22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Getting it Right, November 5, 2008
Nelson Aldrich, already a noted and perceptive writer, has done a marvellous job of creating this oral history of George Plimpton whom he knew well all his life. There are so many interviews with people who had disparate contacts, opinions, and experiences with George, that his joyful but complicated life really shines through. My wife, my children and I knew him pretty well,in a purely social way; I didn't work for him, didn't go out with him, didn't start a magazine with him and was determinedly just a non-lit pal. Thus,I was so enthralled by the way Aldrich covered the endless facets of George's life, weaving in the fascinating family tensions, the serious writing,the glamorous ladies,the incredible parties, and his more famous sports adventures. There is a wonderful lack of tidy sequence to the book, and that I can tell you was completely George. It's a surprising adventure for someone who wants to know a unique man, set in the cinematic background of New York in the last fifty years.
Geoffrey McNair Gates
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One who knew and appreciated the "great enthusiasms, the great devotions", November 28, 2008
The reputation of George Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was well-established prior to the publication of this oral biography of him five years after his death. However, dozens of those who knew him best will help others who only knew of him to gain an even better understanding of who and what he was...and wasn't. Credit Nelson Aldrich with a brilliant job of obtaining, organizing, and editing the abundance of material. The book's title could not be more appropriate as a prefix to various personal accounts.
For example:
1. "George, being George," he once talked the Detroit Lions into letting him participate in their pre-season program and was even allowed to play (as QB, of course) in one of the team's scrimmages games.
2. Immediately after Robert Kennedy was shot, he helped to subdue Sirhan Sirhan.
3. Decided that he was uniquely prepared to conduct oral histories of Truman [Capote] and Edie [Sedgwick] and, of course, he did.
4. Agreed to serve as the first editor of The Paris Review that was co-founded in 1952 by Peter Matthiessen, Thomas H. Guinzburg, and Harold L. Humes. He remained in that position until
5. Also pitched against Major League players prior to an All-Star game.
His other adventures and misadventures include sparring with professional boxers Archie Moore and Sugar Ray Robinson, participating in a pre-season scrimmage with the Baltimore Colts action against his previous team, the Lions, briefly playing goalie for the Boston Bruins, competing with an 18 handicap against PGA players such as Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, losing badly in a tennis match with Richard ("Pancho") Gonzales, and failing in an audition to join the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus as an aerialist. On another occasion, he somehow obtained a temporary percussionist's job with the New York Philharmonic when Leonard Bernstein was its conductor.
As I read this book, I was reminded of James Thurber's Walter Mitty who escaped the boredom of his life and the miseries of his marriage by imagining himself in all sorts of situations that are far more exciting and (especially) much more glamorous. Having an equally active imagination, George also proceeded to do (or at least attempt to do) whatever seemed like "fun" while living an already exciting and glamorous life that included relationships with those who share their reminiscences and observations in this book. The several hundred contributors include (listed in alphabetical order) Arnold ("Red") Auerbach (former coach of the Boston Celtics with whom George also played briefly), Bill Curry (former NFL player and head coach of Alabama and Kentucky), Hugh Hefner (founder and CEO of Playboy Enterprises), A.E. Hotchner (Hemingway authority as well as co-founder and partner, with Paul Newman's Newman's Own food products), Alex Karras (All-Pro defensive tackle with Detroit Lions), Norman Mailer (author of 37 books), Freddy Espy Plimpton (George's first wife), Sarah Dudley Plimpton (George's second wife), Gene Scott (widely recognized as "Tennis's Renaissance Man," "the most controversial figure in the game," and "the conscience of tennis"), William Styron (author of many works that include Lie Down in Darkness and Sophie's Choice), Calvin Trillin (staff writer for The New Yorker since 1963), and Gore Vidal (author and playwright).
Each of these and the other contributors share her or his reminiscences of "George, being George" from his student years at various schools and then Harvard, through his lengthy association with The Paris Review, until the years immediately prior to his death when health issues precluded almost all physical activities and yet he still retained (in his words) "the gumption to get out and try one's wings." Together, the mini-contributions -- from so many different people, recalling different moments in different places at different times - create a multi-dimensional portrait of a truly unique person. Almost a century ago in a speech delivered at the Sorbonne, Theodore Roosevelt praised what he called "the man in the arena." He could well have been describing George Plimpton: "Credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
If asked to respond to Roosevelt's description, contributors to this book would probably explain "that's just George, being George."
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