This is going to be a very fair review!

I'm just kidding.

This was the worst book I've read in a long, long time. I don't know what it is about Richard Ford. I really admire his short story collection, "Rock Springs." He has some great words in that book. But I read his first novel, "A Piece of My Heart," and that was trite. Which brings me to "The Sportswriter."

Some background: apparently Frank Bascombe, the book's (and subsequent series) narrator, is one of the most beloved and regaled characters in contemporary literature. Pardon my French, but how in the fuck is that possible? Ford's narrator (and I want to call him Ford's literary alter-ego) is a total ass. He had no change in this book. He stalks his ex-wife. He proposes to his younger girlfriend, WHO HE DOESN'T EVEN LIKE, numerous times despite her telling him to piss off. And he tells us about all these women who wanted to sleep with him. Oh, and he has a dead kid. But really that pain in his past doesn't create any sympathy.

This book is overly self-indulgent. You know those writers who spend way too much time writing about things that don't matter in the grand scheme of things? About 55% of this book is just that. Useless detail, made unbearable by Frank's whiny self-satisfying white-male egotist narration. I recall Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe when I say "You talk too damn much and too damn much of it is about you." That sums this book.

The incredibly sad part is is that this book could have been at least enjoyable. I get that Ford is writing a story about an unsatisfied middle-aged white guy in the modern world. Okay, but wouldn't it be great to have the events of his novel be about the death of his son and he following disintegration of his marriage? At least then Ford would have something interesting to explore - the breakdown of this character. Actually, you know, PUT HIM THROUGH SOME STUFF TO MAKE HIM CHANGE???? The sequel of this won the Pulitzer Prize. I don't even know if I want to read it. Going to need a whole bunch of bottles of Jameson for that one.

I've never ripped a book to pieces before. But I could not restrain myself with this one. No one deserves to read this, unless the CIA decides to use it for torture tactics.

Also, the use of the word "dreaminess" got on my damn nerves. Use a dictionary, Richard. Find some other words.

And speaking of words, Ford uses the word Negro in this book a lot. Unironically. It's always "The Negro woman," or "the Negro players on the team." Even saw the phrase "Negroid features." And he wasn't using it to make a point that his character was a racist, or racially insensitive. Ford is just an ass, apparently. But this is also the man who spat on Colson Whitehead because he wrote a bad review. Don't read his book. It sucks.

I attempted to read Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter several years ago, but I simply wasn't prepared. However, now that I have experienced a great deal more in life, I truly understand it.

Most importantly, I understand Ford’s Everyman hero, Frank Bascombe. He is a 38-year-old divorced man with two children, one of whom has passed away. After giving up a promising literary career, he works at a sports magazine and lives alone (he has an African boarder) in a New Jersey suburb.

I understand Frank’s indistinct longings, his dreamy nature, his small tragedies and his large ones, his successes and his failures, his compromises, his phone calls to those he used to know, his relationship with someone completely inappropriate, his thoughts about his ex-wife (literally called X – to protect her identity?), his civil gestures, his good Southern manners, his excusable prejudices and his inexcusable ones, his impulsive decisions and his crippling indecisions, his outward geniality and his actual remoteness. In the end, I understand his valiant and noble effort to try to live with dignity in a sad, unfair yet often beautiful world.

You don't need to know a great deal about sports to appreciate Ford’s magnificent, melancholy book. Not much occurs. It details one memorable Easter weekend in Frank’s life.

Will I read Ford’s other Bascombe books? As Frank would say in his grinning, archetypal middle-class American manner (with a sparkle in his eye, knowing you're also a reader of serious fiction), “You bet.”

The novel has a beauty that I didn't perceive until I reached the middle of my reading: Ford immersed me in the smallest concerns of an ordinary American in the 80s. This is no small feat, as I became so intertwined with Frank Bascombe's worries that even his tiniest surprises and disappointments became my own.

Perhaps writing about great tragedies, wonderful adventures, or the most transcendental speeches is not an entirely easy task. But being able to write a life without great travels, with the routine of getting to the end of the day, without so many sorrows or joys, going through the grief of a child's death (so distant, so close)... well, one has to have a steady hand. And Richard Ford has it in abundance.

He was a friend of Raymond Carver, but we shouldn't compare them. If Carver delves into the bone of the solitude of the marginalized American, Ford focuses on the acuity of the one who could make it in the American dream. Without as much Chekhov influence as Carver has, Ford bets on the regionalism of the East Coast. Almost like a Saul Bellow (but much better in my opinion).

I’m not really certain about what to think of this book.

There isn't truly a distinct plot, which is acceptable as it is beautifully written with well-developed characters. I was anticipating something momentous to occur to Frank that would transform his perspective. However, that didn't take place, and be cautioned, not a great deal happens in a physical sense. There is a great deal of self-reflection within Frank's mind. And once again, that's okay. But I soon realized that Frank is a bit of a mess. He can't tolerate being without female attention, yet perhaps that's common among divorcees? I don't know, and I hope I never will. He is definitely lazy; life seems to just happen to him, and he is optimistic to the point of being willingly naive.

Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the remainder of the series to observe what old Frank gets himself into.

Por un capricho sin fundamento, no había querido leer a Richard Ford hasta no poder leer esta novela. Teniendo a la mano otras novelas de él y un libro de relatos, me gustaba la idea de comenzar por los andares de Frank Bascombe en este libro. Creo que no me equivoqué.

Si bien entiendo, Bascombe tiene una edad similar a la mía en el tiempo de esta novela, quizá un par de años más grande de lo que yo soy ahora. Y quizá, sea por ello que logro sentirme en cierta parte identificado con los andares de este joven anciano, o de este joven adulto con cierta sabiduría que asocio con la ancianidad. Una paciencia y un cinismo que creo propios de alguien que “ya ha vivido”.

Hace poco más de un año que llegué a Ciudad de México, y desde entonces, me asaltó un deseo inesperado de ver y consumir deportes. Más de una vez me descubro viendo un juego cualquiera de béisbol en la computadora, o buscando transmisiones de partidos de soccer en los sitios web de las televisoras nacionales. Además, no dejo fuera mi suscripción anual a la app de NBA para seguir todos los juegos de basquetbol. Y, ocasionalmente, pescar algún juego de americano, por internet también.

Coincide también con que son temas con los cuales puedo platicar con más de una persona que he llegado a conocer o tratar más a fondo en esta ciudad. También coincide con cierta estabilidad emocional y cierto deseo de mantenerme alejado de la alienación a la que normalmente soy propenso. Más desde que trabajo desde una pequeña oficina montada en nuestro departamento.

Frank Bascombe se me revela como una especie de hermano mayor, no mucho, apenas unos años más que yo. Y con quien por fin puedo conversar sin pelear, sin discutir, sin ignorar. Hemos llegado a ese punto en nuestras vidas en donde muchas de nuestras certezas de juventud han perdido toda su fuerza. Es una edad en que contamos con el coraje necesario para aceptar nuestros fracasos, nuestros errores, nuestras malas decisiones, sin que sea demasiado tarde como para comprender que no todo está perdido. Podría estarlo. Pero no lo está.

El mundo visto a través de los ojos de Frank Ford es un mundo que se mueve a otro tempo, a otro ritmo. Es un mundo en donde los teléfonos celulares aún no habían llegado, un mundo que respeta pacientemente las situaciones y acepta los exabruptos inesperados como accidentes regulares de eso que nos aferramos por llamar vida.

De grande quiero ser como mi hermano mayor. Pero el asunto es que ya soy grande. Y viene a mi mente ese recuerdo no tan lejano en que cargaba a Emilia de apenas unas horas de nacida en la habitación de la Maternidad Conchita donde nació. Y el eco de una canción pop que sonaba en mi mente: “Lo cerca que ando de entrar / En un mundo descomunal / Siento mi fragilidad”. Y el mundo no cuestiona. No pregunta. Solo entras en la inmensidad y te defiendes con lo que tienes a mano.

La forma de pensar de Bascombe no me hubiera llegado antes. Estoy seguro. Tenía que llegarme este año, quizá el siguiente, pero no antes. No lo hubiera comprendido igual, quizá no me hubiera interesado en absoluto. Me llega poco más de 30 años después. Y me llega hondo.

Richard Ford se me descubre como un gran escritor, uno de esos que no necesita salir de su cuadra, de su colonia, de su barrio (esto es una metáfora) para abarcar razones humanas profundas. Para alcanzar a comprender sus limitaciones como ser, para aceptar que no lo ve todo, y que no necesita verlo.

Hay drama y tragedia, y algo de comedia en estas páginas. Hay un humor que uno espera encontrar en las reuniones familiares, con esa acritud y familiaridad acostumbrada de quienes no se eligieron pero que crecieron juntos. O separados, pero unidos por un vínculo de sangre.

Apenas unas decenas de páginas de comenzada la novela sabía que era una que querría regalarle a Freni. Y después de que este me trajera su café favorito de un viaje por Estados Unidos, supe que sería el regalo de vuelta que quería traerle del viaje que comenzamos Rebeca y yo por ese país, apenas unos días después del regreso de Efrén a México. Y lo mejor, que pude adquirirlo en una de mis librerías favoritas de Nueva York: Strand Bookstore.

Dejaré reposar ese agradable sabor que me deja The Sportswriter antes de continuar con Independence Day.

I didn't expect to have much affection for this book as it was the first homework book I read before delving into Richard Ford's Pulitzer Prize-winning second book, Independence Day. However, to my surprise, I did like it.

