|
Let me start off by saying I haven't seen the movie. I don't know if the movie is good or bad. I do think Robert Redford usually knows what he's doing
behind the camera, but sometimes he meanders a bit too much. I also think
that Matt Damon is a pretty fair actor and so is Will Smith, but, like I
said, I haven't seen it. All I've done is read the book THE LEGEND OF BAGGER
VANCE, written five years ago by Steve Pressfield. After reading it, I could
see why Robert Redford was taken by the story's spirituality, its calmness
and serenity, its quiet nobility, and its subtle beauty.
The year is 1931. The Depression is in full swing (no golf pun intended). On
the golf links of Krewe Island off Savannah's windswept shore, a golf match
will be played. Two legends of the game, Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen, will
duel for an amazing 36-holes of golf. The town of Savannah is a buzz with the
fact that they will be able to host the legends.
Then Savannah's city fathers have a thought: "The rafters shuddered with
cheers; the little basketball backboards, only six feet high, nearly came off
with the stomping of feet and clapping of backs. Savannah would nominate its
own champion golfer! A third contestant, a local hero, to duel the great
Jones and Hagen!"
That hero? Rannulph Junah --- a beleaguered war hero, once a champion, now a
poor man who is "up all the night, just a-steaming and a-stewing." He
refuses. The city fathers are taken aback. Refuse? They all know that he's
the best golfer around and to go up against Jones and Hagen would be a great
honor. But Junah still refuses.
That is until his comrade, a mysterious black man with the name Bagger Vance,
says that he would be more than happy to be Junah's caddy. Junah accepts. The
golf tournament of the ages is to begin --- a tournament that the spectators
will tell their kids and their kids will tell their kids and their kids will
tell their kids about. It will be legendary.
Bagger Vance is sage and charismatic, knowing not only about golf but about
life. "Tell me who you are, Junah. Who, in your deepest parts, when all that
is inauthentic has been stripped away. Are you your name, Rannulph Junah?
Will that hit this shot for you? Are you your illustrious forebears? Will
they hit it? Are you your roles, Junah? Scion, soldier, Southerner? Husband,
father, lover? Slayer of the foe in battle, comforter of the friends at home?
Are you your virtues, Junah, or your sins? Your deeds, your feats? Are you
your dreams or your nightmares? Tell me, Junah. Can you hit the ball with any
of these?"
The tournament itself is the bulk of the narrative. All the while, Bagger
Vance tutors Junah in the ways of what it means to be alive, to be within a
reality that is more real than the reality we know.
Pressman, obviously a golf fan in that he describes the game with such love
and devotion, has written an engaging fairy tale. At times, the philosophies
he tries to impart on Junah (and subsequently, the reader) through Bagger
Vance seem a bit forced. His love of the game also tends to swallow a bit too
much of the story in that entire series of paragraphs are written about the
green of a certain hole.
Taken as a whole, however, THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE, is a nice story, a
tale you'd tell your children on a Saturday afternoon when it's too cold
outside to play (or perhaps a tale you'd want to see at the theater as a
matinee). It reveals the true nature of the game. Why play golf? Why would
someone want to stand in the middle of a fairway and swat a small dimpled
ball 300 yards and actually try to get it into a small cup no bigger than a
chocolate chip cookie? THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE answers that question again
and again.
--- Reviewed by Jonathan Shipley
© Copyright 1996-2008, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.
|
