On Being John Mcenroe - Rilegato

Adams, Tim

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 1400081475 ISBN 13: 9781400081479

Casa editrice: Crown Pub, 2005

Riassunto

The greatest sports stars characterize their times. They also help to tell us who we are.

John McEnroe, at his best and worst, told us the story of the 1980s. His improvised quest for tennis perfection, and his inability to find a way to grow up, dramatized the volatile self-absorption of a generation. His matches were open therapy sessions, and they allowed us all to be armchair shrinks.

In this book, Tim Adams sets out to explore what it might have meant to be John McEnroe during the turbulent 1980s, and in his subsequent lives, and to define exactly what it is that we want from our sporting heroes: how we require them to play out our own dramas, and how the best of them provide an intensity by which we can measure our own lives.

At the heart of this book are two fascinating characters―McEnroe and Bjorn Borg―and the extraordinary rivalry that defined them, a rivalry as compelling and dramatic as Ali and Foreman or Spassky and Fischer. Their great Wimbledon match of July 5, 1980―the central event in Adams’s narrative―was, as he writes, “a confrontation between two highly developed states of mind: a struggle between extreme consciousness and an absolutely studied containment of consciousness.”

It’s a book that’s “full of pleasures,” according to the London Sunday Times, and will appeal to any tennis fan or serious sports reader.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

“On Being John McEnroe is great . . . it’s witty and smart, and has ideas about sport that don’t strain for significance . . . My favorite McEnroe tirade, one I hadn’t heard before: ‘I’m so disgusting you shouldn’t watch. Everybody leave!’” —Nick Hornby

“Full of pleasures. Adams writes beautifully, is strong on social context, and is sensible about psychological theorizing. Best of all, he does a fine job in re-creating those wonderful encounters between Mac and Borg, Mac and the umpires, Mac and the All-England Club establishment, Mac and the world.” —The Sunday Times

“We got the official version of the life . . . from [You Cannot Be Serious,] McEnroe’s punchy, if coy in places, autobiography. Now here’s the theory—nine deft chapters and an epilogue in which Adams reflects on the nature of the fires flickering and flaring in McEnroe and the ways in which he defined and embodied his time.” —The Daily Telegraph

“A brilliantly insightful essay about a tormented genius who found in tennis an expressionist art form.” —The Independent

“[On Being John McEnroe is] terrific. On one level, it’s about the author’s fascination with a tennis player. But it’s much more than this; it’s a book about how the world has changed in our lifetime. . . . This is a wonderful essay on individuality, as well as a cracking book about tennis.” —The New Statesman

L'autore:

Tim Adams has been an editor of Granta and the Literary Editor of the Observer where he now writes full time -- occasionally as a tennis correspondent. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Crown Pub
• Data di pubblicazione: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1400081475
• ISBN 13: 9781400081479
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 173