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Summary: When the real and surreal meet upon the fields............
Review: When the knower beholds the field and sees mortal souls tormented by their own anguish and effort to reach the ultimate goal; to supersede the Authentic self, untouched by the centuries or the facts surrounding the lifetimes upon its shoulders...... A good written book, through the innocent eyes of a 10-year old boy that searches with his memory through the past, in order to help the future........ a good easy-to-read book that will create a lot of questions in the reader's head; don't let the story take you too fast and skip them; You should at least come out of it troublesome.........
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Summary: A great book, especially for an athlete but really for all
Review: Bagger Vance is obviously a golf book, but it is much more than that. Let me up front state I dont really like golf. However, the richness of the story transcends the green and is applicable to any sport, infact the book even describes a boxer able to fire the perfect punch or a tennis player the perfect serve. (pg 90 paperback edition). In fact this book is really for anyone interested in improving in any endeavor. Its easy to imagine Vance's words to the perfect parent, perfect teacher or any ideal. The book is different enough from the movie to make both interesting.
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Summary: Philosophy at its greatest
Review: I have always been a very philosophic person. However, after reading this book, it opened my eyes to a deeper meaning of life. If you are well-endowed with great thinking then I highly recommend this book for you because you will never find anything more original or earth-shattering. The philosophy is amazing, but we can't forget the beautiful game of golf played out underneath. If you are a golf lover, then you can't truely enjoy the game until you have read this story.
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Summary: ...'Bagger Vance' is a little silly
Review: I was a big fan of Steven Pressfield after reading his previous book "The Gates of Fire", a historical fiction about the Spartans and their fight to hold the pass at Thermopylae. 'Bagger Vance' starts out as a good book with interesting, clearly defined characters. But it rapidly degenerates after the character of Bagger Vance goes from being a mysteriously insightful caddy to a god sent to teach people in early 20th century America how to play golf. The sillyness continues to the point where Bagger Vance starts drawing parallels between golf and battles fought on super-continents that have been long forgotten (one thing that bothered me especially about the book is that Bagger Vance keeps saying golf is like war, but never explains WHY). I like Steven Pressfield and I think he is a talented author, but unless you're some kind of new-age golf nut I'd give this one a pass. I'm willing to bet that his new book, 'The Tides of War' is going to be his next real page turner.
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Summary: Merging of golf & Eastern mysticism
Review: This novel is set in Savannah, GA and at a golf resort on an Island off Savannah in 1931. Walter Hagen and Bobby Jones compete in a match along with a third, fictional character named Rannulph Junah. Junah is a once locally great amatuer golfer who is persuaded to compete. Just the exotic name of this character lends a hint of the supernatural nature of this tale. Bagger Vance caddies for Junah but, Vance is far more than a caddy. He is a mysterious figure who is ageless and immortal. Perhaps he is a divine figure who materializes in human form. Indeed, Vance reduces the game to an enigmatic, philosophical precept: that each golfer must find his authentic swing, ie his one true swing that he is born with. Maybe this is good advice, we should stop taking lessons from pros who try to build our swings into some idealized form that is not right for us. Adding to the mysteriousness is the fact that the golf course disappeared in 1939 after being washed away by a great hurricane. Ceartainly golf and supernaturalism are melded into a very appealing tale. I recommend this book to golfers and non golfers alike.
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Summary: Mix up between believale and not
Review: This book, set in the Depression of 1931, is a tale of a mysterious man who has the ability the show people the Self and the Authentic Swing. Young Hardy Jones is shown this power as Bagger Vance unleashes his powers for Hardy and Runnulph Junah. This story is a great story when it is in the present an focasing on the characters. But, when the story goes into the supernatural, it turns into an unrelatable mix up. I do not suggerst this book for the younger readers for they will become lost in this odd tale.
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Summary: Much Deeper than What You'll See in the Movie
Review: I enjoyed both the movie and the book, but the book delves deeply into eastern philosophy. The beginning and ending of the book are slightly different from the film version, but the major events are the same in both. And of course, this is much more than a story about golf. If you like the philosophical aspects of the book, I would suggest reading more on eastern thought and philosophy. Perhaps starting with "The Tao of Physics" by Capra.
