A review by jbmorgan86
The Brothers K by David James Duncan
5.0
This may be my favorite novel of all-time.
I started this book over a year ago. I had heard that it was a great "baseball book" and I was itching for winter to thaw and baseball to begin. However, only a fraction of this book is about baseball. Rather, it is about family, love, faith, joy, sorrow, war, government, life, and death.
Obviously, the book gets its title from Dostoevsky's, _The Brothers Karamazov_. The "K" is also a reference to the "K" or strike out in baseball. Like the Brothers Karamazov, the story is primarily about a father and his sons: Peter (the Far Eastern mystic), Irwin (the faithful Seventh Day Adventist), Everett (the anarchist), and Kincaid (the somewhat mysterious narrator). The story follows the life of the family through Vietnam and beyond.
The Brothers K will make you laugh out loud (". . . by setting forth into the bowels of one of those -re-posthumous purgatories we euphemism-loving Americans call 'a family vacation.'). It will bring you to the point of tears (no spoilers). Duncan's style is unlike anything that I've ever read: it is so conversational and enjoyable to read. You feel like you intimately know each character by the end (except Kincaid, the narrator). All along the way, there are great thoughts on baseball, spirituality, and politics.
A few of my favorite quotations:
"Technical obsession is like an unlit, ever-narrowing mine shaft leading straight down through the human mind. The deeper down one plunges, the more fabulous, and often the more remunerative, the gems or ore. But the deeper down one plunges, the more confined and conditioned one’s thoughts become, and the greater the danger of permanently losing one’s way back to the surface of the planet. There also seems to be an overpowering, malignant magic that reigns deep down in these shafts. And those who journey too far or stay down too long become its minions without knowing it—become not so much human beings as human tools wielded by whatever ideology, industry, force or idea happens to rule that particular mine. Another danger: because these mines are primarily mental, not physical, they do not necessarily mar or even mark the faces of those who have become utterly lost in them. A man or woman miles down, thrall to the magic, far beyond caring about anything still occurring on the planet’s surface, can sit down beside you on a park bench or bleacher seat, greet you in the street, shake your hand, look you in the eye, smile genially, say 'How are you?' or 'Merry Christmas!' or 'How about those Yankees?' And you will never suspect that you are in the presence not of a kindred spirit, but of a subterranean force."
"Anyone too undisciplined, too self-righteous or too self-centered to live in the world as it is has a tendency to idealize a world which ought to be. But no matter what political or religious direction such idealists choose, their visions always share one telling characteristic: in their utopias, heavens or brave new worlds, their greatest personal weakness suddenly appears to be a strength."
"[they] laugh and squirmed the sorts of laughs and squirms that Jehovah may have witnessed on the day He created misogyny."
"I cherish a theory I once heard propounded by G.Q. Durham that professional baseball is inherently antiwar. The most overlooked cause of war, his theory runs, is that it’s so damned interesting. It takes hard effort, skill, love and a little luck to make times of peace consistently interesting. About all it takes to make war interesting is a life. The appeal of trying to kill others without being killed yourself, according to Gale, is that it brings suspense, terror, honor, disgrace, rage, tragedy, treachery and occasionally even heroism within range of guys who, in times of peace, might lead lives of unmitigated blandness. But baseball, he says, is one activity that is able to generate suspense and excitement on a national scale, just like war. And baseball can only be played in peace. Hence G.Q.’s thesis that pro ball-players—little as some of them may want to hear it—are basically just a bunch of unusually well-coordinated guys working hard and artfully to prevent wars, by making peace more interesting."
I started this book over a year ago. I had heard that it was a great "baseball book" and I was itching for winter to thaw and baseball to begin. However, only a fraction of this book is about baseball. Rather, it is about family, love, faith, joy, sorrow, war, government, life, and death.
Obviously, the book gets its title from Dostoevsky's, _The Brothers Karamazov_. The "K" is also a reference to the "K" or strike out in baseball. Like the Brothers Karamazov, the story is primarily about a father and his sons: Peter (the Far Eastern mystic), Irwin (the faithful Seventh Day Adventist), Everett (the anarchist), and Kincaid (the somewhat mysterious narrator). The story follows the life of the family through Vietnam and beyond.
The Brothers K will make you laugh out loud (". . . by setting forth into the bowels of one of those -re-posthumous purgatories we euphemism-loving Americans call 'a family vacation.'). It will bring you to the point of tears (no spoilers). Duncan's style is unlike anything that I've ever read: it is so conversational and enjoyable to read. You feel like you intimately know each character by the end (except Kincaid, the narrator). All along the way, there are great thoughts on baseball, spirituality, and politics.
A few of my favorite quotations:
"Technical obsession is like an unlit, ever-narrowing mine shaft leading straight down through the human mind. The deeper down one plunges, the more fabulous, and often the more remunerative, the gems or ore. But the deeper down one plunges, the more confined and conditioned one’s thoughts become, and the greater the danger of permanently losing one’s way back to the surface of the planet. There also seems to be an overpowering, malignant magic that reigns deep down in these shafts. And those who journey too far or stay down too long become its minions without knowing it—become not so much human beings as human tools wielded by whatever ideology, industry, force or idea happens to rule that particular mine. Another danger: because these mines are primarily mental, not physical, they do not necessarily mar or even mark the faces of those who have become utterly lost in them. A man or woman miles down, thrall to the magic, far beyond caring about anything still occurring on the planet’s surface, can sit down beside you on a park bench or bleacher seat, greet you in the street, shake your hand, look you in the eye, smile genially, say 'How are you?' or 'Merry Christmas!' or 'How about those Yankees?' And you will never suspect that you are in the presence not of a kindred spirit, but of a subterranean force."
"Anyone too undisciplined, too self-righteous or too self-centered to live in the world as it is has a tendency to idealize a world which ought to be. But no matter what political or religious direction such idealists choose, their visions always share one telling characteristic: in their utopias, heavens or brave new worlds, their greatest personal weakness suddenly appears to be a strength."
"[they] laugh and squirmed the sorts of laughs and squirms that Jehovah may have witnessed on the day He created misogyny."
"I cherish a theory I once heard propounded by G.Q. Durham that professional baseball is inherently antiwar. The most overlooked cause of war, his theory runs, is that it’s so damned interesting. It takes hard effort, skill, love and a little luck to make times of peace consistently interesting. About all it takes to make war interesting is a life. The appeal of trying to kill others without being killed yourself, according to Gale, is that it brings suspense, terror, honor, disgrace, rage, tragedy, treachery and occasionally even heroism within range of guys who, in times of peace, might lead lives of unmitigated blandness. But baseball, he says, is one activity that is able to generate suspense and excitement on a national scale, just like war. And baseball can only be played in peace. Hence G.Q.’s thesis that pro ball-players—little as some of them may want to hear it—are basically just a bunch of unusually well-coordinated guys working hard and artfully to prevent wars, by making peace more interesting."