Frank Bascombe is an intriguing divorced and failed novel writer. He lives a great deal "inside himself" and almost always manages to express precisely the opposite of what he truly thinks. There is very little sports writing in this book, which was a bit of a surprise considering the title.

In my humble opinion, when compared to the Rabbit series by Updike, Stoner by Williams, or even the heterosexual Arthur Less by Greer, this book holds its own.

Overall, I would rate it 4 stars. It offers a unique perspective on the life of a complex character and keeps the reader engaged from start to finish.

It took me nearly a month to complete Richard Ford's "The Sportswriter." I simply couldn't endure reading more than 5 - 10 pages at a stretch. Why? Well, I'd say that perusing "The Sportswriter" is akin to being at a cocktail party, trapped listening to a tiresome individual whom you'd ordinarily go to great lengths to avoid. But this analogy is perhaps too general for Ford to fully appreciate. So, let me attempt the intensity he seems to abhor: reading "The Sportswriter" is like being confined in a urologist's waiting room with a loquacious person - a combination of boredom and irritation while dreading nothing but pain.

It's not unexpected that one of this novel's most ardent fans is Walker Percy, as in "The Moviegoer" (a suspiciously similar title), Percy crafted the same sort of protagonist who populates (but doesn't truly live within) the pages of "The Sportswriter" - the impulsive dullard. Frank Bascombe, the eponymous Sportswriter, spends 350 pages engaging in senseless activities such as stalking his ex-wife, proposing to a girlfriend he doesn't particularly like, and randomly hopping on trains to New York without any forethought or afterthought. This might be bearable if the stream of consciousness that forms the narrative presented Bascombe as recognizably troubled or even human, but it doesn't. The man appears to think in platitudes and offers some trite lesson on almost every other page (". . . is the best that any of us can hope for"). Similarly unhelpful is Ford's predictable prose style. The length and rhythm of his sentences rarely vary; they're mostly two-clause, semi-complex sentences that cluster into mid-length paragraphs lacking any particular point or direction. Is Ford attempting to depict anomie, or is he just a mediocre writer? There's reason to believe he's making a conscious effort to portray a man detached from his own emotions, given that Bascombe divorced his wife after the death of their eldest son. However, there's also reason to think that Ford is simply a very limited writer, as on the night Bascombe's wife discovers his infidelities, she sets fire to her . . . oh, Jesus . . . hope chest. It would be heavy-handed symbolism if Ford could muster enough energy to wield a sledgehammer. There's also Bascombe's curiously dated, borderline racist language. I don't recall much unironic use of the word "negro" in the 1980s, yet that's how Bascombe describes every black character. Is Ford depicting an anachronistic way of thinking, or is he just a tone-deaf jerk? I'm too inclined to believe the latter, since his characters don't speak like ordinary human beings; they speak like overly self-aware literary clichés ( "you're an awful man, Frank! You weren't awful when we were married, but you've gotten much worse").

"The Sportswriter" demonstrates, through negative example, the adage that novelists should avoid the word "all," as Ford employs it in, well, all the worst ways, including lazy descriptions ( "like all hometown suburbs") and obnoxious generalizations ( "all writers want this"). Regarding the latter, Bascombe, and by extension Ford, leaps to conclusions about every single person he encounters, reducing them to two-dimensional sketches ( "she's named either Jan or Kate and reads Roosevelt biographies") with no inner depth whatsoever. These presumptions are rife with assumptions about social status and geographic origin that are supposed to be economical storytelling but are merely lazy crutches. Additionally, I'm predisposed to loathe books in which the protagonist is an ex-fratboy who seems to be familiar with every other male character's former Greek status. I mean, who the hell cares? I sure as hell didn't. Damn, I really hated this book.

This was a truly lonely book, delving into the life of a lonely man. He does and says things that are likely to make you disagree. Sadly, many of these actions and words are either things you have contemplated saying or doing, or perhaps you have already done them yourself.

In contrast, Ford crafts Bascombe into a character who is both caring and intuitive. There are moments when he catches himself from saying something that might hurt someone's feelings, only to ruin it by making an inappropriate request like asking them to hop into bed moments later. Frank Bascombe is one of the most genuine human beings I have encountered in literature.

The book predominantly unfolds over the course of three days. The last day, Easter Sunday, seems to stretch on forever. Poor Frank Bascombe experiences numerous events that day, any one of which could potentially ruin my entire day. However, Frank soldiers on, often saying things that are misplaced or inappropriate. I'm certain that some readers will view him as a cad, but I found myself relating to him and constantly feeling sorry for him and the decisions he makes.

We are informed early on that, "We should all know what is at the end of our ropes and how it feels to be there." I don't know if I'm ready for a personal encounter with the end of my rope, let alone experiencing how it feels to be in that situation. I'll leave that to Richard Ford to handle. Frank Bascombe will无疑 be a character that remains with me, especially when I realize that something I have said or done was foolish.

