A Game of Polo with a Headless Goat
A Game of Polo with a Headless Goat
Background
This extract comes from a book which was written as a spin-off from Emma
Levine’s television series about strange and unusual sports. It is a travelogue
(a book which describes travel in a foreign country) in which she describes these sports, the people involved and her experiences of filming them. In doing so, she gives an insight not just into the sports themselves, but into the lives and culture of the people who take part in (and watch) them.
Understanding the text
Emma Levine’s purpose in writing her book was to describe and inform. She obviously has to engage and hold the reader’s interest. As you study this text, you need to think about how she does this.
On the surface the passage seems a straightforward description and narrative of the race, but it isn’t. First of all, there is not just one race happening, but three:
º
The donkey race
º
The spectators’ race
º
The writer’s race to get the best pictures
Emma – a jornalist – wanting to capture the epic moment of the race
Yaqoob – a unskilled driver (danger) – he love the risk that donkey race give him
Iqbal – partner/ helper – was send to find our who was the winner of this race
Plot
During a seven-year journey around India spent immersing herself in the cricket subculture, author Emma Levine heard about the wonderful game of buzkashi, a kind of anarchic rugby on horseback where teams of men wrestle and race to grab a headless goat and propel it towards goal. This sparked a desire to explore Asia 's unique traditional sports. A Game of Polo with a Headless Goat is Emma Levine 's absorbing account of her epic adventure, which took her from camel wrestling in Turkey through bull racing in India to traditional gymnastics in Iran, performed to poetry and the beat of a drum. Sometimes she travelled so far off the beaten track that her journeys sometimes took days and she discovered places where western women are such a rare sight
Background
This extract comes from a book which was written as a spin-off from Emma
Levine’s television series about strange and unusual sports. It is a travelogue
(a book which describes travel in a foreign country) in which she describes these sports, the people involved and her experiences of filming them. In doing so, she gives an insight not just into the sports themselves, but into the lives and culture of the people who take part in (and watch) them.
Understanding the text
Emma Levine’s purpose in writing her book was to describe and inform. She obviously has to engage and hold the reader’s interest. As you study this text, you need to think about how she does this.
On the surface the passage seems a straightforward description and narrative of the race, but it isn’t. First of all, there is not just one race happening, but three:
º
The donkey race
º
The spectators’ race
º
The writer’s race to get the best pictures
Emma – a jornalist – wanting to capture the epic moment of the race
Yaqoob – a unskilled driver (danger) – he love the risk that donkey race give him
Iqbal – partner/ helper – was send to find our who was the winner of this race
Plot
During a seven-year journey around India spent immersing herself in the cricket subculture, author Emma Levine heard about the wonderful game of buzkashi, a kind of anarchic rugby on horseback where teams of men wrestle and race to grab a headless goat and propel it towards goal. This sparked a desire to explore Asia 's unique traditional sports. A Game of Polo with a Headless Goat is Emma Levine 's absorbing account of her epic adventure, which took her from camel wrestling in Turkey through bull racing in India to traditional gymnastics in Iran, performed to poetry and the beat of a drum. Sometimes she travelled so far off the beaten track that her journeys sometimes took days and she discovered places where western women are such a rare sight
Links: back to “Yaqoob loved it.” Where the tone was still expressing shared enjoyment and fun, new realization and understanding is born to recreate an adapted impression of the entire extract