 2005 reprint cover | |
| Author | C. L. R. James |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Hutchinson (1963) |
Publication date | 1963, 2005 (US 1982, 1993) |
| Publication place | Trinidad / United Kingdom |
| ISBN | 978-0-224-07427-8 |
| OCLC | 58998824 |
| LC Class | GV917 .J27 2005 |
| Preceded by | Party Politics in the West Indies (1962) |
| Followed by | A History of Pan-African Revolt (1969) |
Beyond a Boundary (1963) is a memoir oncricket written by theTrinidadianMarxist intellectualC. L. R. James,[1] which he described as "neither cricket reminiscences nor autobiography".[2] It mixes social commentary, particularly on the place of cricket in theWest Indies and England, with commentary on the game, arguing that what happened inside the"boundary line" in cricket affected life beyond it, as well as the converse.
The book is in a sense a response to a quote fromRudyard Kipling's poem "The English Flag": "What should they know of England who only England know?", which James in his Preface revised to: "What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?"
James recounts the role cricket played in his family's history, and his meetings with such early West Indian players asGeorge John,Wilton St Hill, the great batsmanGeorge Headley and the all-rounderLearie Constantine, but focuses on the importance of the game and its players to society, specifically to colonial eraTrinidad. James argues for the importance of sport in history, and refers to its roots in theOlympic Games of Ancient Greece. He documents the primacy ofW. G. Grace in the development of modern cricket, and the values embraced by cricket in the development of the cultures of theBritish Empire. He approaches cricket as an art form, as well as discussing its political impact – particularly the role of race and class in early West Indian cricket. "Cricket", he writes, "had plunged me into politics long before I was aware of it. When I did turn to politics, I did not have too much to learn." Cricket is approached as a method of examining the formation of national culture, society in theWest Indies, the United Kingdom, and Trinidad. Education, family, national culture, class, race, colonialism, and the process ofdecolonisation are all examined through the prism of contemporaryWest Indian cricket, thehistory of cricket, and James's life as a player of—and commentator and writer on—the sport of cricket.
James was born and educated inPort of Spain, Trinidad. He recounts the importance of cricket to himself and his community, the role it played in his education, and the disapproval from his family of his attempt to follow a sporting life along with his academic career, whom he describes as "Puritan". This too, he relates to cricket. James returns to the values imbued with cricket, first into the 19th-century Englishbourgeois culture of theBritish public school, and then out into the colonies. He contrasts this with American culture, his own growingradicalism, and the fact that the values of fair play and acceptance of arbitration without complaint rarely applies in the world beyond the cricket pitch.
After graduating from Queen's Royal College high school, he played first-class cricket for a year in the Trinidad league. Having to choose from clubs divided by class, race and skin-tone, James writes of his recruitment as a dark-skinned high-school-educated player to Maple, a club of the light-skinned lower middle class. He writes, in a chapter entitled "The Light and the Dark": "...faced with the fundamental divisions in the island, I had gone to the right and, by cutting myself off from the popular side, delayed my political development for years."[3]
In 1932, James travelled to Britain to join Learie Constantine (a much more successful cricketer, who played as a professional in theLancashire League), and was able to earn a living as cricket correspondent of theManchester Guardian, also helping Constantine to write his memoirCricket and I (1933). James recounts the lessons he learned from cricket about race and class in Britain, and the perspective that cricket gave him on the independence struggle in Trinidad, and the short-livedWest Indies Federation, which he witnessed after his return in 1958. An advocate ofPan-Africanism, James examines the relationships of the unifiedWest Indies cricket team through independence, nationalism of particular islands, and in interaction with other colonial and post-colonial national teams (such as West Indian tours ofAustralia and England).
James initially had difficulty finding a publisher for the book, according to his widowSelma James, but on its publication byHutchinsonBeyond a Boundary was well received, andJohn Arlott wrote inWisden:
"1963 has been marked by the publication of a cricket book so outstanding as to compel any reviewer to check his adjectives several times before he describes it and, since he is likely to be dealing in superlatives, to measure them carefully to avoid over-praise – which this book does not need … in the opinion of the reviewer, it is the finest book written about the game of cricket."[4]
The book is widely recognised as one of the best and most important books on cricket.V. S. Naipaul wrote that it was "one of the finest and most finished books to come out of the West Indies."[5] In 2005,The Observer ranked the book as the third best book on sport ever written,[6] andNicholas Lezard reviewing an earlier re-issue forThe Guardian wrote: "To say 'the best cricket book ever written' is pifflingly inadequate praise."[7] Another appraisal of the book (by historianDave Renton, who calls it "by common consent, the greatest book about cricket ever written")[8] observes: "The genius ofBeyond a Boundary lies in its strong literary quality: almost unique among those who write about sport James had a theory of cricket, one that took in history and politics as well as memoir."[9]
In 1976,Mike Dibb made a film about C. L. R. James entitledBeyond a Boundary for theBBC television seriesOmnibus.[10]
In August 1996,BBC Radio 4 broadcast a five-part abridgement byMargaret Busby ofBeyond a Boundary, read byTrevor McDonald, and produced byPam Fraser Solomon.[11][12]
A conference at theUniversity of Glasgow to mark the 50th anniversary of the book's first publication took place in May 2013.[13][14] Some of the proceedings of this conference, including contributions from Selma James andMike Brearley together with other contributions such as those fromHilary Beckles, have been edited for publication in the first edited collection solely to be devoted to the study of James's work,Marxism, Colonialism and Cricket: C.L.R. James's Beyond a Boundary, published in 2018 byDuke University Press. This volume includes a previously unpublished first draft ofBeyond a Boundary's conclusion.[15]
For his non-cricket writing, see main entry forC. L. R. James
