My copy of this book is about as dog-eared as this one
This week’s entry is going to be fairly light, as it’s late at night and the ‘works of substance’ that I’ve finished in the last few days (India After Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha and To Change China by Jonathan Spence) aren’t ones that I really want to tackle at the moment. Instead, I’ve chosen to take a look at a book that I picked up about a year ago at a used bookstore in Little Italy for a couple bucks: The Legend of Bruce Lee by Alex Ben Block. It’s a fun and forgettable book, and one that can be easily read in about an hour and a half. Or at least that’s how long it took me to re-read it while sitting in my easy chair and drinking bad, home-made Vietnamese coffee while half-watching a Jackie Chan movie on my TV. (Maybe these are things better left unsaid…)
Bruce Lee was a childhood hero of mine, as he has been (and continues to be) for millions around the world. When I was in the third grade, I took part in my school’s annual public speaking contest by presenting a speech that I had written about the Little Dragon in front of the whole school, a feat for which I was rewarded with the prestigious title of ‘honourable mention’. However, I was especially proud because I had convinced myself that Bruce Lee’s spirit was present in that room as I delivered my speech. Why Bruce Lee should have taken a respite from the constant feasting and boozing on Mount Penglai to listen to the basic details of his life being recounted with torturous exactitude by a scrawny 8-year-old Canadian boy was a question I chose not to consider.
All this is to say that I loved Bruce Lee, his movies, and the mythology that had been created around him. To me, he was like some wicked angel, both frightening and reassuring, a model of classical heroism to emulate. Frankly, I don’t know what confused impulse clouded my dad’s judgement and compelled him to let me watch Fists of Fury when I was eight (what with its awesome violence and, at the time, disturbing displays of female chests), but it certainly was a watershed moment in my life. I soon rented his other films from the library and watched them in quick succession (including the embarrassingly unfinished Game of Death), and in the process reconfirmed my nascent interest in China. It’s been sixteen years since first watching Fists of Fury and I’ve been imitating those stances and that famous feline shriek ever since. I think later on in my childhood I came to enjoy Jackie Chan’s films more. But I never lost my admiration for Bruce Lee, that half stoic, half feral power-house of a man.
As for Block’s book: as a cursory look at Bruce’s life and the larger culture of martial arts that surrounded it, it’s not much to write about. I mean ‘cursory’ here in the strongest possible sense. This is a very thin book and I imagine there have been far better biographies on Bruce released since it was published. Block’s book is certainly a product of its time – specifically, the period immediately following Bruce Lee’s untimely death when unscrupulous movie producers billed mediocre talents (like Dragon Lee and Bruce Li) as the successors to the Little Dragon. This isn’t to impugn Blocks book. He certainly has an earnest interest in the man and his legacy. But the book was obviously hastily put together to capitalize on Lee’s death in 1973 (the book came out the following year) and reads more as a loosely-assembled collection of above-average gossip columns than a cohesive look at its subject.
It’s amusing to read Block’s floundering attempts, sometimes successful, more often not, to make sense of the world of ‘Oriental’ martial arts and the genre of films they produced. For every insightful passage on Bruce Lee’s personal philosophy concerning martial arts, of for every interview the author conducted with Run Run Shaw or Angela Mao, there are a few pages detailing the shadowy secrets of the Malaysian ‘delayed-death-strike’ and Chinese herb poisons ‘Western doctors have never seen’. (You can almost hear Block’s hushed tone as he recounts these apocryphal tales of ‘Eastern black magic’.) There’s an air of exoticism and mystery that Block brings to Bruce’s life that is unnecessary and quite at odds with the more human details of Bruce’s life and work (which are fascinating in their own right and in no need of any embellishment).
But, really, I didn’t expect much more from this book, which looks (and often reads) more like a pulp novel than a biography. (Come to think of it, I might have picked The Legend of Bruce Lee up along with a hard boiled detective novel by Mickey Spillane.) And frankly, if you approach it as would a wide-eyed ten year old in search of any and all information related to Bruce Lee, from the salacious to the mundane, it’s actually quite a fun read. Block was obviously in much the same mindset when he wrote his book. I can just picture Block heading down to his local library and picking up 1001 Chinese Sayings and The Wisdom of Buddhism (both of which he sites in the bibliography) and quickly scanning them for appropriately wise and/or sardonic quotes to act as epigrams at the beginning of each chapter, much as an overly ambitious and precocious fourth-grade student might do when composing a short essay for class.
This may all sound very flippant. But there is a place in the world for disposable literature. It’s necessary, now and then, to allow yourself to be distracted by a gossipy pulp biography. This is the kind of book that fits comfortably in ones back pocket and can be pulled out on the subway, in a waiting room, or over lunch to provide some modicum of lively distraction from the thoughtless routine of city life.
I know that it’s not much of a ringing endorsement to praise a book as an effective time killer – that’s certainly not the kind of purpose to which most books should be put. But there’s room enough for all sorts of books in the world, some of which best serve to deliver us, if only temporarily, from boredom. This is one of them.
As for Bruce Lee: he deserves better than this. Bruce Lee was, above all else, a beautiful poet of the body. Like Gene Kelly or Charlie Chaplin, Bruce Lee made magic out of physical articulation. Every gesture appeared thoughtless, and yet every gesture was deliberate. His grace, speed, and force of movement appeared to burst sponateously from his slight frame – and yet such movements, like those of a dancer, disguised years of disciplined training. One can’t help but feel infantile when observing the films of a man who had such total command over his body as Bruce Lee did.
In a way, Block’s naive enthusiasm for his subject is where we all began when we were first introduced to the Little Dragon. Some of us have moved beyond our earlier childish fascination for the man and his movies; others, like me, continue to hold dear to that fascination and allow that insouciance to inform our otherwise dull, adult lives.
And, by the way, it’s my wish to one day look as good in a suit as Bruce Lee did.
Thank you for writing about this. I enjoyed it.