It’s taken me a while, but I finally wrote my review of Once a Runner by John L. Parker, Jr. and turned it in to my editor at The Second Pass. Please click over and read the whole review, but in the meantime, here is the first sentence:
What does it mean that the proclaimed “best novel ever written about running” (Runner’s World said it, and others have implied it) is in fact an average novel?
Two other interesting reviews on the book were published on Slate and in the Irish Times.
I hate to link and run, but life has been busy, very very busy. The quick update is that I am now running 15 minutes on the treadmill every couple of days, and am learning Chi running form. An oh–I finally filled my Green Mountain Relay team. More later, have a great weekend, I’ll be here on Friday, there on Saturday and laying around on Sunday.
Pigtails Flying 
Read the review — great writing. I like your question, and here’s my quick answer: It means that Haruki Murakami needs to write a novel about running rather than just publishing his memoirs on the subject. 🙂
>>>>>It’s not Parker’s fault that three decades have passed without another novel showing up to challenge Once a Runner’s somewhat dubious status as the best running book on the shelf. He wanted to get the genre started on its way. Time will tell if some future writer can get it across the finish line.<<<<
Well, TK, you appear to have a word processor and somewhat dubious literary pretensions. What's stopping you? –John L. Parker, Jr.
Nice piece. I like in particular how you give background on the publishing history of the book in the first graph. That type of big-picture explanation often goes wanting in reviews.
I’m curious whether running is a subject better suited to creative or literary non-fiction than to fiction. If an author has run a timed race, I want to see how that real, fact-based experience can be translated into a lesson or story or how it can be dressed up as entertainment.
Then again, there are a fair number of middling non-fiction books about running out there as well. I have approached several running books with high expectations–including the one written by Murakami–only the think hmm, that writer didn’t really hit the mark, or rather, didn’t expose or expand on the subject in a broad and convincing way. The running log didn’t translate as well as it could have.
Incidentally, knowing that Murakami is a distance runner colors a reading of “Kafka on the Shore” and likely other of his novels that are not ostensibly about running but that illustrate feats of physical endurance. I agree with Robert’s point that a Murakami novel on running would be more enjoyable that his memoir about it. But I suspect Murakami is an exception to the rule in that respect.
A few of the running blogs out there, with their day-to-day observations, expose in bits and bobs the essence of the sport.
[…] 3, 2009 in Running | Tags: born to run, Tarahumara Tavia recently began her review of “Once A Runner,” “What does it mean that the proclaimed ‘best novel ever […]
TK- You’ll be soooo proud of me! The car is officially gone and I am biking to work EVERY DAY!!!
Hope all is well out your end!!
If you’re learning Chi Running, you REALLY should come to the Newton clinic at the Boathouse on 6/16!!
What iz the hibber obar dar? Hibbado…
Loved the last two lines of your review especially.
I have cherished my paperback copy of this book for the past few years, and have friends who regularly quote the characters, so I feel slightly defensive of any negative feedback it draws. That said, one day I decided I was going to become rich and famous by turning it into a screenplay. As I marked certain sections I had remembered as being great writing, I suddenly found myself not liking the book as much. Were the characters too pretentious? Unrealistic dialogue? I can’t remember now, but I do know that it felt good to have a special story to come back to that belonged to me and my crazy, time-obsessed racing addict friends- and so to keep the sacredness of that work, I abandoned the screenplay idea. It does seem bizarre that there are so few juicy books on running. We are definitely due for a new running cult classic.
A long time ago I started a novel with it’s core based on a runner who had “fallen” but with the love of his young daughter supporting him he began his road to redemption. Along the way I heard of Parker’s classic but I resisted buying it because I wanted DEVON LOCH to be totally my story with no other influences. I still haven’t read ONCE A RUNNER but by all accounts it is legendary. Anything supported by “word of mouth” for thirty years has to be special.
The reason Parker’s book hasn’t been topped (although THE OLYMPIAN is a contender) is that publishers come from the “running is boring” crowd and that most runners lack the imagination or the time to start, much less complete, a project as time consuming as writing a novel. Publishers are non-athletes whose idea of exercise is taking the escalator instead of the elevator (note ONCE A RUNNER was self published) and runners (bless them for I am one) are usually compulsive running freaks who can put you to sleep talking about fartlek training, overpronation and carbo loading or people who once they finish their run are “driven” in managing their successful careers or families.
My novel, which has never been published in the main stream, was born from the heart of a runner and expresses my life long love of the sport. DEVON LOCH reflects the dreams of every person who is finishing his run at night, in a cold downpour and in the final one hundred yards begins his kick as if it was the final sprint down the straightaway in the Olympics with a cheering crowd willing him forward and into the lead.