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From Kirkus Reviews
To be middle-aged and ghosting a scull through the early morning light of a Lake Cayuga dawn: thats where Strauss finds himself, a pilgrim of sorts, searching for a little self-affirmation. But hes also a junkie, rapt in the glow that pervades the ancient craft of rowing. The sport appealed immediately to Strauss (History and Classics/Cornell; co-author, with Josiah Ober, of The Anatomy of Error: American Military Disasters and Their Lessons for Modern Strategists, 1990). It wasnt just that he needed the workout (bookish, he had long preferred the couch to the gym) or that the oars seemed to speak to him of fluid dynamics and Nile oarsmen and red-brick-and-ivy regattas. Rowing also held the promise of testing the athletic competence and resolve of someone who had fumbled painfully as a child. Redemption seemed to lurk in the boat, a wedding of the cerebral and corporeal. Yet this isnt so much the story of a personal quest. Instead, Strauss revels in the sheer beauty of the sport, from the flow state brought on by the rhythm of perfect oar work to the burnished murk of capacious, ever-so-seedy boathouses. The authors enthusiasm is infectious, buoying the heft of his writing and allowing for an extended investigation into stroke mechanics, a complex, balletic suite of movements. Strauss also makes something well worth reading from the curious blending of elite and common that permeates rowing: it was a poor man's gambit in classical Greece, but an aristocratic pursuit in ancient Rome and pharaonic Egypt; it was a favorite sport of the Gilded Age, complete with race fixing and assorted scandals, and yet the sport also found a following in the mining towns of southern Canada. Redemption is a big word. Still, by any measure, Strauss has tapped into something special out there in his scull. He does fine service to his sport in this memoir. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
-- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.
Pressestimmen
Victor Davis Hanson, author of Who Killed Homer? Strauss's dogged pursuit of an ancient craft shows us how exhilarating -- and occasionally terrifying -- rowing, past and present, can be.
Jay Parini author of Benjamin's Crossing Sometimes a book takes you by surprise...Rowing Against the Current is written with such a wonderfully physical sense of this ancient sport. This is a story about remaking oneself in middle age; as such it overwhelmed me, as it will a large raft of readers. Bravo to Barry Strauss.
Jay Parini author of Benjamin's Crossing Sometimes a book takes you by surprise...Rowing Against the Current is written with such a wonderfully physical sense of this ancient sport. This is a story about remaking oneself in middle age; as such it overwhelmed me, as it will a large raft of readers. Bravo to Barry Strauss.
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Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
I can't add much to what has been said already, so let me just add my voice to those above by saying you won't be sorry you read this book. I read it twice in no time.
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
Rowing a single scull is the essence of vulnerability: you're perched atop a rolling seat in a featherweight hull, above the waterline and facing backwards! Now try to move this contraption forward (it seems backwards) without swamping the boat or ramming into something. Now try to do all this in a race down a river that meanders for several miles. Strangely, it's possible to learn to do all this -- and to enjoy it.
Barry Strauss, in a witty and heartfelt story, shares with his readers all the appeal and fear that sculling creates. He weaves his own motives and impressions with a rich history of rowing that reaches back to the ancient Greeks -- whose culture he celebrates as a history professor. And he constantly surprises his readers with insights and observations: about life, America's sports culture, family and friendships, and the special world of "messing about in boats."
In my spare time, I row and also write about the sport so I appreciate Strauss's spirited approach to both rowing and writing. His odyssey is a masterpiece!
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
I was surprised by how much I loved Barry Strauss's Rowing Against the Current. Although it's not meant to be the main course, I was smitten by the personal saga interwoven with the passionate and scholarly initiation into the history and technique of rowing and the unfolding drama of the powerful tug of the water's spell. This little book scrapes the clay off the feet of men and women who approach mid-life athletics with the same trepidation that anchored them to the sidelines in elementary school sports, the last to be chosen for any team. As the story progresses, the reader roots for the middle aged loosening of the harness of schoolyard gender constrictions as the athletic leftover of a boy becomes the multifaceted man. Strauss is a generous and complex writer who invites you into his childhood athletic struggles as seemingly effortlessly as he accompanies you to the boathouse, drinking in the sounds and smells at dawn, or ushers you into an art gallery brimming with images of boats on water- all in support of sharing his passion for sculling and the process of becoming a rower. Skillfully linking the modern rowers tensions and relational harmony with ancient male bonding rituals, Strauss translates the stories of Greek rowers in poetry as if anyone could. But he comforts the aspiring athlete in each of us who has participated as a beginner in any sport that looks so easy when done by the pros when he confesses: "Rowing was not simple for me. I nodded whenever the instructor made a point, as if I understood, but I could as easily have assembled the space shuttle as repeated the moves she was explaining." Strauss's self deprecating humor may be the slice of this book that resonates with many of our own armored adult convictions of who we are, but his reverence for the pull of the water and unsentimental questioning of his own niche in the world as well as his writer's eye and often lyrical prose not only make his book an experiential and compelling read, but an offering of who we may yet become. Even for those of us who have no proven intention of working out before daybreak, pledging our souls to the water or losing our balance in a long skinny shell, the reader closes the book with a smile and the feeling that the doors of possibility have opened.
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