The Blind Side
In honor of Oscar season, I thought I would start out with a book that is also a nominated movie.
I'll admit I was not convinced on this whole "The Blind Side" movie thing. Looked a little too hokey and feel-good for me, although everyone who has seen it swears up and down that it's worth seeing. I should probably trust my friends and family, but instead I remained a skeptic--until I found out that the book was written by Michael Lewis.
Unless you are interested in finance and/or a man, you may not have heard of Michael Lewis. I loved Moneyball so much, despite it being about baseball, that I (very) briefly had fantasies of diving into the field of statistics. Liar's Poker seemed less polished to me, although eerily prescient of the current economic crisis despite it being published in 1989 due to its talk of collapsing investment banks, mortgage-backed securities, etc. To borrow a phrase from Battlestar Galactica, this has all happened before and it will happen again.
Anyway, I decided that I should embrace The Blind Side when I discovered I could absorb it in book rather than movie form as I trusted ML not to be too sappy or emotionally manipulative. I received it from my Secret Santa at Spencer family Christmas (thanks, Jennifer!), and read it a few weeks ago.
What I liked about the book was its frankness. The Touhy family adpots Michael Oher, and it's not perfect. They make mistakes, Michael makes mistakes. They swing between selfless do-goodery and uncomfortable materialism---Leanne buys Michael his first bed at least in part so he won't ruin the $10,000 couch he was sleeping on before moving in permanently. The academic in me is appalled by some shameless exploitation of grade point average loopholes using the questionable academic standards for online courses at BYU. Plus, I don't like seeing kids looking at college as a necessary evil to make it to the NFL (or anywhere else); young people should have dreams, but not at the expense of their development as thinking adults. However, I think it's admirable that this family welcomed a teenager into their home and made the dream of the NFL--and a career outside of crime--a reality, and I'm happy that the book wasn't a saccharine canonization of a rich white family.
I also now know what a left tackle is, and can say semi-knowledgeable things like "What was Flozell Adams thinking? Did you see Tony Romo get floored by that blind side sack?"
Best chapter: Chapter 11, Freak of Nurture. After hundreds of pages of "now," we finally get some backstory on Michael's early life. It is very sad, but ultimately uplifting. The fact that he endured so much yet managed to never give up hope is inspiring--as is the fact that sometimes people do the right thing for near strangers just because it's the right thing, and that it's sometimes a chain reaction of people doing the right thing that leads to great things.
Unexpected tie in to my life: FedEx CEO Fred Smith makes a cameo. Although really that shouldn't have been much of a surprise given its setting among the wealthy Memphis elite.
Most memorable quotation: Oddly, it's from the acknowledgments at the end of the book. It made me laugh, although Ben didn't think it was nearly as funny as I did. "Delvin Lane would count as my highest-ranking friend in the Gangster Disciples, if he hadn't relinquished his title as gang leader. When Delvin was Born Again, and decided to dedicate his life to Christ, he assumed he might be killed in the bargain. (The penalty for a senior figure quitting the Gangster Disciples was, typically, death.) So, I'm grateful, I suppose, to the other Gangster Disciples for making an exception of Delvin, and permitting him to live, and to educate me." (page 338, paperback edition)
Has anyone else read the book? Should I relent and go see the movie?
I'll admit I was not convinced on this whole "The Blind Side" movie thing. Looked a little too hokey and feel-good for me, although everyone who has seen it swears up and down that it's worth seeing. I should probably trust my friends and family, but instead I remained a skeptic--until I found out that the book was written by Michael Lewis.
Unless you are interested in finance and/or a man, you may not have heard of Michael Lewis. I loved Moneyball so much, despite it being about baseball, that I (very) briefly had fantasies of diving into the field of statistics. Liar's Poker seemed less polished to me, although eerily prescient of the current economic crisis despite it being published in 1989 due to its talk of collapsing investment banks, mortgage-backed securities, etc. To borrow a phrase from Battlestar Galactica, this has all happened before and it will happen again.
Anyway, I decided that I should embrace The Blind Side when I discovered I could absorb it in book rather than movie form as I trusted ML not to be too sappy or emotionally manipulative. I received it from my Secret Santa at Spencer family Christmas (thanks, Jennifer!), and read it a few weeks ago.
What I liked about the book was its frankness. The Touhy family adpots Michael Oher, and it's not perfect. They make mistakes, Michael makes mistakes. They swing between selfless do-goodery and uncomfortable materialism---Leanne buys Michael his first bed at least in part so he won't ruin the $10,000 couch he was sleeping on before moving in permanently. The academic in me is appalled by some shameless exploitation of grade point average loopholes using the questionable academic standards for online courses at BYU. Plus, I don't like seeing kids looking at college as a necessary evil to make it to the NFL (or anywhere else); young people should have dreams, but not at the expense of their development as thinking adults. However, I think it's admirable that this family welcomed a teenager into their home and made the dream of the NFL--and a career outside of crime--a reality, and I'm happy that the book wasn't a saccharine canonization of a rich white family.
I also now know what a left tackle is, and can say semi-knowledgeable things like "What was Flozell Adams thinking? Did you see Tony Romo get floored by that blind side sack?"
Best chapter: Chapter 11, Freak of Nurture. After hundreds of pages of "now," we finally get some backstory on Michael's early life. It is very sad, but ultimately uplifting. The fact that he endured so much yet managed to never give up hope is inspiring--as is the fact that sometimes people do the right thing for near strangers just because it's the right thing, and that it's sometimes a chain reaction of people doing the right thing that leads to great things.
Unexpected tie in to my life: FedEx CEO Fred Smith makes a cameo. Although really that shouldn't have been much of a surprise given its setting among the wealthy Memphis elite.
Most memorable quotation: Oddly, it's from the acknowledgments at the end of the book. It made me laugh, although Ben didn't think it was nearly as funny as I did. "Delvin Lane would count as my highest-ranking friend in the Gangster Disciples, if he hadn't relinquished his title as gang leader. When Delvin was Born Again, and decided to dedicate his life to Christ, he assumed he might be killed in the bargain. (The penalty for a senior figure quitting the Gangster Disciples was, typically, death.) So, I'm grateful, I suppose, to the other Gangster Disciples for making an exception of Delvin, and permitting him to live, and to educate me." (page 338, paperback edition)
Has anyone else read the book? Should I relent and go see the movie?
Labels: books my parents would be happy i read, Michael Lewis, movies based on books, non-fiction
posted by Darci at
11:34 AM
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