Review: What a Ride – An Australian Pursuit of the Tour De France – Rupert Guinness

I think the difficulty for Rupert Guinness (an incredibly talented wordsmith on this most gruelling of sports) is that in the past 25 years that he has covered Le Tour, thanks largely to his own impeccable efforts, Australian sporting fans have become all too familiar with it. No longer is this a totally foreign event raced by very few outside of continental Europe, it has become an Australian obsession each July. No longer are highlights packages wedged into unholy hours on television, but front and centre every night as Mum, Dad and the kids sit down for tea.

Courtesy: fishpond.com.au

This book by Guinness are his perspectives, memories and hindsight reflections from a year in year out love affair he has had with the event since the mid-1980s. Guinness over this time has elevated himself not just in the eyes of the Australian cycling fan fraternity but in the eyes of the tour as a whole.

The book is actually more a memoir of Guinness' time as a cycling journalist, centred around the one race every year that everyone really cares about. The sophistication of his writing methods, connection to those in and around the peloton, and his courage in tackling stories front-on grow with each passing years description of what he got up to during July.

Because of our increasing familiarity with the tour, and its marathon rather than sprint character, we have all been granted time and space to become couch bound experts on just what each rider is doing, planning to do, or should have done. The stories in the book therefore are all too familiar and repetitive, and shed no further insight on what occurred in the race.

There are a couple of redeeming features that make the work worthwhile for the more passionate cycling fan to have a copy of it on their bookshelf. Firstly, Guinness does not just focus on the Australian riders who have become our staple diet. O'Grady, McEwan, Evans, Stephens and Anderson all receive pages of description on their heroics, but lesser known guys happy to have just been in the event in the first place such as Scott Sunderland, Allan Peiper, and Matt White are extolled also and provide the reader with a more rounded education of how Australia has grown to be a major force in providing talent to the tour.

Secondly, that the Australian sports journalism landscape is dominated by craftsperson's who have cut their teeth writing on football (be it any code) the tendency for them to miss the point of cycling stories or just describe them poorly is common. Guinness comes from this background also (Rugby Union) however his immersion in the sport of cycling has him better placed to write comment on difficult issues such as doping, and his rhetoric is enjoyable and far more enlightened than others. Marbles.

Note: The book finishes at the conclusion of 2010s tour, therefore does not include description of Cadel Evans' General Classification win in 2011.

Review: Finding Faith: A Search for What is Real – Brian McLaren

Carved away from the extended work “Finding Faith” which includes “A Search For What Makes Sense” this is Brian McLaren's work for the person like me – easily at home with discussing the theoretical, the abstract, the measurable, but who struggles to take faith to heart, to feel faith, to live faith naturally not cerebrally.

McLaren is a post-modernist thinker on evangelistic Christianity. Such labels mean little, simply my opinion from reading only these words of him is that he is a man who possesses one of the greatest desires I have experienced to deepen his complete knowledge (heart and head) of the human condition. While he has a strongly rooted biblical theology the tone and direction he takes his discussion of why his heart tells him his Christian faith is not exclusive, but inclusive.

Cover Image thanks to bookdepository.co.uk

In a world where more and more we are driven to categorise everything so to control and manage it is far easier to talk about the 'what' than the 'why'. Here lies what I believe the aim of McLaren's work is to this world. What is stated may still be correct to ones mind, but without ones heart the message will have no effect.

McLaren's technique's and application (or facilitation may be a better word) of Christian principles will grate with those who have had little experience (or desire) to move beyond binary approaches to faith, but this is their loss and not McLaren's fault. Though he may be accused of being, he is not a theological lightweight nor a populist. The discussion is rooted in scripture and does not shirk difficulties.

This work drew me out of the cerebral and excited my heart. I could read it 10 times over and remain challenged however its purpose is not to draw consensus, but to push further exploration. My first taste of McLaren's offerings and I will return again – Basketballs.

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Book review: Basketball Junkie, by Chris Herren and Bill Reynolds

Over the past twenty years the NBA has a remarkable success rate at weeding out drug addicts. In the mid-eighties, the league instituted a three-strikes policy aimed at ridding the league of the American popular image of '70s pro basketball: that of overpaid and over-coked players who cared more about fighting than defense. Several of the league's top talents fell victim to nose candy in the 1980s: David "Skywalker" Thompson and Walter "The Greyhound" Davis managed to sustain effective NBA careers. However, guys like Chris Washburn, Richard Dumas and Roy Tarpley - I could name a dozen more off the top of my head - couldn't, and found themselves banished to eternal European ball.

Of all of these players, the one common denominator was talent. Each of them, from Thompson, who could have been the best player in the game, to Washburn, who was drafted third in 1986, was supremely gifted and capable of multiple All-Star games. Many were unable to control their habit, let alone sufficiently enough to function at NBA levels.

