Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The empire bats back

Obama ought to take up cricket, says Michael Fullilove.

It's almost as if one took seriously the words of Chuck Ramkissoon, a character in Joseph O'Neill's Netherland:
All people, Americans, whoever, are at their most civilized when they’re playing cricket. What’s the first thing that happens when Pakistan and India make peace? They play a cricket match. Cricket is instructive, Hans. It has a moral angle. ... I say, we want to have something in common with Hindus and Muslims? Chuck Ramkissoon is going to make it happen. With the New York Cricket Club, we could start a whole new chapter in U.S. history. Why not?
[P.S. 12 Nov: James Wood writes that "Netherland was consistently misread as a 9/11 novel, which stints what is most remarkable about it: that it is a postcolonial re-writing of The Great Gatsby." ]

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