#49.  The Loneliness Of The Long-Distance Runner.  Alan Sillitoe.  Short Fiction Collection.   3.0 Stars

First of all, can I just say, best freaking title ever.  The cover is pretty awesome as well (the one above is pretty great, but not near as great as the version I was reading, I think it was the verison printed in 1987, which I cannot seem to find online).  The two (cover and title) together was deadly for me in my “system for picking books” and then this first sentence:  “As soon as I got to Borstal they made me a long-distance cross-country runner.” totally put me over the edge.  

I love that sentence, I suppose it doesn’t look like much, but the simplicity and matter of factness of it, I just love it.  So considering all of these things, and the fact that I already have romantic ideas about long-distance running anyway, I had my expectations up pretty high.  I think that is one of the reasons I was ultimately let down.  Additionally this book was loaned to me by Adam and I for some reason assumed it was a novel, but it is actually a collection of short fiction, which initially upset me, however this turned out to be for the best, because I really liked some of Sillitoe’s pieces, but fundamentally I found the title piece (Loneliness) to be pretty repetative and frustrating, and I was excited when it was time to move on to the next story.  

I found Uncle Ernest, Mr. Raynor The School Teacher, and On Saturday Afternoon to all be quite good, and The Fishing Boat Picture to be heartbreakingly good.  The Decline and Fall of Frankie Buller and The Disgrace of Jim Scarfedale were good and had great titles (Sillitoe has a way with titles I must say), but left me a little wanting.  The Match, Noah’s Ark, and Loneliness I found pretty greatly wanting, but I suppose only Loneliness really let me down because I had just wanted so much to love it. 

I often dream I’m a runner.  Not that I am running, but that I AM A RUNNER.  Like a great one.  Like it is what I was born to do.  They are incredibly freeing and wonderful dreams.  However, the universe definitely put me in the wrong body for that…so either the universe likes a joke…or it’s just mean (probably the latter), because I will never be a runner, not in this body…even at a drastically different weight, I’m just not built for it.  I suppose it’s not Sillitoe’s fault that I wanted his Loneliness And The Long-Distance Runner to fulfill some deep seeded running void that I will never be able to fulfill, but I’m damned if I could keep it from affecting how I ended up feeling about the title piece and in the end the collection overall. 

However, even with my lost hopes and dreamlike runner expectations being shattered, the writing was still creative and interesting, and for its time it was particularly beautiful and probably aggressively new I guess, which is pretty impressive.  The theme throughout the book was a very obvious Loneliness – more obvious in some stories than in others – and it was a haunting and sad read.  Maybe it just wasn’t the right time to be trying to read this book…while the world around me is trying extra hard to be happy and joyous and filled with anything other than loneliness, but I had thought maybe that would make it the perfect time…

3 Stars.