irmamari's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
m_e_d_b_'s review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
kinbote4zembla's review against another edition
4.0
Let's just get this out of the way: James Salter's A Sport and a Pastime is essentially just The Great Gatsby with an added hot and sticky coating of eroticism. Both revolve around three people, two doomed lovers and a distant narrator who either envies or loves the mysterious man at the centre of the romance. Both feature decadence. Both end tragically with death.
But Salter's slick patina of cumshots and moist cunts ensures that any resemblance to Gatsby is forgivable. It's like when someone remade Forrest Gump as Foreskin Gump or Everybody Loves Raymond as Everybody Does Raymond. Those are not rip-offs. That shit is inspired.
Okay. Well, maybe that's a little much. My point is simply that if you're approaching this novel hoping to find something unique in its plot, you'll be very disappointed. But I really don't think Salter was trying to find the next milk.
He is telling a traditional story. And his success is in the telling. In fact, I would argue that the archetypal nature of the story is meaningful.
There are two (or more) fictions occurring simultaneously in this book. The first is Salter's, the overall novel. The second is the narrator's. He is a man in his thirties (?), definitely approaching middle-age, with thinning hair and lines forming on his face. In sumptuous prose, his exploits in Autun, "the real France," are detailed. And key to this is his longing, for everything, for everyone. He fantasizes about a woman he may have met once or twice. He can imagine his entire life with her. And this is essentially his angle when he meets young Yale dropout, Phillip Dean. About twenty, thirty pages into the novel, there is a significant shift. Dean becomes the focus of the narrator's writing. Then, the book finds its signature thrust, that of Dean's romance with the young local girl, Anne-Marie.
The narrator acknowledges that some (if not all) of the romance is a fantasy in his own head, putting pieces of information together. This is the book's most interesting aspect. Did anything happen, at all? Should we care if it is just a fantasy?
Ultimately, it doesn't matter how much of the narrative is objectively true in the novel's world. We are left with a very lonely portrait of an unfulfilled man. And that's a great layer. This isn't really a book about young love. It's about disappointment and regret and jealousy and displacement. It's sort of a con, in that way, just like Phillip Dean. You're offered romance but you get heartache. And the typical tragic romance emphasizes the narrator's longing. All he wants is that cliché.
Unfortunately, Salter can't sustain his erratic characters. He blows his load, early. I loved so much of what was going on and then suddenly the novel was struck by inertia. Nothing happens, nothing is considered. It's just more sex and then a strange narrative turn and an abrupt end.
Oh, well. C'est la vie.
4 Tubes of Vaseline for All the Sodomy out of 5
But Salter's slick patina of cumshots and moist cunts ensures that any resemblance to Gatsby is forgivable. It's like when someone remade Forrest Gump as Foreskin Gump or Everybody Loves Raymond as Everybody Does Raymond. Those are not rip-offs. That shit is inspired.
Okay. Well, maybe that's a little much. My point is simply that if you're approaching this novel hoping to find something unique in its plot, you'll be very disappointed. But I really don't think Salter was trying to find the next milk.
He is telling a traditional story. And his success is in the telling. In fact, I would argue that the archetypal nature of the story is meaningful.
There are two (or more) fictions occurring simultaneously in this book. The first is Salter's, the overall novel. The second is the narrator's. He is a man in his thirties (?), definitely approaching middle-age, with thinning hair and lines forming on his face. In sumptuous prose, his exploits in Autun, "the real France," are detailed. And key to this is his longing, for everything, for everyone. He fantasizes about a woman he may have met once or twice. He can imagine his entire life with her. And this is essentially his angle when he meets young Yale dropout, Phillip Dean. About twenty, thirty pages into the novel, there is a significant shift. Dean becomes the focus of the narrator's writing. Then, the book finds its signature thrust, that of Dean's romance with the young local girl, Anne-Marie.
The narrator acknowledges that some (if not all) of the romance is a fantasy in his own head, putting pieces of information together. This is the book's most interesting aspect. Did anything happen, at all? Should we care if it is just a fantasy?
Ultimately, it doesn't matter how much of the narrative is objectively true in the novel's world. We are left with a very lonely portrait of an unfulfilled man. And that's a great layer. This isn't really a book about young love. It's about disappointment and regret and jealousy and displacement. It's sort of a con, in that way, just like Phillip Dean. You're offered romance but you get heartache. And the typical tragic romance emphasizes the narrator's longing. All he wants is that cliché.
Unfortunately, Salter can't sustain his erratic characters. He blows his load, early. I loved so much of what was going on and then suddenly the novel was struck by inertia. Nothing happens, nothing is considered. It's just more sex and then a strange narrative turn and an abrupt end.
Oh, well. C'est la vie.
4 Tubes of Vaseline for All the Sodomy out of 5
veryrealpanda's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
lisamartinejenkins's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
sontro96's review against another edition
1.0
This book didn't have anything interesting in it...unfortunately I wasn't able to finish it
denishaskin's review against another edition
1.0
I like a lot of Salter's books (despite their problems) but this one just didn't click with me at all, and I actually stopped about a chapter or two in. Just couldn't see spending the time on it when there's so many good books still to read out there...
marshamudpuddle's review against another edition
slow-paced
3.5
I was fascinated by how this layered desire on top of desire, dream on top of dream. We have a (fictional, so himself imaginary) narrator, who on an imagined trip around rural France imagines a couple he meets (that is, he is imagining imagining them); within this imagined reality he then imagines them having an affair (so, imagining imagining imagining them), an affair which is full of erotic desire, itself a kind of imagination. This gives the whole thing a very dreamy, desirous feeling, but it also makes it hard to really grasp, as a novel: it is like trying to clutch smoke.
The novel is also about a disappearing idea of the ‘real France’, itself something that only ever existed in the imagination. It has a lot of beautiful writing in it. Yet, I didn’t truly love it, because I never found anything solid to hold onto: none of the characters felt real (a deliberate effect, I’m sure), there is no real plot, and there are only so many times a sex scene can hold your attention if it doesn’t have any real stakes to it.
The novel is also about a disappearing idea of the ‘real France’, itself something that only ever existed in the imagination. It has a lot of beautiful writing in it. Yet, I didn’t truly love it, because I never found anything solid to hold onto: none of the characters felt real (a deliberate effect, I’m sure), there is no real plot, and there are only so many times a sex scene can hold your attention if it doesn’t have any real stakes to it.
y_rui's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75