In this book, Richard Ford engages the reader in the banality of the protagonist's life, Frank Bascombe, a sports journalist. I'm not sure if it was the writer's mastery or a redundant failure, but the fact is that it was so banal that it was deathly boring. But let's break it down.

Bascombe goes through the typical midlife crisis, but in reality, his problems started years before, when after the publication of a highly successful short story collection, he finds himself in a creative crisis, unable to write, and opts for a career as a sports journalist. To this creative failure is added the death of his son Ralph, from which he can never fully grieve:

"I had left Haddam in the somber state of mind that fell upon me every year on the day before Ralph's birthday. (...) "

Then the author turns the discourse to himself:

It is evident an anonymity that I desire. (...) It is better to think that one person is like another, than to think (...) that no one can be that person or take his place, which is madness and leads directly to melancholy and even ridicule because of a life that never existed."

But, ironically, these last words can also be about his son.

This tragic event leads him to a series of extra-marital adventures and, as expected, to the failure of his marriage and consequent divorce. Frank looks for some kind of comfort in women that he can never find:

"Women have always lightened my burdens(...) "

There is also a subtext of some disillusionment with the "American way of life" in the text:

"Dreamy people really have little to offer each other, in fact, they tend to neutralize the dreams of the other and reduce them to indistinct frivolity. Misery does not want company - happiness does. It is for this reason that I have learned to stay away from other sports journalists when I'm not working (...) because sports journalists are, most of the time, the most dreamy people in the world."

All this banality is described to us in a perfect language, sometimes almost poetic:

"Life is not always an upward path."

"This is the typical suburban night leading us to dizziness and dreams - without too much excitement, just the lives of isolated people who find themselves immersed in the harmonious secrecy of a dark time."

Another curious aspect, and I don't know if it's a characteristic of the author or the character (if it's the character, it was a brilliant job by Ford), Bascombe seems to me to be quite homophobic, racist (he is always mentioning when people are black, it seems almost an obsession), and xenophobic ("the idiotic smile of an immigrant").

In summary, it was a very difficult book to read, however, if the author's goal was to make us enter the depressive and bored spirit of Bascombe, he achieved it perfectly. It's moving forward in this little everyday life:

"Maturity, as I conceived it, was to recognize what was bad or peculiar in life, admitting that it has to be that way, and move forward with the best of things."

To be a sportswriter, unfortunately, means living life on the periphery of others'. This is precisely the reason Bert left the profession and now enjoys the company of Penny, his girls, and his sheepdogs at home, either watching Shakespeare on HBO or dozing off with a good book. Meanwhile, I find myself alone on a foul-smelling milk train...

I have a soft spot for that quote from this book, and there are several other lines and passages that will remain etched in my memory. Nevertheless, I must admit that this book left me with an overall sense of depression. A thirty-nine-year-old sportswriter constantly ponders how he could have ended up divorced, having lost his son to a dreadful disease, and what path his life as a writer should take.

The book features some intriguing characters, but there are also some challenging sections to read as I had little or no clue what the author was trying to convey. All in all, I feel as if I have witnessed the life of someone who merits a second chance. However, in order to embrace that opportunity, he must first let go of his past and move forward.

Let's just get this out of the way right off the bat;

there are a few heinously racist statements in this book. It was obviously written during a different time, but they still leave a horrible taste in your mouth while reading it, especially during today's international race riots/protests. It's hard not to hold it against Ford. Some of the passages have just aged so incredibly poorly.

On the other hand, The Sportswriter contains some of the most wonderful and insightful writing to be found in American literature. The author's ability to capture the nuances of human emotions and experiences is truly remarkable. However, on the OTHER hand, there are numerous lengthy monologues that come off as either incredibly whiny, pretentious, or just plain dull. These sections can make the reading experience a bit of a chore at times.

It makes rating the book quite a task, indeed. I'm going to go with 4-stars as I can't discount either the ugly racism or the stupendous writing. It's also rare for one book, with so little real plot, to run such a wide spectrum of emotions. There were tears (of empathy & boredom), there was laughter (genuine & sardonic), there were many, many, involuntary facial gestures (grins and grimaces in equal measure), and – not least of all – I came away with a deeper understanding of the human condition; at least for one night, and that ain't bad.

I adored this when I read it 30 years ago.

It was such a captivating piece that left a lasting impression on me.

The story, the characters, and the overall atmosphere seemed to draw me in and keep me hooked from start to finish.

Now, as the years have passed, I find myself wondering if it would still have the same charm and appeal on a second reading.

Would it stand up to the test of time?

Would the magic that I felt all those years ago still be there?

Or would it seem outdated and失去 its luster?

These questions linger in my mind as I consider picking up that old book once again and embarking on this literary journey for the second time.

I'm both excited and a little nervous to find out.