excruciating! Probably the author was trying to establish in the readers’ minds just how terrible was the miscarriage of justice, but he could have done so in half the pages.

Then in the middle of the book there are a few pages of photographs of the people involved in the book. These photos are captioned, and some of them give away the answer to the pressing question of the second half of the book, whether Williamson would ever be released. Although it would seem that this should have made the second half of the book as bad as the first, that actually isn’t the case. While not exactly gripping, there are some fascinating subplots and human interest angles that make the second half a worthwhile read. The book finishes well.

So to whom would I recommend this book? Diehard Grisham fans – it is, after all, still John Grisham, even if it isn’t his best effort. Also, if you have a bleeding heart, An Innocent Man will warm its cockles. But I might also recommend it to staunch advocates of the death penalty. The way the Williamson case progressed was so perverse that a fiction work using the same facts would be implausible and probably never published. As the author no doubt intended, this book effectively raises the spectre of a ‘perfect storm’ of police corruption, prosecutorial zeal and judicial incompetence converging to deprive an innocent person of liberty and possibly life. That should be disturbing to anyone.