BOBBY BUMBLE: Portrait of a Diffident Academic and Ardent Sportsman as a Young and an Old Man - Couverture souple

Osterhoudt, Robert G.

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0578567474 ISBN 13 : 9780578567471

Editeur : Robert G. Osterhoudt, 2019

Synopsis

Bobby Bumble was, by nature, uncommonly reserved. The world into which he was thrown was not. This difference, and the discord underlying it, became the dominant patent feature of his life. It was this feature that shaped his notion of himself and of the world he inhabited, of his relationship with this world, and of his place in it. It was this feature that incited his philosophical orientation, the governing principles of his life. Like many of his humble sort, Bobby Bumble was not at all self-assured and was given to self-effacement, both by inherent inclination and as an antidote to the rampaging narcissism that surrounded, consumed, and disgusted him. His tendency to self-depreciation nonetheless collided routinely with his fervent aspirations for distinction in academic and sporting endeavors. Bobby Bumble was, from his earliest years, especially much taken with serious ideas and with the subjects and institutions embodying them. He was drawn to mathematics, the natural and social sciences, the arts, and the humanities but was mainly beguiled by the wonders of philosophy and world history. He had a profound regard for education, for schools, and for teachers (the principal stewards of education and schools). He was likewise exceedingly fond of sport, paradigmatic forms of individual sport in particular, track and field athletics most notably. He discovered a compelling vision formally unifying his tastes for reflective thought and for sport in the world view of rational humanism and in the classical ideal of the scholar-athlete. This view and this ideal also inspired an avid critique of the prevailing wisdom of his time, of its material, commercial, military, and religious excesses as well as of its bellicose and plutocratic priorities. He even, on occasion, made unflattering, unwelcome, and injudicious public commentary concerning the national culture of his birth country, commentary that was often accompanied by stiff rebukes and handsome costs. Unsurprisingly, Bobby Bumble became a devoted academic, an earnest sportsman, and a clawing dissident. The narrative that forms the book's content chronicles Bobby's birth, basic character, cultural milieu, world view, childhood, family life, education, military experience, working and professional life, sporting career, world travels, declining years, and death; effectively, the odyssey of his search for an elusive fulfillment. Despite his peasant origins in the lower-middle-class working life of mid-twentieth-century American culture; despite his having ordered his life as much by aesthetic as by concrete standard; despite his hapless struggles earning enough money to do university studies, to win the professional career he so desperately coveted, and to support himself and his family; despite a military misadventure that nearly ruined him; and despite his broad opposition to the political, social, and intellectual climate in which he lived, Bobby Bumble considered himself among the most fortunate people in the entire record of human experience. He nonetheless ended, like most, a tentative and incompletely fleshed out version of his original (his diffident) self.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Robert G. Osterhoudt
• Date d'édition: 2019
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0578567474
• ISBN 13: 9780578567471
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 638
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Printed by Amazon on behalf of the author; https://www.amazon.fr/hz/contact-us; ; c/o Amazon Media EU S.à.r.l., 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; L-1855; Luxembourg