In Praise of Athletic Beauty

by Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht

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By the hundreds of millions we show up, stand in line, turn on, and tune in to watch, mesmerized, as athletes perform. And yet this experience, so widely craved and intensely felt, we commonly dismiss as "only a game." A book that looks beyond the usual explanations of why sports fascinates, In Praise of Athletic Beauty also strives for a language that can frame--even enhance --the pleasure we take in watching athletic events.

The vicarious thrill, anxiety release, competitive spirit: in place of these traditional answers to the mystery of sports' allure, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht proposes a more powerful and provocative alternative. The fascination with watching sports, he argues, is probably the most popular and potent contemporary form of aesthetic experience--in the classic, very literal sense of this concept. In exploring this idea, Gumbrecht develops a lucid reflection on the pleasures of sports spectatorship and the nature of athletic beauty. Where we might readily pronounce certain athletic moves and plays "beautiful," this book gives us the means to explore, understand, and enjoy even more acutely the aesthetic experience that our words-in-passing barely suggest.

With a new perspective on the appreciation of--and, indeed, a new tone of praising--sports, Gumbrecht also offers a new way of narrating the history of athletics and a fresh vocabulary for analyzing various sports. Exploring athletic beauty, this book makes us understand the widespread passion sport inspires as an untamed form of aesthetic fascination.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

4 out of 5 stars

Academic but enjoyable, 2008-04-29
This book is definitely more academic and perhaps not the best reading for the recreational sports enthusiast. But for a deeper look - philosophically and intellectually - this is a great book to delve into the concept of flow. What this book offers in contrast to other books on flow in sports is that it focuses primarily on the spectator, which is not very often explored in books of this type. Not many academics focus on the spectators' role and experience in sports. So this book is unique in that sense. However, while there are parts of this book that are fascinating and compelling, there are also parts of the book that are dryer and less interesting. But this book is an excellent resource for those studying the concept of flow in sport.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3 out of 5 stars

To what end praise?, 2007-12-18
Overall, I found this book worth reading, a rather broadly-ranging philosophical foray into popular culture. In the hands of a good teacher, it could serve as a non-threatening introduction to philosophy for undergraduates otherwise unlikely to be drawn to such pursuits.

In the end, however, I remain unconvinced. I would like to test Gumbrecht's celebration of spectatorship via an analogy:
Is the series "literature----reader---criticism" analogous to the series "sports---spectator---praise"?

There exists an entire literature of apologetics for literary criticism. The critic engages the author by contextualizing, making connections in the canon, expanding upon ambiguities, unpacking metaphor, etc. The critic contributes substantially to the task of making meaning.
The spectator who praises athletic prowess simply reacts positively. What does he contribute?

The critic has a different set of skills than the author but they are demonstrable skills. He is more than a critic of other people's creations. The spectator praises (and blames) the performance of others; only rarely would the spectator be qualified to be a competitor. Perhaps the pleasure produced by spectating leads to praise. In the rarest of occasions this praise may have aesthetic merit of its own. It remains to demonstrate what value spectating has. How is it not just indolence? How is it more than merely setting myself up as judge of what I could not do. Given the choice, why would I spectate rather than perform?

Put another way: there is no objective value (apart from personal entertainment) in choosing to write bad literature myself. It is objectively of value to read the work of others who have mastered the art of writing and the same holds true for any of the arts. It cannot be argued that there is no objective value in engaging myself to the degree that I am able in athletic activity. There is a clear physiological, psychosomatic advantage to participation over spectating regardless of how well I perform.
A second observation: in the arts, criticism and the development of taste make it possible over time to know how to choose only the best examples for contemplation. This is not possible in sports. On the one hand, this adds a chance dimension--any competition may ultimately include a "magic" moment. On the other, it means one consumes vast amounts of mediocre sport.
Gumbrecht's study leaves a potentially interesting area unexplored: the grey area between sport and dance. The Slavs seem to have had no traditional athletic competitions until they came into regular contact with other European cultures but competitions of dancing prowess were common and highly significant social events. In the 19th/20th centuries, dance led naturally to Slavic adoption of gymnastic clubs (Turnverein) from Germany. But, with dance we cross over Gumbrecht's boundary into the forbidden realm of "meaning."

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4 out of 5 stars

In Praise of a good Reading..., 2007-11-14
Hans Ulrich wrote a delicious work that mix in a one breath reading stories about: the origins of some sports; the "profissionalism" since the ancient Greece; lives of sports legends, some of them forgotten or even unknowed by the nowdays public; fictious fans tellings - in a way that you won't even agree, if you really are a average irritangly detailer sports fan too. Myself in particular feel lack of more comments about, for example, Pele as a football/calcio/soccer Fan and the nonofficial competitors like one of the greatest athlets of all time Bruce Lee. But I recognize that is First a guilty of enjoyable Hans's style that make me anger for more stories and Second I must repeat is probaly also just a naggingness of a neveragree irritangly detailer as unavoidable sports fan usually to be.

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