Thema: DAVID PEACE - The Damned United

[Lionel]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Damned-Utd-David-Peace/dp/0571224334/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258833515&sr=1-1

Overachieving and eccentric football manager Brian Clough was on his way to take over at the country's most successful, and most reviled, football club: Leeds United, home to a generation of fiercely competitive but ageing players. The battle he'd face there would make or break the club - or him. David Peace's extraordinarily inventive novel tells the story of a world characterised by fear of failure and hunger for success set in the bleak heart of the 1970s. (play.com)


      
71 of 84 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars David Peace at his best, 30 April 2007
By    Mister Hobgoblin (Edinburgh, Scotland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)     
First and foremost - this is not a football book. It's a novel that is about football in general and Brian Clough in particular - but it is definitely in the literary fiction genre.

David Peace has written five previous novels and he takes his central themes - sleaze, corruption, Yorkshire, class conflict, man management - in a new direction in this fictionalization of the early career of Brian Clough.

Nobody comes out well. Not the players, not the Boards, not the clubs and certainly not Brian Clough. Cloughie is portrayed as a dogmatic, confrontational and deceitful man, bent on gaining power and money at any cost. This is put into relief through the interior monologue in Cloughie's head. Peace revisits the use of repetition and mantra to bring out the paranoia - a style that he has already made his own. The pace is breathless and, as with the award-winning GB84 (Peace's award winning portrayal of the miners' strike), the inevitable end is still eagerly awaited.

The themes of alcohol and bungs are still grabbing the headlines today. But what The Damned Utd brought to life for me was the politicking of a football club. In public, clubs and teams are portrayed as matey, friendly organizations united in their struggle against their opponents. Here, we see the divisions within dressing rooms and boardrooms. We see football clubs as companies with structures and administration and rules. We see the role played by coaches and assistants. We see the backstabbing and betrayal. We see the glue that holds it all together. And the manager seems to be some way down in the pecking order, even a manager is as grand as Cloughie.

I guess most people who read the novel will have an interest in football - and probably some personal interest in Leeds Utd, Derby County or Brian Clough. But there is so much more to this astonishing novel. [...] You really just need an interest in human spirit at its very worst. (amazon.co.uk)


4/5 Sternen bei 94 Bewertungen bei amazon UK. Geil, von Peace kann das nur genial sein!!!

Offenbar auch verfilmt (dieses Jahr), und das wohl nicht mal schlecht:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001TV0AHW/ref=s9_sima_gw_s0_p14_i2?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=15SHYJJT366HE4BCD051&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=467198433&pf_rd_i=468294



Werd mal nen Thread in Neuigkeiten zum Film aufmachen.

[JasonXtreme]

Von Peace muss auf kurz oder lang alles her das is mein zweiter Lansdale

[Lionel]

Saugeiles Buch. Wirklich schade, dass es nicht ewig ging. Wer mit Peace's Schreibweise was anfangen kann, und auch nur halbwegs Fußball zugetan ist, der wird hier die Erfüllung finden. Ich les demnächst mal die Tokyo-Trilogie.