TWIB-III: 11
Dec. 29th, 2008 10:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkanOnly one book this week, as I spent about three days in Osaka, sadly stranded far from my library. Still, it was a good one.
1) Me, Chi and Bruce Lee - Brian Preston
The author is a nice guy. Gentle, pacifist. The author, however, wishes he were more than that. Wishes he were a man. Taller, stronger, able to kick the ass of anyone who gives him attitude (and many people do, because he is such a nice, gentle, pacifist guy). The author thus decides to master the martial arts, which leads him to China's Shaolin Temple where he learns the physical and psychological benefits of hard work, kicks ass in some competitions, and comes home a changed, confident MAN.
...Is certainly what we've all come to expect from books like this. Except, that's not exactly how things pan out in Me, Chi and Bruce Lee. Certainly Preston has the basics down: he is by his own admission a wuss and a lightweight. Yet he only decides to pursue a black belt at the behest of his editor, and only after being talked into it by an acquaintance. The result is this entertaining and enormously readable book, which is more meditation on the meaning and role of violence and resistance, innovation and tradition, and religion, in the martial arts--and life--than standard memoir yarn about how Our Hero emerged a stronger man for having overcome the Insurmountable Odds that faced him.
Preston is an author by profession and it shows. He's not afraid to take a back seat to the martial artists who truly understand the craft (meaning pretty much everyone he meets) and let them do the talking, nor does he attempt to draw readers' conclusions for them, instead opting to let the information he's presented speak for itself. He's remarkably objective when describing the various (often unusual) individuals and locales he encounters, but still manages to inject healthy doses of sharp observation and wit into the proceedings. Readers looking for standard fare on how the author learned how to be a real man or on why a given martial art is better than the others, or even for an author to tell them how to think about the information he’s presented are likely to come away disappointed; for everyone else, this book will be a thought-provoking breath of fresh air.
That will be all.
1) Me, Chi and Bruce Lee - Brian Preston
The author is a nice guy. Gentle, pacifist. The author, however, wishes he were more than that. Wishes he were a man. Taller, stronger, able to kick the ass of anyone who gives him attitude (and many people do, because he is such a nice, gentle, pacifist guy). The author thus decides to master the martial arts, which leads him to China's Shaolin Temple where he learns the physical and psychological benefits of hard work, kicks ass in some competitions, and comes home a changed, confident MAN.
...Is certainly what we've all come to expect from books like this. Except, that's not exactly how things pan out in Me, Chi and Bruce Lee. Certainly Preston has the basics down: he is by his own admission a wuss and a lightweight. Yet he only decides to pursue a black belt at the behest of his editor, and only after being talked into it by an acquaintance. The result is this entertaining and enormously readable book, which is more meditation on the meaning and role of violence and resistance, innovation and tradition, and religion, in the martial arts--and life--than standard memoir yarn about how Our Hero emerged a stronger man for having overcome the Insurmountable Odds that faced him.
Preston is an author by profession and it shows. He's not afraid to take a back seat to the martial artists who truly understand the craft (meaning pretty much everyone he meets) and let them do the talking, nor does he attempt to draw readers' conclusions for them, instead opting to let the information he's presented speak for itself. He's remarkably objective when describing the various (often unusual) individuals and locales he encounters, but still manages to inject healthy doses of sharp observation and wit into the proceedings. Readers looking for standard fare on how the author learned how to be a real man or on why a given martial art is better than the others, or even for an author to tell them how to think about the information he’s presented are likely to come away disappointed; for everyone else, this book will be a thought-provoking breath of fresh air.
That will be all.