- Hardcover
- Publisher: Random House Large Print (Aug 20 1996)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0676991637
- ISBN-13: 978-0676991635
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 626 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
How lucky can an editor be? When legendary New Yorker editor William Shawn wanted a writer to review a book on golf, he could turn to novelist John Updike. Updike, a devoted golfer, was delighted to take on the assignment. That review of Michael Murphy's Golf In the Kingdom is contained -- along with essays from Golf Digest, The New York Times Book Review and other publications -- in Golf Dreams. Rounding out the collection of 30 pieces are excerpts from Updike's classic fiction, including Three Rounds With Rabbit Angstrom.
--This text refers to an alternate
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
In his preface to this volume of essays and short fiction, longtime golfer Updike speculates that his addiction to the sport has "stolen my life away." But this collection of pieces written between 1959 and 1995 illustrates that, even if his swing has become less supple, his ruminations on the game retain their vitality. As he addresses the frustrations, humiliations and rare "soaring grandeur" of the game, Updike's dry wit and ironic insight enliven such entries as a spoof on instruction books and an evaluation of viewing golf on TV. Essays range in theme from the specific ("The Big Bad Boom") to the ethical (the moral imperatives of "The Gimme Game") to the philosophical: "Many men are more faithful to their golf partners than to their wives." Generally, those pieces written originally for sports magazines tend to contain more technical detail, while the three short stories and selections from three of the Rabbit novels illuminate how a day on the links can reveal character and the hand of destiny. If there is a general theme, it is that golf can be both a mystical experience and infernal torture, what Updike calls "the bliss and aggravation of the sport." Diehard aficionados will find all of this collection entertaining and meaningful; and even duffers will appreciate Updike's lucid prose and command of metaphor. Christmas sales seem assured here, with a resurgence for Father's Day next year. 75,000 first printing; simultaneous Random House audio.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
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First Sentence
THEY STEAL upon the sleeping mind while winter steals upon the landscape, sealing the inviting cups beneath sheets of ice, cloaking the contours of the fairway in snow. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt
THEY STEAL upon the sleeping mind while winter steals upon the landscape, sealing the inviting cups beneath sheets of ice, cloaking the contours of the fairway in snow. Read the first page
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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
A Horror Anthology?,
By Readhead "Spellbinder" (Alameda, CA USA) - See all my reviews
Ce commentaire est de: Golf Dreams: Writings on Golf (Hardcover)
I find it interesting that this book was included in the selection of Horror Anthologies.Given the way I feel about golf, it was all too appropriate!
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Writer's Wry Look at Golf's Challenges and Pleasures,
By Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 112,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (#1 HALL OF FAME)
Ce commentaire est de: Golf Dreams: Writings on Golf (Hardcover)
I am always a little at a loss to review a work like this which has 30 essays, short stories, and poems in it, humorously illustrated by the talented Paul Szep. Obviously, in a thousand words I cannot review each work. However, there's also no relevant way to give you an overview except to say that this is much of the best writing about golf that anyone has ever done, looking beyond how to improve your score. Let me share a few highlights with you, much like you might compliment a golf partner on the best shots in his or her round. Imagine that we are all having a tall cool beverage while I do this after finishing a long, hot round. I thought the funniest work was "Drinking from a Cup Made Cinchey" written in 1959. Updike has obviously had a golf lesson or two, as the other works make clear. This essay is a satire on all of those instructional articles that you find in Golf Digest. Updike begins by pointing out that occasionally there's a slip between cup and lip (but he humorously avoids that phrase). So he takes the simple task of picking up a cup and drinking something from it, and writes it up in golf instructional style. I couldn't stop laughing. I think I got a better idea of the golf swing from this non-golf swing instruction than I ever did from taking a lesson! "Swing Thoughts" from 1984 captures the problems that we all have with using the conscious mind too much, but with more self-consciousness than even the most self-conscious golfer ever had. The part I least agreed with was "The Trouble with a Caddie." Updike doesn't like them, but I find having a caddie one of the pleasures of the game. He dislikes everything from the company to handling the tip. Perhaps it is hard for someone with a solitary occupation like writing to get over that preference for solitude. Book tours must be rough! The best fiction was "Farrell's Caddie" from 1991 with all due respect to the Rabbit Angstrom material that is well known from the Rabbit books. It transcends golf in a valuable way. The best poem was "Upon Winning One's Flight in the Senior Four-Ball" from 1994. Many of Updike's later works look ironically on the effects of our changing golf fortunes as the body starts to produce less and less satisfying golf. This one is very well done without having the negative tone that some of the others do, hinting at decay and death. The book is divided ino three sections: (1) Learning the Game (2) Loving the Game and (3) Playing the Game. The works are about equally distributed among the sections. If you're a golfer, you know that people love to give golf-related gifts but never know what to give. I suggest you solve their problem by putting this book on your Amazon.com wish list. Then on those cold winter's nights, you can curl up with this book to help you conjure up your own golf dreams!
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Almighty Updike,
Ce commentaire est de: Golf Dreams (Paperback)
When John Updike brings the depth and breadth of his intelligence to bear upon a subject, the light of his insight and wisdom radiates from his silky prose. One expects to be enlightened as he reviews contemporary novels or tackles current questions of theology. I didn't know what to expect from his essays on golf, but having read "Golf Dreams", I would say that Updike loves this enigmatic game every bit as much as he loves fiction, theology, and philosophy. If we find a writer's love in his attention to detail, then in these essays Updike shares his deep love not only in the details of the game itself, but in the details of playing of golf in New England and his love for his golfing companions. It is as if in a life of a writing discipline, book tours, speaking engagements, and other demands, Updike can rely upon the fidelity of his foursome and the bucolic mysticism of golf itself as a source of constant and dependable pleasure. Fortunately, because like most of us who play, Updike's pleasure does not depend upon his mastery of the game; but our reading pleasure does depend on Updike's mastery of lucid prose to express his golf dreams.
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