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Book Review: ‘Open’ by Andre Agassi

April 19, 2011 in Best Of, Book Reviews, Reviews

I’m supposed to be reading all the books I borrowed from the university library in preparation for my novel, but I couldn’t help myself.  My physical bookshelves are just about out of space, crammed with books I bought over the last couple of years but haven’t yet started reading, so naturally I went and bought some e-books as well.

As some of you may know, Borders in Australia is in administration and are offering discounts of up to 30% on their books, including e-books (which doesn’t make much sense considering it is the piling inventory that’s killing them).  So I went ahead and got myself a bunch of e-books, one of them being Andre Agassi’s controversial autobiography Open.

I know I like to make fun of Andre (as I did in satirical posts A and B, two of the most popular ever on this blog), but he’s always been one of my favourite tennis players and one of the most entertaining players to watch on and off the court.  And ditto for Steffi Graf, who also has this graceful beauty about her.

I never thought I would enjoy Open as much as I did, and I certainly never expected to devour this relatively long book (400 pages in paperback form) in just a couple of days.  To put it simply, Open is arguably one of the greatest sports autobiographies ever written.

Much of it has to do with the fact that Agassi simply lived a fascinating life.  He was a tennis prodigy that grew up in Las Vegas with an overbearing, terrifying father that forced him to hit 2500 balls every single day against a suped-up ball machine.  From the moment he was born, Agassi’s life was nothing but tennis, which he claims he hated, but it was all he knew.  He knew everything about tennis but nothing about himself or who he was.  When he became pro, he was essentially regarded as an underachieving, disrespectful punk, but by the time he retired, he was one of the most revered players on tour, an outstanding philanthropist, and widely considered one of the greatest to ever swing a racquet.

I won’t spoil the joys of this fantastic book by revealing anything more than that, because Open is a journey that sweeps up the reader and transports them into Agassi’s world.  It’s a world full of raw emotion, confusion and contradiction, but also filled with an unusual sense of fate and destiny (especially when it came to Brooke Shields and Steffi Graf).

There was a lot of hoopla when the book was released about how Agassi revealed he took crystal meth and lied his way out of a suspension and the unflattering things he said about some of his contemporaries (in particular his arch rival Pete Sampras), but all of that represents a miniscule part of the book.  They are explosive revelations, no doubt, but Open is so much richer than just those things.  I loved Agassi’s honesty, the way he described his relationships with some of the closest people in his life (particularly his right hand man Reyes) and his growth on and off the tennis court.

A big reason why Open is such a fantastic read is because of the way it was written.  The whole time I was reading it I kept thinking to myself: Wow, Agassi is a wonderful writer.  Is this seriously a guy that put zero effort in during school and left it altogether in the ninth grade?

As it turned out, Agassi didn’t really write the book, at least not the first draft.  He was honest enough to admit in the Acknowledgments at the end of the book that he acquired the assistance of Pulitzer Prize winner JR Moehringer, who moulded hours and hours of recorded conversations with Agassi into a ‘story’, which Agassi then worked on closely to punch into publishing shape.

Open is indeed a story, one that is expertly told and structured.  Each chapter has carefully defined parameters and themes, usually dealing with a mixture of Agassi’s tennis life and personal life.  It’s the kind of book that, even if you have a bit of an idea about what happened at various parts of Agassi’s life, you’ll still want to read on and find out the events from his perspective, through his eyes.

I guess the only ‘criticism’ I have of the book is that I wanted to know more about certain aspects of Agassi’s life because they were not discussed at length or not at all.  In particular, I didn’t think he dealt with his newfound wealth sufficiently.  We saw that he bought lots of new, expensive stuff, but we didn’t really get a sense of what he thought of all the money flooding into his life.  That said, maybe I’m being too greedy.  It’s not exactly easy to capture a person’s entire life in 400 pages.

My hat off to Mr Agassi (and Mr Moehringer) for such a great read.

5 out of 5

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It really helps to read writings out loud

April 18, 2011 in Misc, Novel, On Writing, Study

The other day I finally got to workshop a chapter of my novel in my creative writing class.  I was a bit nervous (as I always am when getting other people to read my writing), but this was a little different.

This was a genuine first draft, and it wasn’t the type of writing the class was seeing.  The style was chatty, colloquial, and very light on description.  There was a lot of telling, not a whole lot of showing.  It was my attempt at something new in order to try and establish the voice, the most important part and what I’ve been struggling with.

If I learned one thing that night, it’s that reading your writings out loud really helps.  As I said, this was a first draft, but I did have a read over it to correct typos and spelling/grammatical errors.  But I read it over in my head, and to me, it all sounded fine.  I thought it was good enough.

When I read it out loud in class, however, it was a different story.  The story itself was not problematic but there was something about the rhythm to the narrative and the voice that were just a little…off.  There were moments when it sagged, when it didn’t sound right.  It was a flaw my lecturer picked up and said it was particularly important in comedic pieces (which this was) to have the right beats.  I hit some and missed some in this draft.

