Post by Jofeljoh! on Dec 6, 2014 14:02:51 GMT 1
anyone else already read it? Got it yesterday and read it all in a few hours.
I must say, it was somewhat different than I expected. I've read a few biographies of kickboxers (Remy Bonjasky, Ernesto Hoost and Badr Hari).
Remy Bonjasky's biography was written by Mabel van den Dungen, and the biographies of Hoost and Hari by Jens Olde Kalter. Aerts' book was written by Daniël Dee and Karel ten Haaf, who also wrote a book about K-1 a few years back (and which I very much enjoyed).
I don't think Mabel van den Dungen has a specific connection with the sport, Jens Olde Kalter is an avid fight fan and practices muay thai himself at amateur level. I know him from mixfight and already wrote articles before he wrote his books. Daniël Dee and Karel ten Haar are especially fight fans like us.
And it shows in this book; it really differs from the Bonjasky, Hoost and Hari-books in a few ways. It's written exclusively from Aerts point of view - it's him telling his story. The other ones were told from the writers perspectives with of course long quotes from the fighters. I did find it lacking some depth; it's a long story about short descriptions of all his fights. Of course there are anekdotes and story from his personal life, but it certainly wasn't something they focused on, while the other books did focus more. It might say something about the characters of the fighters of course: Bonjasky as a ladies man, Hoost as a family man but with a few secrets, and Hari, well, Hari is Hari. Aerts is just a straight up guy and although his life can't be boring or uninteresting, in comparison with the others, it seems a bit less spectacular.
That lack of 'spectacular' stories, or depth didn't annoy me. It was quite alright, and nice to read a somewhat different approach. For the real fight fans, and real Aerts fans in specific, it's pretty cool to read about almost all of his fights. A lot of people from the fight scene are mentioned without much description or introduction, so you have to have some knowledge on the sport, which makes it a bit difficult for newbies I think.
Dee and Ten Hoof didn't do much of editing his words, you can tell. Lots of writers and/or journalists would have edit a lot of the phrasings, but you can tell they wanted to stay true to Aerts, and you're really reading this in Aerts' voice and it's obvious he could, and probably has told this story verbatim.
The book is in A4-format, and in full color with lots of personal photos, old news paper/fight magazine photos and articles (with horrible spelling errors). almost 175 pages long. This book would have deserved a hard cover, but still very nicely done. Hope it gets translated in English soon so everyone can enjoy it. I will post some pictures from inside later.
I must say, it was somewhat different than I expected. I've read a few biographies of kickboxers (Remy Bonjasky, Ernesto Hoost and Badr Hari).
Remy Bonjasky's biography was written by Mabel van den Dungen, and the biographies of Hoost and Hari by Jens Olde Kalter. Aerts' book was written by Daniël Dee and Karel ten Haaf, who also wrote a book about K-1 a few years back (and which I very much enjoyed).
I don't think Mabel van den Dungen has a specific connection with the sport, Jens Olde Kalter is an avid fight fan and practices muay thai himself at amateur level. I know him from mixfight and already wrote articles before he wrote his books. Daniël Dee and Karel ten Haar are especially fight fans like us.
And it shows in this book; it really differs from the Bonjasky, Hoost and Hari-books in a few ways. It's written exclusively from Aerts point of view - it's him telling his story. The other ones were told from the writers perspectives with of course long quotes from the fighters. I did find it lacking some depth; it's a long story about short descriptions of all his fights. Of course there are anekdotes and story from his personal life, but it certainly wasn't something they focused on, while the other books did focus more. It might say something about the characters of the fighters of course: Bonjasky as a ladies man, Hoost as a family man but with a few secrets, and Hari, well, Hari is Hari. Aerts is just a straight up guy and although his life can't be boring or uninteresting, in comparison with the others, it seems a bit less spectacular.
That lack of 'spectacular' stories, or depth didn't annoy me. It was quite alright, and nice to read a somewhat different approach. For the real fight fans, and real Aerts fans in specific, it's pretty cool to read about almost all of his fights. A lot of people from the fight scene are mentioned without much description or introduction, so you have to have some knowledge on the sport, which makes it a bit difficult for newbies I think.
Dee and Ten Hoof didn't do much of editing his words, you can tell. Lots of writers and/or journalists would have edit a lot of the phrasings, but you can tell they wanted to stay true to Aerts, and you're really reading this in Aerts' voice and it's obvious he could, and probably has told this story verbatim.
The book is in A4-format, and in full color with lots of personal photos, old news paper/fight magazine photos and articles (with horrible spelling errors). almost 175 pages long. This book would have deserved a hard cover, but still very nicely done. Hope it gets translated in English soon so everyone can enjoy it. I will post some pictures from inside later.
