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Loading... Connie: The Marvellous Life of Learie Constantineby Harry Pearson
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Winner of the MCC Book of the Year Award His father was a first-class cricketer, his grandfather was a slave. Born in rural Trinidad in 1901, Learie Constantine was the most dynamic all-round cricketer of his age (1928-1939) when he played Test cricket for the West Indies and club cricket for Nelson. Few who saw Constantine in action would ever forget the experience. As well as the cricketing genius that led to Constantine being described as 'the most original cricketer of his time', Connie illuminates the world that he grew up in, a place where the memories of slavery were still fresh and where a peculiar, almost obsessive, devotion to 'Englishness' created a society that was often more British than Britain itself. Harry Pearson looks too at the society Constantine came to in England, which he would embrace as much as it embraced him: the narrow working-class world of the industrial North during a time of grave economic depression. Connie reveals how a flamboyant showman from the West Indies actually dovetailed rather well in a place where local music-hall stars such as George Formby, Frank Randle and Gracie Fields were fĂȘted as heroes, and how Lancashire League cricket fitted into this world of popular entertainment. Connie tells an uplifting story about sport and prejudice, genius and human decency, and the unlikely cultural exchange between two very different places - the tropical island of Trinidad and the cloth-manufacturing towns of northern England - which shared the common language of cricket. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)796.358092The arts Recreational and performing arts Athletic and outdoor sports and games Ball sports Ball and stick sports Cricket Biography And HistoryLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Harry Pearson is a fine author who has been able to inject humour into his previous award-winning cricket books, so I looked forward to "Connie" as an example of quality cricket writing. Sadly, it comes across as the usual cricket writing, full of fulsome praise for the cricketer, with too many pages of "he hit a splendid 44" and not enough of what made the man behind the cricketer.
I warmed to "Connie" as I neared the final chapter or two but Pearson deals with Constantine's election to Trinidad & Tobago parliament and his important ministerial role in a page and his high commissioner to the UK and his baronetcy in another page. Surely Pearson could have devoted a few more pages to this part of Constantine's life. ( )