The same could be said of Chris Herren, one of the best ballers ever to come out of New England. His memoir "Basketball Junkie" portrays the life of an athlete blessed with talent, but cursed with addiction.

http://www.basketballjunkie.net/where-to-buy/

Herren was born to be a basketball star, and followed his brother as one of the greatest players in the history of Durfee High School, a storied Massachusetts basketball programme. At sixteen, he was so good - and messed up by "maturing" in small, working class Fall River - he was the subject of the best-seller "Fall River Dreams". The book, by journalist Bill Reynolds (with whom Herren collaborated in writing Basketball Junkie), reported the licence afforded teen athletes in a town where basketball is king.

Chris Herren managed to play two NBA seasons around the the time of the last NBA lockout. I use the verb "managed" because he did played while fighting, and eventually succumbing to, addiction to alcohol and opiates (including oxycontin and heroin). That he had the talent to play basketball was for a time perhaps his one saving grace, even though it was no longer a game for him: it was expectation, pressure and success. At his leve, playing basketball - in Denver, Boston, Italy, Turkey, China or Iran - meant he had the money to buy the drugs he needed to function.

There are two striking features of Herren's memoir: how easy it is to slip from "partying" to addiction; and secondly, simply, how functionally dependent he (and by extension, other addicts) became on opiates. What started as "Hey, I'd like to party with you" turned into mailing packages of Oxycontin to hotels he would be staying at on road trips so he could sustain his NBA form - and pay cheque. Herren wasn't addicted to getting high, but his body so craved the gear that he was completely unable to function without it. Graphic descriptions of withdrawal symptoms and his fear of both those symptoms and his future make for compelling and memorable reading.

His yearlong spell as a Celtic is effectively a haze, as it was for him at the time. He writes about how he could obtain drugs in almost any setting, from deepest, darkest China and Iran to flying into Providence airport, finding a dealer and then flying out again. The lengths he went to in order to score - like driving around Fall River with a needle in his arm and his baby daughter in the back seat.

He writes frankly about substance abuse beginning in his teen years to final, gut-wrenching, sobriety in 2008. This should-be joyous occasion, isn't so much celebrated as Championship victory but, in typical Herren matter-of-fact fashion, describes the rehab facility and every fearsome slip he made throughout.  You can sense some of the hallmarks of rehab in his words: ownership, reality and an almost total lack of astonishment at his past.

 The rehab process is depicted with the same grit and fear characterising the rest of the narrative. There is only one epiphany, the choice he describes as leading him to the choice he says all recovering addicts have to make in order to survive.  There's no trophy at the end of this longest season, only normalcy most take for granted.

This isn't a basketball book. Because Chris Herren scored more in back streets than in the NBA, it's an addict's memoir where the author is also good at basketball. There's little doubt in the reader's mind he would have been in a similar, but less fiscal, situation had basketball not taken him out of Fall River. The young Herren didn't dream of the Lakers, but Durfee High School and State championships.

To lose one's independence is a frightening thought; in fact, it may be the very concept people fear most. To become utterly dependent on a chemical is even more of a scary concept. Basketball Junkie tells how Chris Herren became totally dependent and later details the factors which allowed him to regain his life

Basketball Junkie is dirty, honest and frightening. Basketballs.

Review: Excalibur, by Bernard Cornwell

Just when you start leaning away from a storyline, you find yourself captured within it again. In Excalibur, Bernard Cornwell follows perhaps his most dreary - Enemy of God - with his most exciting work. I loved this book.

The master of historical adventure once again throws his reader straight into a complex system of political intrigue and glorious - but frightening - battles. There really isn't much more that I can say about Cromwell's style and evident skill, having written some four previous reviews of his books.

Nor can I compare again the similarity between heroes, the intricate characterisations, the utmost respect he afford women - especially "thinkers" - or that the impeccable research that allows him to describe past events so clearly and vividly. At this stage, it's best to focus solely on story.

Excalibur is one giant, 440-page climax. It's Return of the Jedi, but not crap. In fact, I enjoyed this book as much or more than any of the author's works since his superb Grail Quest series (which in fact rate amongst the best books I've ever read). To quickly end a tawdry analogy, where Enemy of God, much like Empire, was slower-paced and acted as scene-setter, this Excalibur starts quickly, accelerates further and ends with a final confrontation set within a greater skirmish.

Better still, none of the heroes inexplicably turn into chumps.

All the individual story lines are deftly woven together to form a Bayeux tapestry not of Hastings, but of Dumnonian politics in the sixth century. The novel of course ends with the Battle of Camlann, leading Arthur to sail into the fog accompanied by characters who would otherwise have made for frustrating loose ends, Guinevere and Galahad.

While refusing to wholeheartedly embrace magic - and therefore delve into the fantasy that Arthurian fiction usually occupies - Cornwell still utilises mystical characters Merlin and Nimue at key junctures, often accompanying each appearance with some sort of explanation for their spells. There's a symmetry in Nimue assembling an Army of the Damned and further circular resolution brought to Derfel's faith (and paternity), Mordred's Kingly "reign" and the romance of Guinevere and Arthur, thought so fractured at the preceding book's conclusion.

