perfidy

I'm way behind on my book reports. I am supposed to read fifty books in 2005 and blog about each one. So far, perceptive readers will note that I'm up to book number three, which means I will finish my fiftieth book sometime in 2009. In truth, that number is actually somewhat misleading; I've read more like twenty books so far thanks to that whole being sick and housebound for two months thing I did earlier this year. I just haven't had the time or desire to write about them.

But that's too bad. Back when I did construction, we had a phrase for people who were pissing and moaning around and not keeping up their end: "wearing the skirt." As in, "Hey Johno, take off the skirt and get on the goddamn ladder! We gotta get this done!" And so.

The Fitty Book Challenge, Book 4 and Book 5

George Plimpton: Open Net
George Plimpton: Paper Lion

When Hunter Thompson died, the obits mourned the passing of the Great Gonzo Journalist dedicated to translating the brainstem to the page. When George Plimpton died last year, the obits mourned the passing of a Great Man of Letters and Patron of Literatoor. But they didn’t make too much of Plimpton’s own contributions to the cause of experiential journalism, contributions that have doubtless been more widely read than Thompson ever was.

Earlier this year when I was in my second month of The Great Unexplained Sickness Event of 2005 I decided to get a couple George Plimpton books out in the hopes that his gentle wit and avuncular, intelligent writing would be as a balm to my tortured suffering self. Since the hockey season was nixed, I chose “Open Net,” in which Plimpton spends a few months training to be a goalie with the Boston Bruins. And since I like football, I picked up “Paper Lion,” in which Plimpton trained as a backup quarterback for the Detroit Lions.

Damn. I always knew that George Plimpton could write, but I never really grasped the level of his craft. Both these books were so-called “observational journalism,” and his aim in each case was to approach the sports as a fan and as a novice, trying to give other fans a vivid sense of what it’s like. But Plimpton is a master both of the tossed-off observation and the closely analyzed situation, both a top-notch journalist and a novelist at once.

Early in “Paper Lion” there’s a bit where Plimpton is reporting to training camp for the Lions at a small private boy’s school in upstate Michigan. In a few deft lines, Plimpton sets the soporific scene, with buzzing flies, whirring lawn mowers and empty classrooms smelling of varnish, heat, and chalk. The faculty secretary is identified by her hornrims and efficient manner; a group of Catholic priests on campus for a convention stroll in cossack and collar. That’s all we get of the priests at that point, but from time to time they come up in an aside and immediately we think of a pair of friars walking and counting angels looking startled as a gawky Yankee (or a group of drunken linebackers) stumbles into their path.

When Plimpton finally gets into a scrimmage, that same economy takes you from “Blue eight right, Hut, Hut, HUT!” to “OOOOOOOF” in a few words perfectly chosen to convey the impact of nine 250-lb gentlemen trying to kill you with their hands at high speed. That he spends hundreds of pages talking about drills, scrimmages, the sacredness of the playbook, team sociology and the risk of injuries sets all this up so he can execute the play and his paragraph in no time flat.

I consider myself a good writer; some other people experiencing lapses in taste have also said so. But next to Plimpton’s eye for detail and way with a good story, I’m a four-year-old with a whiffle bat pretending to be Barry Bonds. One running theme in “Empty Net” is the smells of hockey, especially the locker rooms. Since he is playing with used equipment, there’s a sort of funk on his pads that he comes to accept as part of the world of hockey. He sometimes gets a whiff of the funk from his closet even months after he has quit the team. Finally, long after his hilariously unsuccessful stint as goalie for the Bruins, Plimpton is talking with one of the Bruins about his equipment-funk. He is wistfully reminiscing about how the smell was part of his experience and how he still imagines he smells it when his companion breaks out laughing. As it turns out, the team pranksters doused Plimpton’s pads with a gag item called “U-Stink” before he got to camp, and he had been walking around in a cloud of funk the entire time, his literary mind thinking now this is the real deal! when in reality he just smelled bad. Plimpton stretches the setup for this punchline out over 200 pages perfectly; we’re right there with him getting misty over mildewing locker rooms and the smell of foot rot when BAM! and suddenly it’s funny.

Of course, “Open Net” and “Paper Lion” are sort of the same story twice. The main difference is of course that hockey players are by nature different from football players, and your enjoyment of each book will be dictated in part by how much you care about kids in northern Alberta. Then again, the same thing could be said about Hunter Thompson. Either you are willing to accept that Ibogaine is a metaphor and read on, or you aren’t. Either you are willing to read a witty and urbane middle-aged man trying to block a slapshot or complete a naked bootleg or you are not. I think my days of wishing I could decamp for Las Vegas with a convertible and a Samoan attorney are past but I’m fairly certain I will never get over wanting to learn to hit a Randy Johnson curveball.