Cricket in ATD

[Nick Halliwell]

Good evening everyone,

 

I've just joined this list today as I'm now around 770 pages into Against
The Day. This is the first of Mr Pynchon's books I've read, I'm ashamed to
say, but I am absolutely captivated and it won't be the last. More than
anything I'm astonished that Mr Pynchon, an American author, is clearly so
well-versed in the game of cricket.

 

I should probably start by declaring an interest: as an Englishman the game
of cricket is an important part of my own cultural make-up. It seems to crop
up very regularly in ATD and I'm curious as to how on earth Mr Pynchon comes
to know so much about our summer game? I mean, I freely confess that I know
next to nothing about games such as baseball or basketball which enjoy no
popularity in this country so it has come as a considerable surprise - and a
delight - to find numerous seemingly knowledgeable references scattered
throughout the book.

 

In the book, when Mr Lewis Basnight first arrives in England, there are
numerous amusing references to bombing outrages at cricket grounds such as
Headingly in Leeds (home to Yorkshire County Cricket Club and famously the
scene of "Botham's Test <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headingly_test> " in
1981), and mention is also made of Fenner's
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenner's> , the University of Cambridge's
cricket ground. I'm sure there's also a reference to Dr W.G. Grace, the
great Victorian cricketer appearing to a character in a dream. Would I be
right in thinking this is fairly esoteric to an American readership? I think
most Englishmen of my generation will have come across the name of the
Gloucestershire Doctor at some point during their childhoods, even though
he'd been dead for half a century by the time I was born. 

 

However on p756 I burst into hysterical laughter on reading of a prophet
called "The Doosra" and knew I was in the hands of a master. I'm sure this
will have caused much mirth amongst many readers in other cricket-playing
parts of the world, especially on the Indian subcontinent. A "doosra
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doosra> " (from Urdu and apparently literally
meaning "the second one") is a kind of delivery bowled by an off-spinner
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-spinner> . There was a great deal of
controversy in the cricket world a few years ago because of the doosra as
bowled by the great Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muralitharan>  - certain persons deemed his
action when bowling this particular delivery, amongst others, to be illegal
and he was even accused of committing that most heinous of all bowling
crimes, "chucking" or "throwing" the ball. This led to some somewhat surreal
scenes: we saw Mr Muralitharan with his arm strapped up so as to be forcibly
maintained at the "legal" angle to see whether he could still bowl his
doosra, there was all manner of scientific analysis of his action and of the
angle at which his bowling arm was bent during delivery. I'm delighted to
report that these scientific tests concluded that this great bowler's action
was completely licit and he left the nets without a stain upon his character
(but not without some on his cricket whites, of course). 

 

I just wondered whether anything is known about Mr Pynchon's connections to
the game. I can imagine that it might appeal in many ways, being full of
contradiction and played as much in the head as on the pitch. Indeed, like
Mr Pynchon's own writing, in my so far fairly limited experience, it is
initially bewildering but the more one experiences the easier. actually no,
it just gets more bewildering yet more fascinating. For instance there are
FOUR possible results of any game of cricket rather than the usual three
(your team may win, lose, draw or tie the game, the latter two being quite
distinct from one another).  

 

Of course a proper cricket match is also rather longer than most other
sports. The Test version of the game, the one that counts, is played over
five days, although at the time when ATD is set tests were "timeless"
(another concept which might appeal), in other words the game was played
until it reached a conclusion or didn't. There are now ridiculously rushed
versions of the game such as the one-day game, lasting as little as 8 hours,
and more recently the 20/20 version which barely gives you time to get
pleasantly, genteelly drunk and unpack your cucumber sandwiches then it's
over, in the blinking of an afternoon. But it is the five-day Test match
which offers the greatest scope and fascination, for all human life is
there. So, as in human life, there may be long periods during which nothing
very much appears to be happening but if you look a little more closely. You
may find that actually it's raining or that bad light has indeed stopped
play and that the players left the field two hours ago but you've been
asleep, dreaming of England improbably coming back from 2-0 down to retain
the Ashes <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ashes>  Down Under. 

 

So I also rather wonder what readers in non-cricketing countries such as the
author's own native United States are making of all this. 

 

Regards

 

Nick (another English "N", I'm afraid, although regretfully not as
pharmaceutically enhanced as the pair in the novel seem to be at most times)

 

P.S. References to Wikipedia pages are given as hyperlinks for your
convenience. 

 

 

 

 

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