Even though so much occurs, there are still moments of peace and pace; the signs of a master craftsman. To draw even further on a Star Wars thread, what made the first movie so great was it's pacing: fast, but narrative and smooth. Empire had much the same feel at a slower, expository amble. Fiction, no matter what the genre, works best when it's paced well.

In retrospect it's this uneven pacing that made Enemy of God (even though it scored okaaay) a heavy read. The conclusion paced so as for maximal enjoyment and narrative pleasure. Conclusions always fall into two groups - those that satisfy, and those that don't. This one, without question, is a most wonderful closure. Basketballs.

Review: Hemingway's Chair – Michael Palin

Michael Palin is more famous for his Monty Python exploits and latterly his adventurous travel documentaries that have drawn many in as he explored relatively ignored tourist destinations. But he does have another string to an incredibly large bow, he has a genuine knack for story telling.

Hemingway's Chair was written and published in the early to mid 1990s when Britain (and in fact much of the western world) began to make tough decisions to sell off to private interests government enterprise. Although in the end much of the change was inevitable, the decisions did leave scars as many perceived that what used to be the pillars of British society were being knocked down.

No 'pillar' destruction potentially tugged more at the heart strings of communities than the sale of the local post office, and around this is where, in the fictional East Anglian town of Theston, Palin takes up his story. An assistant Post Office Manager in Martin Sproule finds his dreams of making the full step up to Manager of Theston's post office are taken away by the privateers. Martin however does not go down without a fight, his strength drawn from his encyclopaedic knowledge of the works of and man himself in Ernest Hemingway.

The book is an engaging as well as light hearted story that is in no way predictable. The characters are mad to begin with, and just keep getting madder. Martin idolises his 'Papa' (Hemingway) and as his life unravels further he is drawn into living a life parallel to the tragic authors. The ending comes suddenly, and with no wrapping up of perceived loose ends that takes strength as a reader to accept as reasonable.

Palin is a devotee himself of Hemingway's work. One of his travel series took him to the corners of the earth that the author inhabited during his life. The knowledge that he has of the man through research and having read his work no doubt comes through the story subtly, however lives well below the perception of someone like myself who has no familiarity with Hemingway.

Despite my own limitations it is an entertaining read, and if you are knowledgeable on Hemingway it may be even more so. Tennis Balls.

Review: Enemy of God, by Bernard Cornwell

Bernard Cornwell is nothing if not formulaic.  His historical novels are set around major turning points in English military history, his heroes enlightened and their heroines broken free of the servitude inherent in Dark Age womanhood.  Like that masterpiece of 1980s computer gaming Double Dragon, the hero must face a powerful enemy at the end of each novel, signalling his progression into a knowledgeable and wise being, rather than a smart, love-lorn warrior.

In Enemy of God, Lord Derfel Cadarn beats a familiar path in moving from impetuousity to a respected, sage Warlord, aided by the love of a good woman - perhaps Cornwell best drawn heroine, stands by his lord, Arthur, and drives the plot forward in simple, easily digestible morsels.

Courtesy: Tower.com

Does this sound familiar?  It bloody well should, because I said exactly the same things about his latest Saxon Story, The Burning Land a six months ago.  And could have said much the same of the past four in that series.  The Warlord Chronicles aren't derivative as they predate the Saxon Stories by a number of years, but they certainly bear a close resemblance to one another.  Given some historian's perception that Arthur in fact took his name from King Alfred the Great, this is hardly surprising - but does make for a predictability which is actually now unwelcome.

That's not to say that the book is poorly written at all - it's his usual masterpiece of research, hijinks and intrigue.  Religion, as was it's wont at that time and still is now, plays a tremendously significant role in politics of the era, leading to the Arthur's titular role.  Arthur is portrayed as sympathetically as any of Cornwell's heroes and indeed heroines but with only one difference: despite all indications to the contrary throughout the text, like main protagonist Derfel, are simple one-layered men.  This explains why Derfel's tone throughout writing this first-person account is so loving - they are kindred.

In fact, the same one-layeredness could be said of almost all the men in the novel: from Saxon kings Aelle and Cerdic, to Lancelot, Galahad, Cuneglas, Mordred, Culwhch ... all have personality woven through their descriptions, but are at best single-tiered characters with a minimum of complexity.  What they do, they do well - as was the truth of those times.  As with The Burning Land, the most thickly layered characters are women; especially Guinevere, but also Nimue and Ceinwyn.  

Cornwell once stated that the Warlord Chronicles were his favourite completed works.  They are easy reads and tell a great story with a new vigour and outlook: one of the only accounts of Arthur which doesn't bury itself deep in fantasy.  For that, the author should be respected - but his ability to surprise now must be called into question.  Currently, I'm buried half-way through the final book in the series, Excalibur.  There are few surprises - just consistently excellent writing.

Tennis Balls.

Click here to see the review of Part One of the Warlord Chronicles: The Winter King
Click here to see the review of Part Three of the Warlord Chronicles: Excalibur