There were various other tips and recommendations from my classmates (including, of course, trying to ‘dramatise’ the ‘telling’ a bit more), but this was one thing that stood out the most.  Reading my writings out loud helped me to capitalise on the problem immediately.

From now on, that’s what I’m going to do with every draft and redraft.  Read it out loud and see how it sounds!

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Movie Review: Something Borrowed (2011)

April 18, 2011 in Movie Reviews, Reviews

National Release Date: 5 May 2011

Something Borrowed has a specific target audience in mind, and that target audience doesn’t include me.  After all, it is based on the bestselling chick lit novel (by Emily Griffin) and stars Kate Hudson, who I simply don’t like for reasons I don’t really understand.

Something Borrowed is an apt title, I suppose, because it borrows freely from other chick lit and chick flicks.  Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin from She’s Just Not That Into You — is it just me or has she lost a lot of weight?) is a thirty-year old single woman who is a quiet sidekick to her wild best friend Darcy (Kate Hudson), and is secretly in love with said friend’s fiance Dex (Colin Egglesfield), who was once her potential suitor and may have feelings for her too.

That’s all I’ll say but I imagine you can guess the rest.  Angst, heartache, heartbreak, loyalty, betrayal, friendship, love lost and love won — you get the gist.  It’s categorised as a rom-com but the humour is light and typical.  I wouldn’t call it completely predictable but there was definitely a sense of inevitability to the whole thing, which was all very formulaic.

There were good reasons for me to like the film.  Rachel is a lawyer (my old world) and her long-time confidant Ethan (John Krasinki) is a writer (my new world).  It’s a film about something I can appreciate — competing desires — what you want against what others think is right.  But I just couldn’t get into it, and I doubt the rest of the almost entirely male reviewer audience could either.

To be fair, I am a fan of Ginnifer Goodwin, who seems to be making a habit of being the lead actress without getting top billing (she was really the central character of He’s Just Not That Into You and dominates this film from start to finish).  She gives a stellar performance and is likable as the torn Rachel.  And as much as I hate to say it, Kate Hudson was pretty good too (but it doesn’t change the way I feel about her).  As for the male cast, John Krasinki was solid, bringing his comedic presence from The Office along with him, but Colin Egglesfield was horrible.  A fine looking man, but he failed to bring out a character that could have and should have been so much more.

Ultimately, the target audience may very well enjoy Something Borrowed.  Modern fairytalesque love triangle, (very) light humour, pretty stars and a cookie-cutter plot with an ending that’s too neatly wrapped for my liking (though for a film of this kind it’s not too bad).  I just wish it was more engrossing, had more laughs, and had more likable characters.  Was that too much to ask?

2 stars out of 5

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Hangzhou’s Lingyin Temple

April 18, 2011 in China, Travel

That says 'Lingyin Temple'

The most famous attraction at Hangzhou is obviously the beautiful West Lake that dominates the city.  Having arrived around noon on the first day, and after checking into the hotel and eating a quick lunch at the Ajisen Ramen across the road, we decided to check out an attraction away from the lake — Lingyin Temple.

Lingyin Temple is a Zen Buddhism temple up in the mountains west of West Lake and you pretty much have to catch a cab to get there.  Cars can only go so far, and after we were dropped off, we asked a security guard which way we should head to see the temple (there was basically left and right).

The dude told us that it was a long, mountainous walk, and that we would be better off catching one of the tourist shuttle buses which takes you right to the temple.  I can’t remember how much the fare was, but it wasn’t all that expensive, so we went along with it.

The shuttle bus took on another solo passenger (a local) and departed basically 90% empty.  It went left.  And the security guard was right — it was indeed a long, mountainous path, and we were glad we didn’t have to walk it.  We went past some pretty scenery, a monastery, and spotted rows upon rows of Longjin teal plantations.

Longjin tea plantations

A monastery

The shuttle bus eventually stopped and told us that we would have to walk the last leg.  It wasn’t far, the temple was right in front of us.  The solo traveller went with us, taking photos (mostly of the young school girls nearby) along the way.

As soon as we entered the grounds, I felt a strange wave of serenity sweep over me.  It was indeed beautiful, with pagodas and rocky walls lining a misty lake — the kind that you might see in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.  Further down there were some rock carvings along the cliff walls of buddhas.  Very cool.  We snapped away.  And this was just the outside.

Misty lake...

The famous carvings at Feilai Feng (aka Flying Peak)

To go in, as expected, you need to pay an entry fee.  No worries.  I’m glad we decided to go in, because it was definitely worth the price of admission.  Once we walked through the main arch into the central courtyard, there was a massive temple standing right in front of us, and dozens of people lighting up incense sticks and praying towards it.

To join in on the fun, I went and grabbed/bought (can’t remember if they were free) a whole bunch of incense sticks and went up to the little furnace they had running there to light it up.  It was harder than it looked, and awfully hot.  The little sticks just wouldn’t light.  I was told to take them out and shake them a little, get some air into them.  I must have shook took hard, because the entire bunch of sticks (about 12 of them) snapped right in the middle!  It was embarrassing.  Fortunately, they were still long enough to use.

