Golf Dreams: Writings on Golf - Hardcover

Updike, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679450580 ISBN 13: 9780679450580

Publisher: Knopf, 1996

Synopsis

rare and wonderful coming together of author and subject, Golf Dreams includes 30 pieces by bestselling author John Updike, culled from various sources--The New Yorker, Golf Digest, and his own fiction--which knowingly cover everything from the peculiar charms of bad golf to the camaraderie of good golf and the perils of its present boom. Line drawings.

About this title

About the Author

John Updike was born in 1932, in Shillington, Pennsylvania.  His novels have won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the American Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Howell's Medal.

From the Inside Flap

derful coming together of author and subject, Golf Dreams includes 30 pieces by bestselling author John Updike, culled from various sources--The New Yorker, Golf Digest, and his own fiction--which knowingly cover everything from the peculiar charms of bad golf to the camaraderie of good golf and the perils of its present boom. Line drawings.

Reviews

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 gathering of 30 previously published fictional works, articles, and essays demonstrates Updike's ``impassioned but imperfect devotion'' to the game of golf. ``Golf,'' wrote Updike in a 1972 essay, ``inspires as much verbiage as astrology.'' In this collection, it soon becomes clear that few other things have nourished the author's work more than his nearly 40-year-long relationship with golf and the golfing life. Included here are his reminiscences about first picking up the game at the age of 25 and his musings about growing up and growing old out on the links--all given voice here by his recurring fictional alter ego, Harry ``Rabbit'' Angstrom. When not pondering life's greater questions, Updike rails against the use of motorized carts by able-bodied persons; exposes the ``Gimme Game,'' a unique and universally accepted form of cheating; studies the complex relationship between golfer and caddy; logs some valuable couch time watching televised golf; revels in the solitary joy of a late- season round on a desolate Massachusetts course; and dares to ask the burning question on every duffer's mind: Will success spoil the game of golf? This collection, like golf itself, seems to dwell occasionally on the picayune. However, as with much of Updike's previous work, this volume read whole is more than the sum of it's parts. Besides, it's charming to read one of this generation's most accomplished men of letters describing his love/hate relationship with golf--a game that saps one's patience and retards one's fashion sense--as ``one misery that doesn't necessarily love company.'' An enjoyable experience cover-to-cover and tee-to-green. (First printing of 75,000) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Updike recounts his love affair with golf, which he began playing at age 25, through 30 pieces that originally appeared in magazines and novels. His method is to present stories or episodes interspersed with interpretation. In a short story culled from the novel Rabbit, Run (1960), Harry Angstrom is reintroduced to the game by the Reverend Jack Eccles, the role model of the story, who turns on Rabbit while they are playing golf: "The truth is, you're monstrously selfish. You're a coward. You don't care about right or wrong." Older duffers will also enjoy Updike's observations on golf etiquette, or lack thereof, from today's younger players, who "scoot around in their carts whacking divots the size of beach towels... and never think to replace one." Updike's book, though it provides apt and insightful commentary and is often humorous, may at times be heavy going for the less literate golf reader. For sports and literature collections.
-?James A. Paxman, Tennessee State Univ., Nashville
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

If you play golf and you're interested in literature, you almost certainly have used the fact that John Updike also plays golf to fend off those who would demean your politically incorrect, socially reactionary hobby. "Yes, but Updike is an avid golfer," you opine as yet another handball-playing, left-leaning intellectual scoffs at golf's corporate image or its polyester wardrobe. At last there is an actual book with which to substantiate the Updike-as-golfer defense, and if it is largely made up of less-than-compelling ephemera (speeches, tournament-program essays, and the like), there are enough jewels here to further prove George Plimpton's claim that the smaller the ball, the better the literature its sport produces. Among the highlights are "Drinking from a Cup Made Cinchy," in which Updike lampoons golf instructionals with elaborate advice on how to hold a teacup, and "Farrell's Caddie," a delightful short story in which a curmudgeonly Scottish caddie gives his employer advice on far more than which club to use. Fans of the Rabbit novels will also enjoy "Three Rounds with Rabbit Angstrom," in which the oft-frustrated Rabbit finds little relief on the links. Throughout, Updike on golf marries the writer's ever-elegant style with the ingratiating humility of an 18-handicapper whose bad shots far outnumber his good ones. Golf Dreams won't match the popularity of the Rabbit novels, but it is certain to liberate plenty of golfing literati from their guilt-induced closets. Bill Ott

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0679450580
• ISBN 13: 9780679450580
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224