“A match of football, Lefebvre pontificates, is a highly complex and unstable event, like the crashing of the sea onto rocks. One minute you understand, you see the harmony; the next minute you cease to understand, you see only chaos. Whether you are a player or a coach or a scout, there is always a bad surprise around the corner, something that you have not previewed, something that makes you doubt your judgment and your conceptions. And without fail, chance will play a role. Chance, Lefebvre says, is the secret player.”
An estranged family, a midlife crisis, a mysterious African football prodigy, a crumbling technical writing co-operative ... Joseph O'Neill covers a lot of ground in his mercurial "Godwin."
The author alternates perspectives in an interesting way,, with background characters assuming outsized roles and the arcana of international football dominating much of the exposition and plotline.
“Good luck to him, was my attitude. Keep the fuckers guessing. Almost certainly they do not mean well.”
I've experienced O'Neill's writing in both "Blood-Dark Track" and "Good Trouble," so I had a good idea of what to expect based on these works. However, it's only here where I felt the writer had found his ideal combination of topic and style.
“The parent who does not inspect the child in the hope of seeing the trace of the eternal, that parent does not exist.”
A satisfying ending somewhat rescues "Godwin" from an overly verbose style, partially overshadowing a tragedy and the overwhelming ennui that pervades most of the book. O'Neill's work can be read as a love letter to soccer fans -- or the yen for adventure that invades everyone who spends an inordinate amount of time behind a keyboard.
Perhaps even O'Neill himself.
“That isn’t to say that perspectivism doesn't have value, because of course it does. But it does not solve the problem. One remains an American idiot.”
“His self-absorption, his disappearance up his own ass, is total.”
