LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE

Rating:
Summary: A superior lesson but little golf
Review: Don't get me wrong, I think this book was a great read for all those struggling golfers out there. However, after seeing the movie preview I assumed this book would contain more golf and less of a life lesson. The scenario is a small town gets to add their own champion into a tournament of three, including Walter Hagen and Bobby Jones. As the tournaments passes the mysterious Bagger Vance starts a long lesson in philosophy that at some points is well written and at others overdone. The lessons that Vance teaches seems to be the base of Buddism with various other unrelated view points. The story line of the golf tournament is a thrilling story but then is concluded by a predictable ending after the tournament. Overall I would reccomend this book for those interested in a philosophy or those extremely into the game of golf.

Rating:
Summary: The Mahabharata and Bhagavad Gita in a golf setting
Review: It's either funny or sad that none of the reviews I've read about this book, either in print or on Amazon, recognize the source of this story: the Indian epic, the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata is one of the greatest stories ever told - and the Bhagavad Gita is given smack dab in the middle of it.

"The Legend of Bagger Vance" is a retelling of this epic, and a summary of the Bhagavad Gita, in a wonderful golf story. In the Mahabharata, Arjuna must fight a war against his step-brothers and cousins over possession of the kingdom. It is a righteous war, for he and his brothers are the heirs. But he refuses to fight, saying that war is futile and that it would be better to die than to fight one's family. So his charioteer, Lord Krishna, an incarnation of God, has to park the chariot and give him a really long lecture about why he should put aside his doubts, do his duty, and fight. Of course, it takes him the whole Bhagavad Gita to explain why this is a good thing to do, and it involves helping Arjuna understand who he really is, who God is, and what the nature of reality is. Along the way, he explains how to find peace in the midst of action, and to discover our true nature.

The Bhagavad Gita explains how to find union with God in the midst of daily life, and "The Legend of Bagger Vance" gives a very readable restatement of how to live a truly authentic life (and play great "golf" - whatever your form of "golf" is).

In "Legend," our hero, Rannulph Junah (R.Junah for those who like things spelled out) is a world-weary war veteran who is asked to play a game of golf with Walter Hagen and Bobby Jones. He reluctantly agrees, then tries to withdraw, saying that in a world torn apart by conflict and the Depression, it was futile, senseless, stupid, and insulting to hit a small dimpled ball around a course in yet one more form of combat. His caddy, Bagger Vance (Bhagavan, an honorific title for the Lord or for a spiritual master), then spends the rest of the story talking him through the 36-hole tournament, stripping away his confusion and delusion to help him find the truth of his Authentic Stroke and see the value of doing our inborn duty that life presents to us.

Does he succeed? Can we? Read this fun story and find out!

Afterwards, get Kamala Subramaniam's version of the "Mahabharata" and enjoy an even more interesting story.

Rating:
Summary: Works on Many Different Levels
Review: The book begins modern day with an old doctor reminiscing about a great golf tournament that happened years ago in depression era Savannah, Georgia. Pressfield does wonders to set up the town and it many machinations. He creates a wonderful fictitious golf course and gives it a great deal of personality. You're just dying to play there.

The old narrator was then a 10-year-old caddy assistant in that game for Rannulph Junah, the lesser known of three competitors. The other two were the golf legends Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen. The tournament itself would be worth reading 500 pages for, but the real story is that of Junah's caddy Bagger Vance.

Bagger Vance teaches Junah and us about life as it relates to golf. He explains the beauty of the golf swing and why it mirrors the beauty of life. As the novel unfolds we learn more about Vance than Junah, but you'll have to see that part for yourself.

The nuances of golf are well-told. It obvious the author is an avid golfer himself. The conclusion of the golf tournament is also noteworthy in that it's surprising and yet reflects the inner meaning of the story as a whole.

I think avid golfers will love the book. Others will enjoy it, but maybe not with the same passion.

Rating:
Summary: Game of Life
Review: The Legend of Bagger Vance, an unbelievable historical fiction book by Steven Pressfield, is a mystical story that won't stop surprising you until the last word. It takes place in Savannah, Georgia in 1931, during the Great depression. The three main characters in the novel are Rannulph Junah, a troubled war hero and a hero to Savannah because of his golf, Hardy Greaves, the narrator of the story and a kid who is Junah's friend, and finally Bagger Vance, a mysterious fellow who always says unexplainable things.
There is to be a golf match between the two greatest golfers of the time: Bobby Jones and Walter Heagan, and also a local player, Rannulph Junah. Bagger Vance is Junah's caddie and he shows Hardy and Rannulph a secret that will change their lives forever. Readers will love this book because it is a fantasy as well as it is historical, and they can be reading and it is so suddenly so surprising that they lose their place in the book. This story is fantastic, suspenseful, serious, sad, and funny, so the readers will enjoy it very much no matter what style they like.

Rating:
Summary: WELL...MAYBE NOT.
Review: The title, THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE, is a very loose tie between the movie and this book. Beyond that, things get a little dicey and I am not sure that I can give the book the same rave reviews that I gave the movie.

Well, actually, it's a lot easier than that. The book falls considerably short of what the movie became under the masterful touch of Robert Redford. Like his work on THE HORSE WHISPERER, Redford was able to make a movie that improves upon a book and get to the nugget of a great story, leaving out stuff that seems sometimes to ooze from the imagination of an author who gets too caught up in and excited about the supposed profoundness of his own story.

In the end that's the real problem with THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE (the book). Pressfield, obviously an individual who feels much for the game of golf and its parallels with life, gets sucked into the out-of-control upward spiral of his awe for the game. He likely collapsed after writing several of the more revved up passages. It wasn't enough to call golf a game, Pressfield had to take the next step and try to build a case for golf as the basis for a lost and resurgent religion. Bagger Vance as a wild pagan god of war? Junah as a bizarre victim of what can best be described as Jack Nicklaus on a bummer trip? The golf swing--the Authentic Swing--as an essential component of and precursor to achieving a peaceful and happy existence? All way too weird and ethereal for me!

But there are many redeeming factors to this book. Read chapter 11 with its descriptions of the golf swing as a metaphor. Read chapter 12 with its descriptions of the game in comparison to other sports and the sheer difficulty of the game. Read chapter 16 with its wonderful wordsmithing about the importance of a good grip, more on the game's difficulty and the individual nature of golf competition. Finally, the beginning paragraphs of chapter 20 speak briefly, but eloquently, about the need for a golfer to be keenly aware of the clubhead and the power that comes in the golf swing from a deliberately wide swing arc. Other than these references you are on your own.

Rent of buy the movie and enjoy its simple but profound appreciation for golf as probably the greatest game ever devised by man and leave most of the book to the arena of too much information or, perhaps, to too much imagination.