Perhaps.
But am I that mad keen on sport? Journalism was more important, it's all I've ever wanted to do for a living. Books are more important, from classics to trash and back again. Language - French and German as well as English - is more important. The urge to write fiction. The more recent urge to sing.
As I switched on Bull Durham VR said shrewdly, "It stars Susan Sarandon." True, and she looks gorgeous. Then VR admitted Kevin Costner, the co-star, is also a tiny bit sexy. But Bull Durham is more than its stars.
For me the story is well told and satisfying but probably impenetrable in the UK. Most important it's minor-league, close to my suburban life in Pennsylvania for six years. The characters are generic and I've known their likenesses in the companies that employed me, in the softball team I used to watch. That straining to be competitive which is absent in the UK. That wish to be self-reliant. That directness. That slightly frenzied attitude towards leisure activities.
Durham is a real town in North Carolina. The Bulls’ stadium is slightly run-down and thus believable. I recognised several truths. Once we were settled in our Pittsburgh apartment, the USA ceased to be a world theory and became the neighbours and the parking problems. Watching Bull Durham I was briefly back in that other home.
Cheap time travel
Welcome home for that short stay.
ReplyDeleteColette: Within a day of entering that apartment I sent a letter to my mother, letting her know about the various excitements and also passing on my new address:
ReplyDelete3214 Annapolis Avenue.
My mother replied: Can the avenue be so long that the addresses run to four figures? And thus began my unexpected but enjoyable role as interpreter of US domestic detail to my family back in the UK.