Let me preface this by saying I know zero, or is it zed, about ham radios, Morse code,or anything to do with the ionospheric effect on electro-magnetic watchamacallit's. Yet I loved Contact Sport. First of all, I loved it for the youthful exuberance of the author. Once again,as in his first book Reunion, J. K George has a managed to harness his inner adolescent to pen this book. It is such a joyful account of something. I have never been so exited about something I did not completely understand. It takes real talent to make that happen. And, secondly, underneath all the joy is this current (yes pun intended) of something so profoundly spiritual that I did not grasp it until I was three quarters of the way through the book. Pay attention to those tiny (actually invisible) arrows used throughout the text! They point to something important. I kept hearing in my head Longfellow's poem...
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
Making contact with another human being is primal. We can all relate to wanting to be connected if only by a radio signal. To quote the author "Morse seems to bridge an emotional connection of some sort. The sounds of the characters invoke a deep-seated resonance, an auditory-sensory connection to the human spirit."
I recommend Contact Sport to everyone. You don't need to be a "radio ham" to connect with its message.
Shanny Lott, Artist in Painting and Sculpture
http://shannysstudio.com
