da fazobetai： Welcome back to an old classic

da realsbet： Gillian Reynolds18-Sep-2006

This collection of letters, columns and contributions by CLR James isback in print after 10 years, welcome as rain on parched fields. His voiceis unmistakeable. No one wrote with such heart and soul, passion andcontention. The collection spans the 1930s to 1980s and the only thingthat seems dated is his high expectation of the reader.He does not ask you to sit and nod. He argues with you, lays downthe law but invites challenge. Cricket is a mirror of history, he believed,a reflection of past, present and future civilisations and nationalities.His advocacy is passionate, learned, fiery, classical. His language is spunfrom a golden fleece of reference, Homer, Hazlitt, Hegel, that makeshistory, language and literature open adjacent doors to sport. He wouldhave today’s sub-editors scratching their heads and Googling madly.Here he is, as a contributor to John Arlott’s collection The Great All-Rounders in 1969: “Garfield Sobers, I shall show, is a West Indian cricketer,not merely a cricketer from the West Indies.He is the most typical West Indies cricketer that it is possible to imagine. All geniuses are merelypeople who carry to an extreme definitive the characteristics of theunit of civilisation to which they belong and the special act or functionwhich they express or practise. Therefore to misunderstand Sobersis to misunderstand the West Indies, if not in intention, by inherentpredisposition, which is much worse.”The style is rich, its aim unerring. The particular joy of this collectionis seeing his connecting themes across the years. Captaincy is one, linkedas it is in James’ mighty thesis with class and nationality. And then thereare orthodoxy (its value and limits); analysis (its necessity); those players(Sobers, for example) who exceed analysis; unobtrusive, masterly skill(Worrell) and its greater value than unpredictable brilliance (Botham).Both the need to learn and the imperative to understand are memorablypreached and brilliantly exemplified. When he describes a bowler’sstyle or a batsman’s approach it is from long observation and closeconsideration. A decline in performance, whether of a team or a player, isstudied under his microscope of accumulated experience. This is a bookno cricket lover should be without, every social historian should read.It is not, however, an unalloyed joy. For all the gold of the words, theyare set down in ugly typography on horrid paper. This must be for soundeconomic reasons but it is a shame. James deserves better.