current reading
while at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library last evening (Tuesday), I came across a well-worn first edition (Random House, 2001) of the book Seabiscuit: An American Legend, authored by Laura Hillenbrand.
the Seabiscuit movie was based upon this particular book and, in fact, the author served as a consultant for it.
one of the librarians and I discussed the book as well as the movie, which I have already seen twice so far. they told me that, in their opinion, the book was far better than the movie and was a must-read. i'm obviously sold of course.
as I am a very slow reader and reading in general comes hard to me, being that it is not a new book, I have the book for a month and, if no one puts in a request for it, I may be able to renew it for yet another two weeks if I need such an extension.
began reading it last night of course. then continued my reading first thing, very early, this morning over a giant coffee and two donuts (a number 1) at the local Dunkin Donuts, whose new location only recently (re)opened in Montpelier.
*update*
back on March 14, 2001, Salon carried a review of Laura Hillenbrand's book, here.
while we were speaking together last night, the librarian also informed me that the book's author has chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS).
just came across an archived copy of a must-read article written by her, which was originally published in the the July 7, 2003 edition of The New Yorker, on the subject: A Sudden Illness -- How My Life Changed:
[...]
On a cool fall day in 1996, I was sifting through some documents on the great racehorse Seabiscuit when I discovered Red Pollard, the horse's jockey. I saw him first in a photograph, curled over Seabiscuit's neck. Looking out at me from the summer of 1938, he had wistful eyes and a face as rough as walnut bark.
I began looking into his life and found a story to go with the face. Born in 1909, Red was an exceptionally intelligent, bookish child with a shock of orange hair. At 15, he was abandoned by his guardian at a makeshift racetrack cut through a Montana hayfield. He wanted to be a jockey, but he was too tall and too powerfully built. That didn't stop him, though. He began race riding in the bush leagues and fared so badly that he took to part-time prizefighting in order to survive. He lived in horse stalls for 12 years, studying Emerson and the 'Rubaiyat,' piloting neurotic horses at 'leaky roof' tracks, getting punched bloody in cow-town clubs, keeping painfully thin with near-starvation diets, and probably pills containing the eggs of tapeworms.
He was appallingly accident-prone. Racehorses blinded his right eye, somersaulted onto his chest at forty miles per hour, trampled him, and rammed him into the corner of a barn, virtually severing his lower leg. He shattered his teeth and fractured his back, hip, legs, collarbone, shoulder, ribs. He was once so badly mauled that the newspapers announced his death. But he came back every time, struggling through pain and fear and the limitations of his body to do the only thing he had ever wanted to do. And in the one lucky moment of his unlucky life he found Seabiscuit, a horse as damaged and persistent as he was. I hung Red's picture above my desk and began to write.
What began as an article for American Heritage became an obsession, and in the next two years the obsession became a book. Borden and I moved to a cheap rental house farther downtown, and I arranged my life around the project. At the local library, I pored over documents and microfilm I requisitioned from the Library of Congress. If I looked down at my work, the room spun, so I perched my laptop on a stack of books in my office, and Borden jerry-rigged a device that held documents vertically. When I was too tired to sit at my desk, I set the laptop up on my bed. When I was too dizzy to read, I lay down and wrote with my eyes closed. Living in my subjects' bodies, I forgot about my own.
I mailed the manuscript off to Random House in September 2000, then fell into bed. I was lying there the following day when the room began to gyrate. Reviewing the galleys brought me close to vomiting several times a day. Most of the gains I had made since 1995 were lost. I spent each afternoon sitting with Fangfoss on my back steps, watching the world undulate and sliding into despair.
In March 2001, Random House released 'Seabiscuit. An American Legend.' Five days later, I was lying down, when the phone rang. 'You are a best-selling writer,' my editor said. I screamed. Two weeks later, I picked up the phone to hear him and my agent shout in tandem, 'You're No. 1!' Borden threw a window open and yelled it to the neighborhood.
[...]
speaking of The New Yorker, in the August 4, 2003 edition was this article concerning the movie: Horse Power.
ESPN's Website includes these items concerning Seabiscuit: Size doesn't matter (here), Heart of a Champion (here) and, The tricks behind the making of 'Seabiscuit' (here).
in addition, PBS featured an excellent American Experience documentary presentation focused on Seabiscuit.
*note*: updated my initial blog post for purposes of clarification and readability as well as providing additional related information and links on the subject: last updated on Wednesday, April 28, 2004 at 4:42 PM [EDT].
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