Hockey Dreams: Memories of a Man Who Couldn't Play
How essential is hockey to the bloodstream? Essential enough for prize-winning novelist David Adams Richards to call and ask a man he knew only peripherally to drive 40 miles in the middle of a nighttime snowstorm to rescue him from the unsettling experience of having to spend that night under the roof of an otherwise decent fellow--who'd volunteered to house him on an author's tour--because Richards was experiencing "an age-old problem" with this particular host. The problem? Richards is unabashedly clear as he begs for deliverance: "The son of a bitch doesn't like hockey. " It is through that exceptional moment that Richards filters every other moment of his warm, wistful, witty, and passionate hybrid, part memoir and part extended and very smart exploration of hockey's place in sorting out the national identity. In one sense, he knows, "our game" isn't really our game any more. Sure, it has its place on every pond and in every arena coast to coast, but at its highest levels, it's been co-opted. The NHL is an arm of American business interests, and European hockey, argue international commentators, is a more refined and sporting version of the game. Well, that's just fine, counters Richards, because there is also this: a national delusion, as he calls it, that's extraordinarily, magnificently Canadian. Hockey is the great and universal uniter. "For we see in the bottom of our heart, " he writes, "there is no Gretzky without Lemieux. Perhaps we are that delusional, and perhaps for one time when we need it to--when we really want it to, a delusion can work for us instead of against us. " As revelations go, Richards's epiphany, like his book, passes cleanly through the crease before settling safely in the heart of net. --Jeff Silverman Author(s): David Adams Richards. Binding Hardcover. Publisher(s): Doubleday Canada. Label: Doubleday Canada.
| Fabricant: | Doubleday Canada |
| Numéro de la pièce: | |
| Prix le plus bas (CAD): | 108,88 $ |
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