The Reason Again to Carthage Sucks as a Book

I disagree to some extent. I think it's more a matter of the tone of the story matching the protagonist. (And I was reading a lot more quality books when I first read OAR than I have been in recent years).

In OAR, Parker's tone was that of his college aged protagonist. It was a bit like having a former teammate of yours, a guy who was still young, telling you about how he got to his first breakthrough race on the way to becoming an Olympian. That's a story that people would be interested in hearing. The book was basically in Cassidy's voice- naively young, overwrought but sincere, focused on actions rather than personal development- the way that a smart college kid might write. Because to some extent we believe that OAR is Cassidy's 20ish y.o. voice, we can identify with how he feels about running even when his words aren't perfect. If Cassidy's story were a college assignment, his English professor might become similarly emotionally attached to him because of his passion and intensity, not because he wrote the world's greatest book. In that way, an older, more mature reader can still appreciate the story and the emotion behind it.

For ATC to match that, I think we would have to feel that the voice is still Cassidy's, but more mature, more introspective, and more careful with his words. Instead we get the same type of "college essay" writing that we had before, making me feel that Cassidy is an overgrown emo kid, still at the same emotional stage he was in college. I don't know if there's a way that a book from the viewpoint of an older Cassidy could have worked well in any case.

But OAR was good insofar as we could identify with the literary tone of a young runner in a college setting, and ATC is bad insofar as that self-absorbed and over-dramatic voice no longer fits an adult.

I thought that was a very well thought out response.

(and thanks for not pointing out I spelled "read" wrong).

I didn't read OAR until I was in my 40s and still thought it was a very good inspirational book about running. There are some great lines in OAR that have been quoted very often.

I'm now reading ATC and I'll have to admit I'm a bit disappointed...so far at least. I'm on about page 170 and unless I missed it, the story has hardly talked about running at all. There's a lot of backgound writing on what Cassidy has been doing since his last race. I think I'm at the spot where it starts to pick up and hopefully get a lot more interesting.

Has anyone had similar impressions? Is the second half of the book much better than the first?

It does get better, the first half is just one big illustration of what's missing in QC's life.

I'd be interested in seeing how other authors would write ATC. Give them the same story, but see if we get a different book.

I think the real issue is that OAR's fan base is so devoted, Parker felt he had to stick to OAR's tone and style, not to mention all the references and inside jokes. The largest shortcomming, as I see it, is ATC doesn't stand on its own as a work of fiction, and so will never equal its predecessor.

Pez wrote:

It does get better, the first half is just one big illustration of what's missing in QC's life.

Is he buh-loo?

The second half is much better then the first half of the book. About half way through the book, I was thinking that it was rather uninteresting. By the end of the book however, I thought that it was on the whole a very enjoyable read. Whether that means it should be considered a literary classis, I don't know, but I read books for enjoyment or for knowledge. ATC fulfilled the enjoyment requirement, much the way an Adam Sandler movie is enjoyable as heck, but might not win an Oscar.

bumpo