Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
FASCINATING BUT DEPRESSING, 1 Aug 2000
By A Customer
H.G. Bissinger's account of the fortunes of a high school football team during the 1988 season is a genuinely unsettling exploration of the dominant role that sports occupies in American culture. As abrasive and uncompromising as the empty west Texas prairie that surrounds it, the racially and economically-divided oil town of Odessa is a community in decline. The Permian Panthers football team, the most successful high school team in state history, is the only stable feature around which the town, bankrupted by the boom-bust oil economy of the eighties, can base any sense of identity. Such is the unbelievable extent of the town's obsession with the team, that one often forgets that the players Bissinger writes about are not seasoned professionals or even highly-touted college stars, but 17- and 18-year old high school kids. The pampered treatment that the players receive at school and from the community is disquieting, and it becomes clear that without Permian football, the people of Odessa would have nothing with which to give their lives structure and meaning. In this way, Friday Night Lights examines the relationship between a sports team and a community that occupies such an intriguing and integral role in the American identity. Bissinger's observations moreover highlight the disturbing inadequacies of an education system continually relegated to second place behind athletic success. A fascinating, if ultimately depressing book, that is as much an indictment of life in the heartland of Reagan-era America as it is of the more general nationwide obsession with sports.
|
|
|
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Even if you didn't play high school football, READ THIS BOOK, 11 May 1999
By A Customer
As a three year member and starter of the varsity squad of my High School in Chesapeake Virginia, the stories from this book were all too familiar. The small Virginia town in which I played was similiar to that of Odessa, Canton, Penn Hills, and others across the country where High School football is the main focus of attention and entertainment. This book made me think back to all of the great times I had, the great friends I made, and the many memories that I will never forget. Bissinger brought out the many "behind the scenes" views of the sport. All the problems and events that happen in the Permian locker room, coaches office, halls, classrooms, and in the lives of the players, occur everyday in schools everywhere. On the bus ride home from the very last game of my senior year..a tough last minute loss, giving our school its first losing record in 25 years at 4-6. I thought about the two state championships we won in the two years before, and why it had to end like it did, and I thought about the blood, sweat, and tears that we have all spilled on the playing fields. As we pulled away I realized that I'd probably never step onto a football field to play again and that these days are now behind me forever. Then, like so many of the seniors on the bus with me, and the thousands more around the country...I cried. I sometimes forget why I played football in high school. Three years after my final game I bought this book and read it. It then became all clear to me, and I recalled why I played. I laughed a little, and maybe even cried a little, and you will too.
|
|
|
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Searing, 6 Sep 1999
By A Customer
FRINDAY NIGHT LIGHTS is a deeply disturbing book. It deserves a wide audience. While outwardly, football is the focus of the book, the books delivers a devastating critique not only of false dreams and hopes, but of class and racial devides. As I was reading FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, I could not help comparing Odessa Permian with "Laketown High School"(Yorktown, West Chester NY), as portrayed in Richard Woodley's magnificent TEAM: A HIGH SCHOOL ODYSSEY (published in the early 1970s, and out of print). Like Bissinger, Woodley the journalist spent his time with "Laketown" football team. The contrast between Odessa and "Laketown" could not be more different. The difference? One can start off by the leadership and teaching roles of the two head coaches. The other factors, of course, is the role of football plays in various communities. Two weeks ago (August 1999), I drove by Odessa (it was hot and dusty) on my way back from San Diego, and I was reminded of the characters portrayed in the book: Boobie Miles (what are you doing now, Boobie?), the earnest QB with the wobbly pass, and the TE who went to Harvard.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
Show more editions and formats
Show fewer editions and formats
by David Peace
![Friday Night Lights [DVD] [2004]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JCVQFF23L._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
DVD ~ Billy Bob Thornton
![Friday Night Lights - Season 1 - Complete [DVD] [2006]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51v%2Ba-o6i4L._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
DVD ~ Kyle Chandler
by M Lewis
See all Product Description
![Friday Night Lights [DVD] [2004]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JCVQFF23L._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
![Friday Night Lights - Season 1 - Complete [DVD] [2006]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51v%2Ba-o6i4L._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
![Friday Night Lights: The Second Season [DVD] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51qCBrLjAWL._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is). 
Make sure you always get what you want with an Amazon.co.uk 
Amazon Home