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Summary: most feeble of recommendations
Review: A couple of years ago, Steven Pressfield wrote a terrific novel about the Battle of Thermopylae, Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae () (read Orrin's review, Grade: A+), and followed it up with a pretty good novel about Alcibiades, Tides of War: A Novel of Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War (2000) (read Orrin's review, Grade: B+). Plus, I'm a golfer and a golf fan, so I was fully prepared to set aside my skepticism about another mystic golf book (having loathed Golf in the Kingdom by Michael Murphy) and give this one a fair shot. I was still disappointed. The story is set at a magnificent golf course on Krewe Island near Savannah, Georgia. In need of a big publicity stunt to offset the effects of the Depression, the owners decide to stage a $20,000, 36 hole match between golf legends Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen. In order to appease locals who are upset about the tumult this will cause, a native Savannahian is added to the match, a war hero and storied athlete with the unlikely name of Rannulph Junnah. He is reluctant to take part but agrees at the behest of his mysterious black friend, Bagger Vance, who offers to caddie for him. Junnah, badly out of practice and drinking too much, has been shattered by his wartime experiences. After the war he even visited the families of the eleven Germans he killed and married the sister of one, though she is now deceased, and their daughter lives in Germany with her grandmother. But Bagger Vance's motive is not necessarily for Junnah to win the match, or even to contend, rather, he wants to use it to teach him about life. Specifically, he wants to demonstrate the existence of what he refers to as the Authentic Swing and the importance of discovering it and trusting it.... Now, I'm as susceptible to a hokey sports story as anybody; put it in the VCR right now and I'll sit on the edge of my seat to see who wins the big game in Hoosiers. And I don't mind a little supernatural mumbo jumbo; give me Shoeless Joe or Damn Yankees or Angels in the Outfiield any day. Heck, I don't even mind a little Eastern Philosophy thrown in--Iron and Silk, Zen in the Art of Archery, etc. But put them all together, and offer us no surprises, and it gets a little tedious. Pressfield's talent as a writer shines through--except when he slides into philosophical gobbledy gook--and the period setting in particular is handled deftly. But I have four very specific objections to the novel. First, Jones and Hagen are the two most interesting characters in the book; they're the ones we want to know more about. And it's simply implausible that even with God on his side some drunken yokel would beat these two guys. Second, there's one golf moment in the book which really seems too violate the spirit of all that Pressfield has been saying about the beauty of the game and about sport in general. After he's gotten back into the match, Junnah's ball moves when he's addressing it and he's forced to take a penalty. Pressfield emphasizes the honor he demonstrates in that moment, but the obvious touch here, perfectly consistent with the sporty character he displays throughout, would be for Hagen to nudge his ball too to even things up, with Jones then following suit. Their willingness to take advantage of a purely flukish happenstance against this amateur just doesn't seem sporting. Third, there's a completely insipid tone of pacifism and one-world twaddle underlying certain parts of the story. It reaches hilarious lengths when the black student tells about a family trip to New York City where : My dad carried us up there on Amtrak, to see the Statue of Liberty and the U.N. He wanted to show us our legacy as Americans. Huh? The U.N.? You show me the American who thinks of that bureaucratic den of thieves and blowhards as an integral part of our national legacy. Finally though, what's most troubling is the antihuman nature of the Authentic Swing. I really hate the idea, common in Eastern Philosophy, that the things which we humans can achieve exist beyond ourselves, rather than being products of our ingenuity, effort and application of the will to succeed. We've all had those experiences when we're "in the groove" and something really difficult, like hitting a golf ball, comes almost effortlessly and seemingly without thought For that brief time, it is possible to believe that we've tapped into something external or something primordially internal. But to believe this seems to me to completely underestimate ourselves and our species and I find it repellent. The conceit here, that by tapping into the Authentic Swing this hack can beat two of the greatest golfers who ever lived, just seems silly. Even if such a thing existed, let's assume that Bobby Jones was nearly always utilizing it. I honestly wish I liked the book more and I think the movie could be decent, especially if they whack the modern frame, emphasize the two real golf greats and minimize the philosophizing. And I suppose that if you haven't seen every old sports movie and read every classic sports book it might not seem quite so derivative (Junnah even has a hand carved driver, like Roy Hobbes's bat Wonder Boy in The Natural.) As is, I can only give it the most feeble of recommendations and most of that derives from the excellent old time atmosphere, the portrayals of Jones and Hagen and the inherent drama that even awful sports stories have built in by the dynamic of the games. Any time someone wins and someone loses, you've got drama. This particular drama just isn't all that compelling. I strongly recommend that you read Gates of Fire instead. GRADE : C (a charitable C)
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Summary: Golf, Hindu, it's all the same...
Review: A brilliant retelling of the hindu classic The Bhagavad Gita in a historic golf motif. The storytelling is enchanting, the historical perspecitive wonderous. I would only complain that the mysticism grows increasingly heavyhanded as the book winds to its close.
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Summary: WHO IS BAGGER VANCE? YOU DECIDE!!!
Review: I'm a sucker for wanting to read a book before seeing the movie and actually finished this one a few hours before I left for the theater. What I particularly enjoyed in my reading was being able to picture Matt Damon and Will Smith in the starring roles. For the first time ever, though, I enjoyed the movie more than the book. In reading through a number of Amazon reviews, I note that most of the 5 star reviews are given by those who love the game of golf even if it doesn't love them at times. I am not a golfer so I found all the paragraphs devoted to the perfect swing, the right club and every other minute nuance of golf to be quite boring and tedious. I did, however, enjoy the lessons on life taught by Bagger Vance to anyone who would listen. The overall story is good. In order to save Krewe Island Golf Club from going under during the depression, the owner comes up with the wonderful idea of having a first class golf match between professional golfers Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen. Unfortunately, the founding fathers of this great Southern city of Savannah will not support it unless one of their own golfers gets to compete. They choose Rannulph Junah, who once was a great golfer in his own right -- before he went off to fight in the war and returned a troubled man who likes to drink heavily. He initially refuses to compete but Bagger Vance convinces him otherwise. He helps Rannulph to reconnect with his "authentic swing" -- the swing that is ours alone -- the swing that each person is born with. At this point I'm thinking that every golfer out there is loving this. But Bagger Vance's message is farther reaching than just finding your authentic swing. While you're there, find your authentic self -- the one you were born with before you were deluded by life's experiences. Throughout the book, you wonder if Bagger Vance is real or someone just sent here to help Junah through the match. Junah himself, in referring to Bagger, says in the book that "he was unable to assimilate his (Bagger's) wisdom or any wisdom. Nothing he said worked, then or later, except one single truth: the fact of his existance and of his love. That is all I needed then and all I will every need." Isn't this all any one person needs in life? And it is there for the taking. That is the message of Bagger Vance or whatever higher power you deem him to be. Do yourself a favor after reading this book -- go see the movie to continue your fascination with this character and your connection to a higher being.
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