Rating: 
Summary: if wiliiam burroughs liked baseball
Review: I found this to be a subervisevly scary book. i have been playing strat o matic baseball for well over 27 years. I understand well the idea of playing out your life in a fantasy world. somehow i always knew that it was just a game. I do know others i have played with over the years who it seems are unable to make this distinction. This is why i find this book to be scary. It hit home. by the way, the final chapter is unreadable and sounds like a william burroghs nightmare passage from interzone or the naked lunch. just not as entertaining.
Rating: 
Summary: one of my favourites
Review: i read this book a number of years back & have to say among the few hundreds of books i've read in my lifetime this is one of my favorites. of course it harked back into my love of baseball & youth & how my friends & i used to create & manage imaginary leagues in our backyards w/ duct taped newspaper balls & wiffle bats. but i must say that more hit w/ this, at least from a creative level & entertainment i found it most fun & refreshing if that doesnt sound too corny. anyway, if you like baseball @ all, or just sports in general & also enjoy great writing & creativity i would highly recommend this...
Rating:
Summary: one of my favourites
Review: i read this book a number of years back & have to say among the few hundreds of books i've read in my lifetime this is one of my favorites. of course it harked back into my love of baseball & youth & how my friends & i used to create & manage imaginary leagues in our backyards w/ duct taped newspaper balls & wiffle bats. but i must say that more hit w/ this, at least from a creative level & entertainment i found it most fun & refreshing if that doesnt sound too corny. anyway, if you like baseball @ all, or just sports in general & also enjoy great writing & creativity i would highly recommend this...
Rating: 
Summary: I read it for my university english class
Review: I read this for my university class and wrote a paper on it. I found It kind of confusing. The switch from reality to his iminagination
Rating:
Summary: Classic Coover
Review: Impossible though it may seem, I think I can agree with (or at least understand) almost all that is written in these reviews. The fact is, Coover's hallucinogenic style is not for everyone. It's not for nothing that he is omitted from the DeLillo/Pynchon/Stone pantheon; he's a cult guy. I've read The Origin of the Brunists (Coover's first, I think, and an NBA winner as I recall) and The Public Burning, and enjoyed both immensely. He takes postmodernism to its utter horrifying extreme. But all who read him will eventually have to confront the power of his writing.The idea of this book goes well beyond baseball, but baseball followers will find it especially compelling because of the familiarity of the setting. At the core of it is a lonely, singular man who invents his own reality and plays his hand as a deity. He loses himself more and more in his artificial world as things progress, wheeling and dealing his players, arranging their movements, watching their achievements and failures. The outside world loses its attraction. At the conclusion he has to confront, and then participate in, a life/death situation regarding one of his players. With that he slips into insanity. It is truly a scary read. If you are familiar with and enjoy Coover's psychotic forays, then you must read this one. If you are more the Barbara Kingsolver type, well, stay clear.
Rating:
Summary: I read it for my university English class, too
Review: In response to the first and second reviewer, I must add my own comments. I read this book for my Modern Lit course (Post WWII--and I'm not sure if it was restricted to American authors) as a Senior in college in 1987 (obviously, it has been a long time). My professor had his tenure and insisted on penalizing anyone who missed his class (by a half letter grade for every absence over 4 during the semester). He was also biased toward non-English majors (I was a Classics major). You obviously had to be an English major to "understand" the full portent, relevance and seriousness of such a work, irregardless of the fact that most of the English majors taking this class were potheads. As someone who ate, drank and breathed literature, I was extremely offended and disappointed that this book was being presented as an "important" modern work--possibly even a masterpiece--by someone with such a condescending attitude. Adding insult to injury, this professor, after professing the work's seriousness, was more concerned with dangling modifiers on our exams than with the content of our essays. An example of important modern literature, this is not--an entertaining or provocative read (for some people), yes, I will concede! However, I will admit, my experience with this professor has forever negatively tainted my view of this book. Finally, I don't expect to always like or agree with "serious" works of fiction and commentaries on the human condition. Everyone relates to their individual experiences. I do, however, expect these important works to transcend individual experiences by having a point, by raising questions so that we will at least consider these alternative view points. This one left me feeling "seriously" indifferent. By the way, second reviewer--I hailed from the Nevada, Missouri, area as well. You'll find this book's admiring professor in Columbia, probably milking his tenure for all it's worth and having his students read similar works that simpl! y appeal to his middle age sensibilities.
Rating:
Summary: Just to say...
Review: It's late, I've worked hard all day, and in the end, I find myself seeking new novels for reading later this week. I recommend THE SEVENTH BABE, or DAMN YANKEES. Oh, and Coover's UNIVERSAL BASEBALL ASSOCIATION, INC; J. HENRY WAUGH, PROP. If you've read it, you KNOW how trippy it is to flow through; one can almost feel himself being sucked into the void with Waugh as he struggles to remain in reality (but which one really?) Five stars says it all :)
Rating:
Summary: Just to say...
Review: It's late, I've worked hard all day, and in the end, I find myself seeking new novels for reading later this week. I recommend THE SEVENTH BABE, or DAMN YANKEES. Oh, and Coover's UNIVERSAL BASEBALL ASSOCIATION, INC; J. HENRY WAUGH, PROP. If you've read it, you KNOW how trippy it is to flow through; one can almost feel himself being sucked into the void with Waugh as he struggles to remain in reality (but which one really?) Five stars says it all :)
Rating:
Summary: Baseball and Mythology
Review: Like Malamud's "The Natural," Coover's "The Universal Baseball Association" uses baseball to explore mythology, religion, and the nature of belief. While Coover manages to successfully incorporate all of these, however, the novel meets the first command of great literature: the story stands on its own. The protagonist, J. Henry Waugh, is one of modern American fiction's great creations, a lonley man who spends most of his time in a small New York apartment obsessively ruminating over his great creation: an elaborate dice/board game that serves as the playing field for his Universal Baseball Assn. Waugh plays a full season of games, keeps detailed statistics on each player, and fully documents the history of his league (including the lives and deaths of his "players"). The novel turns on Henry's (godlike) intervention into the game's natural course (ruled by the dice) after the death of a young pitcher in whom he has invested his emotions, hopes and dreams. This intervention touches off a series of questions about the nature of God, Man, and Fate. None of these discussions are divorced from the fabric of the story, however. Throughout, our eyes are clearly on Henry, as he slowly deteriorates mentally, the "game" becoming far more real than "real life." This is a superb book. It will naturally appeal to baseball lovers, but those who don't give two figs about baseball will be caught up in Coover's sophisticated storytelling and will be impressed by his flawless narrative control and his ability to transcend the immediate subject of the novel.
Rating:
Summary: God and baseball...
Review: Since we see so many extremes in regard to this wonderful short novel, I thought it only fair to add my 2 or 3 cents worth. Like the others here I read UBAI in college, and it served as a opening door to another country of literature. Coover, along with DeLillo and Pynchon, is one of of our late 20th century masters taking, fiction into new realms, and exposing us to alternate ways of viewing our environment and personal relationships. Waugh creates an ordered universe that spins out of his control, moving in directions he never intended. From this, his whole (real) world falls apart; his fantasy world destroys what little relationship he has reality . J. Henry Waugh (read Jahweh) is a flawed God with a (now) flawed creation. This is a wonderful book, but not near as good as his masterpiece, The Origin of the Bruinists, which predicted modern day apocalyptic religious cults and the manipulation of media. Unfortunately this book is now out of print.
|
