Research Catalog

Title

Gita on the green : the mystical tradition behind Bagger Vance / Steven J. Rosen.

Author

Rosen, Steven, 1955-

Publication

New York : Continuum, 2000.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

176 p.; 22 cm.

Summary

• "Deep in India's past, Bhagavan Sri Krishna (God) revealed the 700-verse Bhagavad-gita, a spiritual poem containing universal, non-sectarian truths. In 1995, author Steven Pressfield composed a work that restructured the Gita in terms of a golf novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance. As he says, "The idea behind Bagger Vance was to do the Bhagavad-gita contemporarily. In the Gita the troubled warrior Arjuna receives instruction from Krishna, Supreme Lord of the Universe, who has assumed human form as Arjuna's charioteer. Instead of a troubled warrior, it's a troubled golf champion (Rannulph Junah); instead of his charioteer, it's his caddie, Bagger Vance.""
• "Now made into a major motion picture, Bagger Vance is loosely based on the ancient spiritual classic. But the connections between the two books are elusive, almost abstract. The Gita is concealed in Pressfield's work. If one is unfamiliar with Krishna's words, one can read The Legend of Bagger Vance and not recognize the Gita in its pages."
• "Steven Rosen, in Gita on the Green: The Mystical Tradition Behind Bagger Vance, makes explicit that which is only implicit in Pressfield's work. Whether or not one has read the Gita or Bagger Vance, Rosen's Gita on the Green serves as an introduction to both, illuminating their overlapping themes and points of departure. Using some thirty years of Gita scholarship and a writing style that is both eloquent and thorough, Rosen takes us on a colorful journey into the golf world of Bagger Vance and no less into the spiritual realm of Bhagavan Sri Krishna. By the end of the sojourn, one realizes that one has just read a commentary on Bhagavad-gita while hitting a hole in one."--Jacket.

Subject

• African American men in literature
• American fiction > Indic influences
• Golf stories, American > History and criticism
• Mysticism in literature
• Pressfield, Steven
• Supernatural in literature

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 170-173) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Foreword / Steven Pressfield -- My Search for the "Authentic Swing" -- Violence on the Battlefield of Life -- The Art of Action -- Devotional Love: The Name of the Game -- Putting Knowledge First -- Endgame: Or, How Does All of This Apply to Me?

ISBN

0826413013

LCCN

^^^00046593^

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library