The biggest flaw with this book so far (I’m about a third of the way through) is, like Jude: Level One, is that the back jacket copy compares the book to John Kennedy Toole’s excellent A Confederacy of Dunces. Whoops.
I desperately want to like this book (I have no idea why, though), but there’s no way it’s a patch on Confederacy… it’s fine, so far, if a bit heavy-handed and awkward in spots. So we’ll see how the rest of it goes.
Lobel’s self-effacing approach turned him into an almost cult-like figure in Boston, particularly with female viewers. His fellow staffers recall him getting love letters, even proposals. He was often more celebrated than the athletes he covered, landing in the gossip columns more than he would have liked.
This is from Jackie MacMullan’s article a few days ago in the Globe… and this is where they’re getting it wrong. Guys, you are not the story. Bob Lobel, we’re not paying to watch you skate or hit a baseball or catch a pass. Jackie, nor are you the reason. Normally I like Jackie’s columns, and this one is another well written one… but I think she’s overstating Bob’s importance just a tad. At the very least the editor writing the headline for that article is, by a long shot. Media folks, you’re media folks. We’re not particularly interested in you, yourselves. You just report the stories we’re (sometimes) interested in.