Reviews for Manila Time: A Novel

The average rating for Manila Time: A Novel based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-12-13 00:00:00 Lillian Frazier Monte Irvin was considered as one of Branch Rickey's candidates to break the color barrier established by unspoken agreement in baseball in the 1880s. But the skills he had demonstrated playing for the Newark Eagles during the late 1930s and 1940s had eroded during his wartime service, and Eagles co-owner Effa Manley wouldn't allow him to sign a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers farm system unless her team was compensated. By the time that Irvin felt he was ready for top-level competition again, Rickey had signed Jackie Robinson and Manley's threatened lawsuit pushed him to drop any work with Irvin. The New York Giants signed him instead, and he debuted in 1949. The next year, he was called up to a regular position with the Giants and played with them until 1955. Giants manager Leo Durocher assigned Irvin an unofficial role as mentor for the young Willie Mays, both on and off the field, and Mays frequently lays some of his success in baseball on Irvin's early help. With Riley's help, Irvin describes these parts of his life in the 1996 Nice Guys Finish First and goes on to detail his work as a scout for the New York Mets in the late 1960s and aas a public relations specialist for then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn in the 1970s. Kuhn's absence when Hank Aaron hit his record-breaking 715th home run in 1974 meant that Irvin was the one to present him with baseball's official recognition. Irvin was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1973 and currently serves on its Veterans Committee. Learning that Monte Irvin is a nice guy is no great revelation to anyone who followed his career. The book provides an interestingly different look at Jackie Robinson from the perspective of a competitor. The Dodgers-Giants rivalry carried a lot of energy and while Irivin's respect for Robinson's abilities as a player and pioneer clearly shows, it's also clear he wouldn't canonize his frequent opponent. And Irvin echoes other's opinions that while the Negro Leagues had players who would easily rank with the best around, he thinks its brand of individual-heavy, team-light baseball would have a tough time competing. Negro League players benefited from time in the minors when major league teams signed them, but more for the experience playing in the major-league system and style than for any development of playing skills. Irvin is 96 as this is written and is the oldest living member of the 1954 New York Giants World Series team, which finished out its regular season with a blistering September largely fueled by his hitting. Original available link: here.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-08-07 00:00:00 Rita Blair Graf Dracula is back! Having been thrown out of power in Britain at the end of Anno Dracula, the Transylvanian bloodsucker has now gained the good graces of Kaiser Wilhelm and launched the world into an all encompassing war. Now it’s 1918 and both sides are anxious to make a big push to end the combat, but this being the newly modern world, the true heroes are the ones who fight in the sky. Essentially this should be the dirt and grime of the Victorian age swapped for the dirt and grime and terror of World War One, with fictional characters intermingling with real people (or based on real people) to create a horror epic. However – as is often the case with sequels – it doesn’t quite work out that way. Even though this is a book which frequently crosses the English Channel, instead of locking itself up in one city, it manages to feel a lot less epic than its predecessor. ‘Anno Dracula’ seemed to capture the drumbeat of Victorian London, expertly painting its streets, lanes and rundown alleyways. It was a book prepared to get dirt under its fingernails as it refused to flinch from the want and poverty of London of the 1880s. Even vampires can be poor and hungry, and so when dealing with the supernatural. Newman was able to engage properly in the genuinely iniquity of that society. ‘Bloody Red Baron’ is much more superficial. Biggles wasn’t the most hard-hitting of World War One stories, and Biggles with giant bats is never going to be. Occasionally the horror of the real first world war does make an appearance, but this a battle for the rarefied. The occasional battered and bloodied Tommy may occasionally show up, but this is Allied superheroes versus German Superheroes and Newman never managed to get above the superficiality of that idea. (Struggling even more to raise itself above the level of superficiality, is the short story which follows ‘Bloody Red Baron’ – ‘Vampire Romance‘. It centres on Genevieve Dieudonne, one of the major characters in the original ‘Anno Dracula’ who Newman clearly couldn’t find a place for in the meat of ‘Bloody Red Baron’. Here she is investigating a manor house murder mystery in Wodehouse land, in a tale told partly from the perspective of an overly-romantic schoolgirl.) Still this is a book where Edgar Poe (yes, that one) writes the Red Baron’s memoirs, having earlier talked with Franz Kafka; Doctor Moreau and Herbert West denounce the kind of work Doctor Mabuse and Doctor Caligari are getting up to one the other side; while Roderick Spode and Aunt Agatha try to determine who is King of the Vampires. Obviously there’s a lot of fun here, but this isn’t the essential volume its predecessor is.