Brief Review: “The Boys in the Boat”

“The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics” by Daniel James Brown is a fascinating recount of the background and story of the American rowing team’s Olympic victory.

Although a non-fiction book with a known outcome — this book is a vivid and stirring tale told primarily through the perspective of one of the boys in the boat — Joe Rantz. The story weaves together 3 separate stories that culminate together in the magical victory in Berlin, namely:

• Joe’s upbringing and family life — the challenge of his home life, losing his mother while young, extreme poverty, and how he left home and had to “make it on his own” from a very young age.
• Joe’s time at University of Washington — all things about rowing, the coaches, teammates, friends he’d make, and the journey of being selected, training, and learning to row in unison with the other boys in the boat.
• The backdrop of what was going on in the world at that time — namely the great Depression in the US, the Dust Bowl, and the rise of Nazi Germany where the Olympics would take place.

Weaved through the book was the love story of how Joe met his girlfriend and to be wife, Joyce, and how they came to know each other.

This is a well written book and I particularly enjoyed how the various stories interleave in a captivating way to build up the various characters and time period.

Characters of Great Depression— Although of course we know about the great depression it was amazingly illustrative to learn through one man’s incredible and difficult journey — and what people went through at that time for basic survival let alone for a stable home-life. It was difficult to read about his childhood and how he lost his mother at a young age, and when his father remarried to a new wife, they cast Joe out as a young teenager to fend completely for himself — food, shelter, and education…and of course how Joe overcame all those to end up attending the University of Washington. Its hard to imagine those circumstances for any kids today. Throughout the book there were additional characters that you learned about — as Joe’s bosses, or colleagues in various jobs that he held throughout the Cepression — and you learn about the hard times in great detail, but also the will and determination of those individuals to make their way in the challenging times of the American West.

Characters of the Rowing Team, Coaches, Competitors — The book did a great job educating about the basic of rowing, the various techniques, positions in the boat, construction and the racing shell itself. It was fun to learn terms like “catching a crab” — a mis-row — and several of the other rowing terms. The story built up nicely by citing the competition between the elite Eastern University schools and the working class Western schools — and then within that the competition between California and University of Washington racing boats. At each time you get a great glimpse of the character of the coaches, and the various rowing colleagues of Joe.

Characters of Nazi Germany — Last, it was an interesting piece to highlight — but giving a backdrop of the characters of Nazi Germany and the propaganda machine — sets a tense stage for the ultimate American victory — but also foreshadows the challenge of the upcoming ww2. The author masterfully compares the strong independent American spirit that propelled the boys int he boat to win Olympic Gold against the favored Germans — as the same spirit of the strong young men who went to war in WW2 to defeat Nazi Germany.

“Standing there, watching them, it occurred to me that when Hitler watched Joe and the boys fight their way back from the rear of the field to sweep ahead of Italy and Germany seventy-five years ago, he saw, but did not recognize, heralds of his doom. He could not have known that one day hundreds of thousands of boys just like them, boys who shared their essential natures — decent and unassuming, not privileged or favored by anything in particular, just loyal, committed, and perseverant — would return to Germany dressed in olive drab, hunting him down.”

In all, I loved this book and found it educational, stirring, and inspirational. Its hard not to take the lessons of hard-work, determination, courage, and teamwork to heart.

I have not seen the documentary yet — but hope to.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book.

“It is hard to make that boat go as fast as you want to. The enemy, of course, is resistance of the water, as you have to displace the amount of water equal to the weight of men and equipment, but that very water is what supports you and that very enemy is your friend. So is life: the very problems you must overcome also support you and make you stronger in overcoming them.

“Harmony, balance, and rhythm. They’re the three things that stay with you your whole life. Without them civilization is out of whack. And that’s why an oarsman, when he goes out in life, he can fight it, he can handle life. That’s what he gets from rowing.”

“They were now representatives of something much larger than themselves — a way of life, a shared set of values. Liberty was perhaps the most fundamental of those values. But the things that held them together — trust in each other, mutual respect, humility, fair play, watching out for one another — those were also part of what America meant to all of them.”

“Immediately after the race, even as he sat gasping for air in the Husky Clipper while it drifted down the Langer See beyond the finish line, an expansive sense of calm had enveloped him. In the last desperate few hundred meters of the race, in the searing pain and bewildering noise of that final furious sprint, there had come a singular moment when Joe realized with startling clarity that there was nothing more he could do to win the race, beyond what he was already doing. Except for one thing. He could finally abandon all doubt, trust absolutely without reservation that he and the boy in front of him and the boys behind him would all do precisely what they needed to do at precisely the instant they needed to do it. He had known in that instant that there could be no hesitation, no shred of indecision. He had had no choice but to throw himself into each stroke as if he were throwing himself off of a cliff into a void, with unquestioned faith that the others would be there to save him”