BOOK REVIEW Surgical removal of author from a compelling book
SPORTING AUTOBIOGRAPHIES tend to follow a fairly predictable format, starting with the subject’s early years and covering all points in between up to the present day. And that’s what makes ‘Epic - In Search Of The Soul Of Sport And Why It Matters’ so refreshingly different.
Simon Barnes worked with ‘The Times’ in England for 32 years, and he was the chief sports writer on the newspaper until an abrupt telephone call terminated his employment in 2014.
During that time he was privileged to attend all of the major events worldwide, including seven Olympic Games, five football World Cups, cricket on five continents, the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA finals and the world chess championships.
He witnessed at first hand some of the most talked about sporting feats in our lifetimes before it all came to a sudden halt.
And after the initial shock of losing his job subsided, Barnes started to question the very essence of sport. What did it really mean? And what was it for?
In order to answer those questions, he decided to surgically remove himself from his own autobiography.
He didn’t want to regale readers with his journalistic adventures, because he had the good sense to realise that it was never about him.
He was merely the bystander reporting on what he witnessed, and he knew that the real answers he sought lay in the sport itself.
Therefore, he lets the events and individuals he witnessed at close hand do the talking, rather than getting stuck into the middle of the story himself.
From 1983 up to 2014, we are treated to a series of vignettes in each chapter, giving us just enough to suck us in to a variety of tales without getting bogged down in the subject matter.
It zips along nicely from one topic to the next, and the writing is so evocative that at times it feels like the reader is there in the grandstand or on the sideline watching it all unfold.
The end of each chapter is marked by a series of bullet points outlining what happened next to many of the subjects, and it’s not all about glory as Barnes doesn’t shy away from some of the most controversial figures of the era.
In that regard, his pieces on disgraced athletes Ben Johnson and Florence Griffith Joyner are stand-out moments in a text that goes deep behind the headlines in a bid to find out what really makes sport tick and why it is such an essential part of our lives.
Aidan O’Brien, a man who features regularly in the racing coverage next to this column, is the only Wexfordian that Barnes came in contact with through the years that merits a piece, but the depth and breadth of his sporting knowledge is impressive.
He takes us on a journey from triumph to disaster, and back again, and his ruminations on sport at the beginning of each chapter will certainly make the reader think twice regarding what it’s all about.
Barnes didn’t get to hold such an exalted position in the world of journalism without having a gift for painting bright pictures with his words, and the quality of writing alone will ensure that readers find this work hard to put down.
The cover features Usain Bolt, Jessica Ennis-Hill, Andy Murray and the late Johan Cruyff, giving a taste of the wide variety of sporting talent contained therein.
‘Epic’ is the title, and for once a book lives up to its billing as Barnes shines a light on all the big events over 30-plus years.
ALAN AHERNE
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