The crowded central courtyard

After bowing in the general direction (following the crowd) and sticking them in this dusty box where everyone else was sticking them, we walked inside the temple.  Sadly, no photography allowed, but believe me when I say it was awesome.  How do they make such giant buddhas (and his friends)?

We discovered there was a door at the back of the temple and walked out, and low and behold, there was another one, built higher up on the mountain.  And there was another one after that, and I believe there was one more.  Lingyin Temple was essentially several temples built on top of each other.  There was also a small museum of some sort with some interesting artifacts.

Wall carvings inside the temple grounds

In the end, we spent a lot longer there than we had anticipated.  We even went back outside and snapped more photos of the misty lake.  The only downer was seeing the poor beggars hanging around the area, many with only stumps for arms and legs.

When we were finally done, we walked out of the temple grounds (in the opposite direction from where we came), hoping to find a taxi stand.  We didn’t want to walk all the way back.  But as it turned out, a few steps later we were back where we got off the cab.  Holy crap — we realised we had been duped by the security guard.  If we had headed right instead of left, we would have been able to walk to the temple entrance in two minutes.  Instead, we went left on the shuttle bus and took the long scenic route.  I can only guess he was trying to help out the economy.

View from the top

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Book Review: ‘When Horse Became Saw’ by Anthony Macris

April 16, 2011 in Best Of, Book Reviews, Reviews

When Horse Became Saw is a beautiful, gut-wrenching memoir from writer Anthony Macris about his family’s battle with autism.  His son Alex was a seemingly healthy baby boy that suddenly and inexplicably (like so many autism sufferers) fell into a frightening and unstoppable regression at around 18 months.  He stopped engaging with the world as we know it and became trapped in a world of his own, a world where everything became jumbled and nothing made sense.  Alex’s vocabulary began to deteriorate and words he once knew lost their meanings.  The word ‘horse’ had become ‘saw’.

What follows is an eye-opening journey into the lonely world of (severe) autism and a family’s struggle to provide the best possible future for their son.  It’s an old cliche, but Alex’s case was truly a parent’s worst nightmare.  Autism is a condition with no concrete cause, no known cure, and vastly different philosophies on treatment.  It is a condition that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat, and was and is criminally underfunded by the government, leaving parents in impossible situations.  It’s also a condition that ranges in severity, and Alex’s condition is at the far end of the spectrum, the severe kind.

Watching your child deteriorate before your eyes, knowing that he will never lead a normal life, and worrying about his future after you die — these are the things Macris and his wife Kathy have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.  The simplest of tasks (such as putting on a pair of socks) can take weeks to learn.  A child can go for months without any noticeable progress.

Worst of all, nothing you can do will ever be enough.  Working harder to make more money for his treatment means you get to spend less time with him.  Spending more time with him means you make less money for his treatment.  It can plunge the most optimistic of parents into despair.  That sense of helplessness can make a person question their worth as a father, a husband, a man.  It’s the type of feeling that can make a parent do something drastic, like killing their own child, a tragic reality that has happened before and is discussed in the book.

Having said all of that, When Horse Became Saw is not all doom and gloom.  Far from it.  I actually found it to be a strangely uplifting book to read.  There are moments of genuine happiness, of hope, of friendship, of selfless kindness, of a parent’s unconditional love for their child.  It became clear to me that despite his disadvantages, Alex is one of the lucky ones.

It is also an amazingly educational read that provides a wealth of information on autism — the difficult-to-define condition itself, the treatments available, the relevant national bodies, the state of public funding and private care — without ever being dry or textbook-like.

Much of that is due to Macris’s brilliant writing.  He works as a tertiary level creative writing teacher and it shines through.  Being a book for everyday mums and dads, the style of the book is simple, elegant and subtle, though occasionally the craftsmanship of a skilled writer rises to the surface through his imagery and vocabulary.  The quality of the writing is not something that is immediately apparent to the regular reader, but if you look closely, you’ll see Macris must have agonised over each sentence.  The book is a perfect blend of showing and telling — informative when it needs to be and evocative when it should be.  The passages describing his innermost thoughts and reflections are uncannily self-aware, piercing and heartfelt, and the scenes describing Alex’s diagnoses and treatment are vividly brought to life.  How he managed to write this book while teaching and making money and caring for his child all at the same time is a remarkable achievement in itself.

As someone whose extended family has been struck by autism on more than one occasion, this was a book that resonated with me far more than I had expected.  While it was beautifully written and a fine page-turner, I found it difficult to read on because it was so heartbreaking and infuriating at times.  But it’s a book I ultimately enjoyed, I’m glad I read, and I would gladly recommend to others.

4.5 stars out of 5

For more information check out the book’s page at Penguin here.  Anyone who has ever had a family member with autism or mental illness, and everyone who enjoys an engrossing read should read this book.

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