Refreshing to hear
Refreshing to hear
Quenton finds out that Arthur Lydiard is his father.
i thought the end was sort of depressing, but an excellent book.
I still think it was wrong for him to kill off Harry Potter.
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20071223/NEWS/712230318/1002/NEWSGreatrunner wrote:
does anyone know the history behind John L Parker?
Magister Jacobus wrote:
I don't believe that it will interest the younger runners that much but for those of us at a more advanced stage in our lives, it offers some interesting moments. We all eventually come to the realization that we can no longer do the runs we took for granted and we begin to miss that time. In this we share Cassidy's feelings. However, Parker seems to spend too many pages getting us to this point. I understand that Parker wants us to understand Cassidy's motivation, but this portion of the story does take too long.
I really agree with your first statement. I have a feeling that if you're over 40, you're more like to really like ATC, but if you're in HS or college, you'll probably like OAR more. (nothing like a broad stereotype, huh?) Seriously, I almost wondered if Parker overdid it a tad with the death theme. Would a 30-somthing elite marathoner come to grips with his own mortality in the throes of the Olympic trials?
Yeah, I thought it took a while to get through all the seemingly unconnected episodes in the first half of the book, but once you did, most of those characters and events were factors in what happened in the second half.
BTW, did anyone else notice the chronological discrepancy? Cassidy won his silver medal at Montreal in 1976 at the end of OAR. At the end of ATC, he's running the Olympic marathon trials in Buffalo in 1980 (and he has a 2-year build-up for the marathon, which presumably would have begun in 1978). That only leaves 2 years for a post-running career, law school and a practice, and a mid-life crisis.
Still, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Thanks, John Parker, for another great read.
mac45 wrote:
i thought the end was sort of depressing, but an excellent book.
I thought it was an interesting but realistic twist. I thought it was interesting that at the end of OAR and ATC, Cassidy achieved some incredible accomplishments in running, but never quite attained his ultimate dream (to set a WR or win Olympic gold in OAR; to go to the Olympics in ATC).
Of course, I have a feeling that all the American competitors for an Olympic spot (in any sport) in 1980 felt a bit disappointed.
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