The Book Shopper

More Than Murakami Coincidences

Since I had just read Haruki Murakami's voluminous  1Q84 (2011) last year I was unexpectedly delighted when a quote from the book showed up on the big screen in the Oscar-nominated film The Big Short.*

Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.

I was shushed by my fellow moviegoers before I could tell them that I had just finished reading another Murakami book as well. Even though What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir (2008) is correctly billed as a book  about running (with a fair dose of pain porn)  there are passages about his approach to writing.  For example, in this excerpt,  Murakami decides to become a writer, but it wasn't while he was running:

I can pinpoint the exact moment when I first thought I could write a novel. It was around one thirty in the afternoon of April 1, 1978. I was at Jingu Stadium that day, alone in the outfield drinking beer and watching the game. Jingu Stadium was within walking distance of my apartment at the time, and I was fairly big Yakult Swallows fan. It was a beautiful spring day, not a cloud in the sky, with a warm breeze blowing. There weren't any benches in the outfield seating back then, just a grassy slope. I was lying on the grass, sipping cold beer, gazing up at the sky, and leisurely enjoying the game...In the bottom of the first inning the leadoff batter for the Swallows was Dave Hilton, a young American player new to the team. Hilton got a hit down the left field line. The crack of the back meeting ball right on the sweet spot echoed through the stadium. Hilton easily rounded first and pulled up to second. And it was that exact moment that a thought struck me: You know? I could try writing a novel. I still can remember the wide open sky, the feel of the new grass, the satisfying crack of the bat. Something flew down from the sky at the instant, and whatever it was I accepted it.

I am thinking after I read this, "Was Murakami just hit by a foul ball? Does this have something to do with April Fool's Day?"

Other Coincidences

Coincidentally Adam McKay who directed The Big Short also directed Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby starring Will Farrell. At the end of Talladega there is a out-take of the characters discussing the difference between the Old South and the New South. For some inexplicable reason, that link is one of the most visited pages on my blog via Google search. Go figure. But I must say the little clip from Talladega, like the Murakami's running book, gives one a glimpse into the creative mind of McKay.

Also, The Big Short book was written by Michael Lewis, who has the touch when it comes of having his books (which aren't  huge publishing phenomena like Hunger Games or Harry Potter) being converted into films. Lewis also wrote, Moneyball about the geeky forerunners who used baseball statistics to a competitive advantage, which includes a shout out to one of my favorite baseball writers and statistical visionaries, Bill James. Lewis also wrote The Blind Side, which was made into a movie starring Sandra Bullock. Scenes were filmed on the campus at Agnes Scott College near where I live in Decatur, GA. The Blind Side is the story of Michael Oher who rose from being a homeless teenager to become a highly paid professional football player with the help of a Memphis family. Oher is playing in the upcoming Super Bowl for the Carolina Panthers.

MARTA Book Club #30: Going Rogue

I really can't explain it, but as the traveling secretary of the MARTA Book Club in charge of tracking what people are reading while riding buses and trains on the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, I have little to report since my last installment. I think I saw someone reading Herman Hesse's Siddhartha and a Michael Pollan book, but that was about it.

Is it my laziness? Are people reading less? Or was I just too absorbed in my own books to pay attention to anyone else. It could be the latter since I just finished Rebecca Solnit's absorbing collection of nearly 30 essays, Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness (2014). In this book Solnit travels throughout the world and gives accounts of some of the ecological crises and political upheavals that we hear about, but rarely know the inside story. Solnit is not a reporter per se, but she seems able to find those activists and other people on the front line who give us the perspectives that we need to know about. Sometimes this is depressing; sometimes uplifting. But always thought provoking.

My favorite pieces were about  post-tsunami Japan, the water crisis in the American West, "carnival" resistance in New Orleans, urban gardening and one that does strike close to home to someone in the MARTA Book Club -- "The Google Bus: Silicon Valley Invades." In this essay, Solint writes about the ramifications of a private bus exclusively used by high-tech employees. It includes an anecdote about an Apple bus driver who decided he had had enough:

 More Solnit

This is not the first time I have written about Solnit. Here's some blog links to other books of hers that I have read and posted something about:

 Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas (2010)

Wanderlust: A History of Walking (2000)

Hope: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities (2004)

River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technical Wild West (2003)

A Field Guide to Getting Lost (2005)

Connecting to the Hall of Fame

Last week the Baseball Hall of Fame announced enshrinement of catcher Mike Piazza and centerfielder Ken Griffey Jr., which coincided to the same time I finished reading David Halberstam's The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship (2004). Halberstam's book covers the baseball careers and continuing friendships of four Boston Red Sox players (shown here left to right):  Ted Williams (1939-1961), Dom DiMaggio (1940-1952), shortstop Johnny Pesky (1942-52),  and second baseman Bobby Doerr (1937-1951) . Williams and Doerr are in Cooperstown, but Halberstam makes a case that Dom DiMaggio belongs beside his older brother Joe DiMaggio. Dom was physically unimposing and wore eyeglasses but many consider him an equal centerfielder defensively to his famous brother Joe.  Dom DiMaggio had  a career batting average of .298.

As baseball books go, I would rate The Teammates about  a .260 hitter with just a little power (the guys were longtime friends, I get it).  The real strength of the book was Halberstam's willingness to address my question, "If these guys were so damn good, why didn't they win a championship?"

The answer is that they did almost win in 1946, but lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in the 7th game -- highlighted by the Enos "Country" Slaughter's mad dash to home with the winning run from first base on a long single (ruled a double).  Halberstam devotes almost an entire chapter to that series and its aftermath. That group of men did not play in the World Series again, but came very close -- losing to the New York Yankees in a one game playoff in 1949. For more specifics about 1946, check out Robert Weintraub's The Victory Season: The End of World War II and the Birth of Baseball's Golden Age (2013) because it was an an amazing era in baseball (my review here).  Halberstam also wrote previously about that era in the Summer of `49.

Here are a few other Hall of Fame connections that keep rolling in my mind:

1. Ken Griffey Jr. and Stan Musial, who played for the 1946 Cardinals, were both born in the town of Donora, Pennsylvania.
2. Ted Williams visited Mike Piazza and watched him hit when Piazza was 15 years old.

 

2.  Baseball writer and data guy Bill James in The New Bill James Historical Abstract (2001) rated Ken Griffey 7th in the list of all time centerfielders (Willie Mays #1, Ty Cobb #2, Mickey Mantle #3, Tris Speaker #4, Joe DiMaggio #5, Dom DiMaggio #24) and prophetically rated  Mike Piazza #5. Wrote James, "Too early to rate him with any confidence, but probably the best hitting catcher ever to play the game."  James rates Yogi Berra first (who died in 2015), and Johnny Bench second.

3. As a Cubs fan, I noticed that many baseball pundits are picking the Chicago Cubs to win it all in 2016, but  doesn't convince me as I read The Teammates. The Red Sox of the late 40s were supposed to be a dynasty as well, but it didn't happen as several of their starting pitchers went down with permanent arm injuries.  Of course I hope that the Cubs make it to the World Series, but will those young guys (Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Jason Heyward and Kyle Schwarber be friends for life like Williams, Doerr, DiMaggio and Pesky even if they don't win it all?

 For those of you who crave baseball in these football manic times, check out the blog's baseball links.