The Euro 2016 tournament is in full swing, with the knockout
phases about to commence, the Copa America is down to the Final between
Argentina and Chile, it is a time for football fans to sit back and watch the
best players front up for their respective nations, and it also appears to be a
time for football associated literature to hit the shelves. I recently read and
reviewed Jean-Philippe Toiussaint’s “Football” a short work exploring his childhood memories and the pull of the World Cup.
Today it is time to look at another translated work about the “world game”,
Juan Villoro’s “God Is Round: Tackling the Giants, Villans, Triumphs, and
Scandals of the World’s Favorite Game”, translated by Thomas Bunstead.
Juan Villoro is a well-known Mexican journalist and writer,
publishing five novels (none available in English to my knowledge), and he has
published two collections, “chronicles” and essays specifically about football,
as well as regularly writing about the sport he passionately loves. This new
work comes from Restless Books a digital-first publisher that “came of a
response to the limited exposure an American reader has to international
fiction”. In the words of founder Ilan Stavans; “The idea was to start out
digitally because it was more economically sound, because the move from print
to digital was already taking place, and because it is far easier to make
translations readily available in digitized form. Of course, the digitized form
means that the margin of revenue is much smaller. There’s Amazon, a huge
emporium controlling book distribution, so you have to look for ways to go
beyond that big conglomeration of power to find your own readership.” A
publisher that also translated graphic novels and science fiction (two genres
not often seen in translation), I came across this work when reading interviews
with various independent publishers in “Today’s Translation World” (an article
written by the translator here Thomas Bunstead), the interviews featuring
publishers I regularly haunt, Deep Vellum, Phoneme Media, the newly launched
Titled Axis, and Fitzcarraldo amongst others.
The book “God is Round” is a collection of essays, all, of
course, featuring football and coming from various times in Villoro’s writing
career. Unlike Toussaint’s book, self-described as follows: This is a book that no one will like, not
intellectuals, who aren’t interested in football, or football-lovers, who will
find it too intellectual. This is a book for football fanatics, an assumed
understanding and love of the game is required before you tackle the collection,
as famous players are referred to, structures (eg. 4-4-2), awards, tournaments,
grounds and more, all with an assumed knowledge.
Since I was a child I’ve been
aware that the matches I watch aren’t the best. The sensation of being far from
truly great endeavors intensified when satellite TV began bringing goals to us
from distant lands. But in any case, being a Mexico supporter, I’ve always
known that one’s passion for the game has little to do with winning all the
time.
There are also the rituals, myths, superstitions, stories
about how you chose a team, memories of times at matches with your father, the
sin of switching teams and so much more.
In this changeable reality of
ours, it’s perfectly acceptable to switch ideology, job, or even, after one form
of therapy or another, one’s sex or religion. But to betray the activity that
Javier Marías has defined as “the weekly return to childhood,” now that’s a
thorny thing. Which person, having placed all their hopes in a team, can
entertain a change of heart during adulthood, the very abolition of which is
what football stands for?
As hinted in the quote a little earlier, there is also the
Mexican element, what is it to be a Mexican, not just a football supporter
(quite pertinent earlier this week when the Mexican football team lost to Chile
7-0 in the Copa Americana Quarter Finals 7-0);
In Mexico City the sense of
belonging doesn’t depend on the people or the scenery. Everyone leaves,
everything subsides.
And we have literary references, Antonio Tabbucchi appears
here (as he did in the book I reviewed earlier this week, Serio Pitol’s “The Art of Flight”) and there is the tale of an Alaskan finding a soccer ball washed up on the
shore, a remnant of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, a ball signed by a
group of children and the journey to take it back to its rightful owner. Sounds
very similar to Ruth Ozeki’s 2013 Man Booker Prize Shortlisted “A Tale for the Time Being”
There are also frequent references to other Spanish Language
writers, Javier Marias, Jorge Luis Borges and their references to football, and
if their writings weren’t specifically about football, Villoro bends the
meaning to make sure it fits. The stretch of the imagination is not required here
very often, with reflections upon the game spelled out, drawing parallels to
political systems, life in general…;
Football offers one of the most
propitious situations for the intellectual life, in that the majority of the
game is spent doing nothing. You run but the ball is nowhere near you, you
stop, you do up your bootlaces, you shout things no one hears, you spit on the
ground, you exchange a harsh look with an opposing player, you remember you
forgot to lock the terrace door. For the majority of the game, the football
player is no more that the possibility of
a footballer. He or she can be in the game without being in the game. He or she has to be there
for the group sketch to be complete, and has to move around to avoid being
caught offside, or to shake off a marker. But there are long stretches in this
strange state, being-nowhere-near-the-ball, since it’s only in the zone immediately
around the ball that the game truly takes place.
And:
Spain’s La Liga has become a
metaphor for a country in crisis; only two or three ever stand a realistic
chance of coming out on top, and there are always eight or nine struggling to
avoid relegation. The most intense – and democratic – passion awoken isn’t
about success but about saving yourself from utter disaster.
Opinions on the greatness of players are also featured, you
are going to have to buy and read this for yourself to find out what he thinks
of Cristiano Ronaldo, let’s say it’s not pretty, and to learn more about our
writer’s opinion on other great players. There is also an examination and an
opinion of FIFA’s corruption, which of course is still updating as the weeks
unfold;
One of the strangest things about
Western democracies is the way they’ve cordoned off the primitive impulse. And
the place it’s been cordoned off? Professional sport. The same countries that
preach about the rule of law and accountability accept the presence of
institutions that are, strictly speaking, criminal enclaves. The most renowned
is the one known as “FIFA”.
Utterly divorced from fiscal transparency, specializing in the peddling of influence and shady dealings, a levier of kickbacks, and an ally of autocratic governments, football’s chief global proponent has realized a dream of conducting itself like an irascible banana republic within the realms of the free market. With more paid-up members than the UN, this international organism is run by a group of people only interested in satisfying their own cravings and caprice.
Utterly divorced from fiscal transparency, specializing in the peddling of influence and shady dealings, a levier of kickbacks, and an ally of autocratic governments, football’s chief global proponent has realized a dream of conducting itself like an irascible banana republic within the realms of the free market. With more paid-up members than the UN, this international organism is run by a group of people only interested in satisfying their own cravings and caprice.
And we have an opinion about the association of violence
with football and the potential cessation of such:
Only when FIFA and the
politicians and companies associated with the sport submit to democratic rules,
only when these vultures within the game lose their “protected species” status
(to use the apt phrase of Valencian novelist Ferran Torrent), only at that
point will bloodshed on the terraces cease.
A book that is made up of a series of essays, it reads as
such, with a number of opinions repeated throughout, but of course would have
been singularly highlighted in a single essay, and this factor can be
distracting and tiresome. I did find myself occasionally thinking, “Why am I
reading this again?” However as a football lover the opinions, knowledge and
insight into the passion of other nations (especially Mexico) as well as
background to some of the South American Club teams that I didn’t understand,
was overall an enjoyable read.
Blending literature, opinion, fact and speculation this is
another fine addition to the football books I have recently read, and with
significantly more depth than Jean-Philippe Toussaint’s “Football” it is a
preferred recommendation as reading material for the football fanatic during
the European off season.
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