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Beyond a Boundary
James, C.L.R.
Publisher: DukeYear First Published: 1963 Year Published: 1983 Pages: 268pp Price: $28.50 ISBN: 978-0-8223-1383-0 Resource Type: Book Cx Number: CX6735 Part memoir of a boyhood in a black colony (by one of the founders of African nationalism), part passionate celebration of the game of cricket, this book raises serious questions about race, class, politics, and the realities of colonial oppression. Abstract: How does an apparently coercive instrument of British imperialism, used to civilise and indoctrinate colonial subjects, become a means of challenging the colonial order? While cricket has been regarded as a metaphor for the British Empire itself, for C.L.R. James it is also a site of dissent and integral to the move toward self-determination in the West Indies. James argues that sports cannot be reduced to mere entertainment, and offers instead a view of cricket in which it appears as dramatic spectacle and visual art. James situates his account of cricket in a broad social and political framework which begins with his childhood in the town of Tunapuna, Trinidad. Literature and cricket were James' dual passions and inculcated in him a British moral and ethical code. Understanding the political dynamics of cricket in a specifically West Indian colonial context helped prepare James for entry into the political sphere. Membership in cricket clubs was mediated by hierarchies of race, class and skin-hue where club owners and financiers dictated the inclusion or exclusion of players. The exclusion of black captains and the control of cricket by a privileged white minority were symbolic of the barriers to independence and crystalised national sentiment. James draws attention to an incident where spectators threw bottles at a test match, bringing into focus the publics' increasing frustration with the racism inherent in cricket. James' discussion of cricket reform stands as a metaphor for national political reform, making the victory on the cricket pitch more than a victory of representation or a gesture to inclusion, but a source of hope in the movement towards independence and liberation. [Abstract by Diana Canning] Table of Contents Part I: A Window to the World 1. The Window 2. Against the Current 3. Old School-tie Part II: All the World's a Stage 4. The Light and the Dark 5. Patient Merit 6. Three Generations 7. The Most Unkindest Cut Part III: One Man in his Time 8. Prince and Pauper 9. Magnanimity in Politics 10. Wherefore are these things hid? Part IV: To Interpose a Little Ease 11. George Headley: Nascitur Non Fit Part V: W G: Pre-eminent Victorian 12. What do Men Live by? 13. Prolegomena to W G 14. W G 15. Decline of the West Part VI: The Art and Practic Part 16. 'What Is Art?' 17. The Welfare State of Mind Part VII: Vox Populi 18. The Proof of the Pudding 19. Alma Mater: Lares and Penates Epilogue and Apotheosis Index Excerpts: My grandfather went to church every Sunday morning at eleven o'clock wearing in the broiling sun a frock-coat, striped trousers and top-hat, with his walking-stick in hand, surrounded by his family, the underwear of the women crackling with starch. Respectability was not an ideal, it was an armour. He fell grievously ill, the family fortunes declined and the children grew up in unending struggle not to sink below the level of the Sunday-morning top-hat and frock-coat. 'A straight bat' and 'It isn't cricket' became the watchwords of manners and virtue and the guardians of freedom and power. All sneering at these as cant or hypocrisy is ignorance or stupidity. The world-wide renaissance of organized games and sports as an integral part of modern civilization was on its way. Of this renaissance, the elevation of cricket and football to the place that they soon held in English life was a part; historically speaking, the most important part. The system as finally adopted was not an invention but a discovery, or rather a rediscovery. The Victorians made it compulsory for their children, and all the evidence points to the fact that they valued competence in it and respect for what it came to signify more than they did intellectual accomplishment of any kind. The only word that I know for this is culture. The proof of its validity is its success, first of all at home and then almost as rapidly abroad, in the most diverse places and among peoples living lives which were poles removed from that whence it originally came. This signifies, as so often in any deeply national movement, that it contained elements of universality that went beyond the bounds of the originating nation. It is the only contribution of the English educational system of the nineteenth century to the general educational ideas of Western civilization. Cricket is an art. Like all arts it has a technical foundation. To enjoy it does not require technical knowledge, but analysis that is not technically based is mere impressionism. The aestheticians have scorned to take notice of popular sports and games - to their own detriment. The aridity and confusion of which they so mournfully complain will continue until they include organized games and the people who watch them as an integral part of their data. Cricket is first and foremost a dramatic spectacle. It belongs with the theatre, ballet, opera and the dance. In a superficial sense all games are dramatic. Two men boxing or running a race can exhibit skill, courage, endurance and sharp changes of fortune; can evoke hope and fear. The end [goal] of democracy is a more complete existence. Voting and political parties are only a means. What do they know of cricket who only cricket know? West Indians crowding to Tests bring with them the whole past history and future hopes of the islands. Revolutions, someone has said, come like a thief in the night. The apparent causes are nearly always trivial and to the superficial eye unjustified. Subject Headings |