Beyond A Boundary (1963)
345pp, Non fiction
Notes
2020-07-28
I finished CLR James cricket memoir Beyond a Boundary. I’m not much of a one for cricket really and lots of the finer detail and analyses of the game were lost on me but the writing is fantastic and the subjects he weaves into his narrative wide-ranging and insightful – obviously West Indian self governance/ independence movements, structural racism (this was 1963 before such critiques were wide spread so seeing James fashion these ideas from his personal experience is particularly moving), less obviously (and rather brilliantly) a mythology around Britain’s transition from agrarian to industrial society. I’m really looking forward to reading his history of the Haitian revolution Black Jacobins which I understand has similar turns from serious scholarship to fanciful myth making. Also recommended but perhaps not if you have literally zero interest in/ knowledge of cricket.