Just got a copy in the mail and read the first few chapters. I'll probably end up ripping through it pretty quickly, although I could see the excessive "literary" pretensions getting tedious. Anyone else reading it?
Some initial thoughts:
- I think I could do without the seemingly constant return to "but what does it all mean? What really is it, to 'skate?'" type navel-gazing
- Part of this has got to be because Beachy is a creative writing professor. The type of literature produced and discussed in academic writing circles is totally its own thing. It's a pretty insular world. No disrespect. I'm glad the guy can make a living and write about skateboarding, full stop.
- It's really funny that the publisher markets this book as "the skateboarding version of Barbarian Days," because Barbarian Days is a totally different narrative. BD is a hero's journey kind of structure, about exploration and coming to know the world and one's relation to it. "The Most Fun Thing" is a much more introspective book.
- Overall I'm just hyped that there is finally a book willing to consider skateboarding seriously, even if there are things about it that I could criticize.
- It's very perfect and funny to me that they got Mark Suciu to write a blurb for the back cover. He's gotta be one of like a small handful of pros that would ever EVER read something like this
I’m glad that the book exists and that there are people out there that take the book seriously and want to spend time thinking about and taking a closer look at skateboarding.
Was not that into the what is it to skate stuff? I think that Beachy spends too much time portraying as being so different from anything else that is not understandable by non-skater—and, in some instances—even skater. It’s not that different. Lots of people who engage in other hobbies/activities/sports/etc. think in ways that are similar to skaters. The similarities between people who fish (or whatever else) and people who skate are more interesting to me than the differences.
The navel-gazing gets to be too much on a number of occasions, and as a reader left me getting to the end of an essay and wondering “what’s this supposed to be about?” A number of times. Beachy makes lots of connections among skateboarding, writing, marriage, literary works, etc. and all of those connections are very clear—to him. He doesn’t often make those connections clear to the reader. As communicators, we understand what WE are thinking. When we want to communicate effectively, we have to make that the people we are speaking to/writing for/editing video for, etc. understand as well as we do what we are thinking so that they can get the points we are trying to make and make the connections we are trying to make.
The academy is insular. The the discussions that go on in it and the way people in that environment look at things can differ greatly from out people outside of the academy discuss/look at things. Especially in English departments.
That said, in my experience there are generally people in these departments that are aware of this and encourage the students to think and discuss in the typical department way, but to produce writing that is not so stilted/academic/purple/etc. There are departments out there that do (or used to) make their graduate student go through an Academic Writing class to help them sharpen their arguments, cut the fat, and break the habit of being “academic” that many students develop as undergraduates.
The whole time I was reading I was thinking that the book could use a lot of that.
Marketing it as being similar to “Barbarian Days” was a really weird move. Those books are not even sorta the same.
Topic: "The Most Fun Thing" by Kyle Beachy (Read 2575 times)