Guest sharpie Guests Posted January 23, 2006 Posted January 23, 2006 This one will make for some lively discussion come April when it is published:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385517165/qid=1138040406/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-7732875-9200037?s=books&v=glance&n=283155Without giving away too much proprietary info, one of the pseudonymous authors is a prize-winning novelist known (his work, not personally) to at least some people on this site.
Guest sharpie Guests Posted January 23, 2006 Posted January 23, 2006 No. He lives in Brooklyn, however.
Guest Edgy DC Guests Posted January 23, 2006 Posted January 23, 2006 Jonathan Lethem, a strong and readable novelist/Met-lovin' big shot.
Willets Point Old-Timey Member Posted January 23, 2006 Posted January 23, 2006 I think we should get in on this whole "follow a baseball team for a season, write a book about it" deal. Maybe we can take our IGT's for this coming season and compile them in book form.Then again the repetition of the scary kaboom clown might be off-putting to some readrers.
Guest cooby Guests Posted January 23, 2006 Posted January 23, 2006 Yeah and with Delgado, there's gonna be lots of em!
HahnSolo Old-Timey Member Posted January 24, 2006 Posted January 24, 2006 Jonathan Lethem writing a book about the Mets? This jumps immediately to the top of my Amazon wish list.FWIW, Motherless Brooklyn is one of my ten favorite novels ever.
Guest sharpie Guests Posted January 24, 2006 Posted January 24, 2006 I thought "Fortress of Solitude" was better.
Guest Johnny Dickshot Guests Posted January 25, 2006 Posted January 25, 2006 Holy shit. Take that, Greg W!(Just kidding. The two writers writing 'bout the Mets thing, tho. Geez. What a baldfaced ripoff of fafif).
Guest sharpie Guests Posted March 23, 2006 Posted March 23, 2006 At times this book is kind of like reading the annals of the CPF - sometimes it is corrosively funny, other times it meanders. The structure are letters between two "fans" (writers Jonathan Lethem and Christopher Sorrentino posing as Ivan Felt and Harris Conklin, aging lifelong Met fans)and their take on the 2005 season, their own (fictional) lives, the L train, that the Brewers have become a steadily less legitimate franchise as years go on, etc.Free offer: I have an extra copy of this (an advance readers copy). It goes to whomever PMs me with their address first.We have a winner for the free offer.
Guest ScarletKnight41 Guests Posted March 26, 2006 Posted March 26, 2006 I'm only a short way into the book (thanks sharpie!) and I'm having an issue with it. As opposed to Faithful, where you really felt that the King and O'Nan (who weren't using pseudonyms) were living and dying with each pitch, Believeniks! feels artificial. The dialog is stilted, and it seems like they're writing about what fictional fans would be like rather than recounting actual emotions.
Guest sharpie Guests Posted March 27, 2006 Posted March 27, 2006 I spoke with one of the authors (not Lethem). They were mostly doing this via email and responding to each other's writings. It isn't supposed to be real - just the prism of the '05 Mets season through the eyes of these fictional characters in epistilatory form. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. More of a "plot" develops later on (around August).
Guest ScarletKnight41 Guests Posted March 27, 2006 Posted March 27, 2006 OK.I'm still in April, so I have a ways to go....
Guest ScarletKnight41 Guests Posted March 29, 2006 Posted March 29, 2006 Sharpie - did the authors start lurking here last season? I'm in June now, and I'm noticing terms such as "Eye Chart" and "The Big Eunuch" making appearances.
Guest sharpie Guests Posted March 30, 2006 Posted March 30, 2006 I don't know. I suspect they might have. I do know that the author I spoke with (very briefly), who I think is Conklin though I'm not sure, actually went to only about 5 games last year.
Frayed Knot Old-Timey Member Posted March 30, 2006 Posted March 30, 2006 Well, it's not like either of those nick-names are all that unique and couldn't have been picked up in places besides the CPF
Guest ScarletKnight41 Guests Posted March 30, 2006 Posted March 30, 2006 OK - I've gotten to the part with the surprise twist. But I find it too little, too late to save this read for me. Which saddens me, because I generally enjoy most baseball books (especially if they are at all Mets-related). And I generally like the format of a story being told in letters between the characters. However, this just doesn't have any passion - the characters are absorbed with their cleverness and their literary references, but they don't come across as truly caring about the games.I've read enough threads here to know when people are bleeding blue and orange. Ivan and Harris don't. Thus, it doesn't make for a compelling read.
Guest sharpie Guests Posted March 31, 2006 Posted March 31, 2006 Yeah, I agree with you. They're both great writers but this is a tossed-off work. I liked certain passages: the lack of nobility of the Brewers and Padres was good, but being around this place does inure you to much of what is there.
Guest ScarletKnight41 Guests Posted March 31, 2006 Posted March 31, 2006 Which is a shame, because I was all prepared to love the book.It was interesting reading this right after Pedro, Carlos and Omar - I feel I have had a complete recap of the 2005 season now.There was one detail in Believeniks that Pedro, Carlos and Omar left out - during the broadcast of the Cameron/Beltran crash, Ralph Kiner started reminiscing about being at the game where Pete Reiser crashed into a wall and was given last rites on the field. It was really spooky listening to that while Cameron was lying there on the field.
Guest ScarletKnight41 Guests Posted April 6, 2006 Posted April 6, 2006 And another thing - these guys didn't figure out until June that "Vote for Pedro" was from Napoleon Dynamite?I bought a "Vote for Pedro" shirt in early May, and it was reasonably well known at that time!
Guest Yancy Street Gang Guests Posted April 6, 2006 Posted April 6, 2006 Um, I didn't find that out until way after June. More like November for me.
Guest sharpie Guests Posted April 7, 2006 Posted April 7, 2006 I'm sure the authors knew that. The characters were hopelessly out of it vis-a-vis pop culture.
Guest ScarletKnight41 Guests Posted April 7, 2006 Posted April 7, 2006 OK - I'll give them that benefit of the doubt.
Guest cooby Guests Posted April 12, 2006 Posted April 12, 2006 Reading this now. Enjoying it but having trouble trying to figure out some of the convoluted sentences
Guest cooby Guests Posted April 12, 2006 Posted April 12, 2006 Guys? Please don't write another book.
Aiden Robbins Brooklyn Cyclones - A+ OF The 21-year-old 3rd round pick this year played 20 games for St. Lucie and hit .273/.371/.455 (.826) with 2 doubles and 4 homers. He has now played 2 games with Brooklyn and is 2-for-4 with a home run. Explore Aiden Robbins News >
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.