Irenic Road

Once A Runner Review, Part 3

Part 1
Part 2

When the reader gets a glimpse of Cass’s internal monologue that isn’t about running, he’s often scoffing at his professors or making condescending observations about low class characters and generally being a flippant ass. “I used to frolic in the salt salt sea, he thought, and now my toes wrinkle white in this hillbilly mud” (154). Oh, put a sock in it. Probably the most famous line in the book declares running “was all joy and woe, hard as diamond; it made him weary beyond comprehension. But it also made him free” (102). Free, in what way? Competitive running provides all the meaning and purpose in his life, but it doesn’t seem to offer much happiness, and only fleeting satisfaction. Earlier in the story, Denton, as reigning Olympic 5k champion, steps to the line of a race amid the crowd’s deafening adulation. “As Denton trotted out and wistfully accepted it once more, Quenton Cassidy thought his smile seemed sad indeed” (82). He wins easily. Eventually Denton suffers a career-ending injury; he has run his wheels off. The torch is passed. Later, in a fit of literary parallelism, Denton thinks the exact same words as Cassidy accepts his own victory.

Cass, it seems, carries a heavy burden that few people can relate to. Parker places him in some lofty company:

Although he said it humorously in his mock religious voice, in his eyes nevertheless [Andrea] could see but not quite penetrate limpid ethers of a far-away Elysium, where the unworldly citizens were without exception vessels of nearly pure spirit: heavyweight prize fighters, rare-air mountain climbers, soon-to-be-martyred saints, and other quiet, sadly ironic purveyors of the Difficult Task. (49)

Sheez. Mortal that I am, I dare not dispute about the elite distance runner’s niche in the halls of glory, but here, and in many other places in the book, I wonder whether Parker is really in earnest or ridiculing his own tendency to pomposity. (This is by no means the silliest passage I could find.) His diction and style vacillate between pretentious grandiloquence and wry observation, with some athletic shop talk thrown in. At times his prose becomes excessively “muscular,” sounding like a second-rate detective novel. There are a few too many references to Prufrock’s coffee spoons, and the main character’s very name is an overblown allusion to The Sound and the Fury. A deep grain of sarcasm and snarkiness runs throughout the novel, which is perfect when lampooning jocks “riding” (cheating) through school, but cheap when knocking down straw-man stereotypes. In spite of this, Once a Runner sparkles with clever one (or two or three)-liners, and some of the attempts at virtuosity are successful. I confess feeling dazzled by the description of Quenton and Andrea’s failing relationship, when “fundamental imbalances led them into concentric circles of ever decreasing size: a nautilus shell of their discontent” (109). A little bit of this goes a long way, and fortunately, it’s balanced by lots of solid description:

Ron “Spider” Gordon was standing at the edge of the open space to their left, his eyes focused on the ridiculous makeshift standards. They had taken two large coat racks and taped coat hangers to hold the horizontal bar, which was an old cane fishing pole. A pile of mattresses made up a comfy looking landing pit. … Gordon was going into his routine now, in the manner of all jumpers, clenching and unclenching his fists, mumbling to himself, bending over at the waist and wiggling his hands like gloves with no fingers in them, in general doing the field man’s Dance of High Anxiety. Except now it was overtly histrionic, for he was also doing his own voice-over, sotto voce like a golf match commentator… (53)

Cass goes on to explain that Spider is “playing” track:

See, when you’re doing the actual thing itself, it’s so competitive and serious, I don’t think anybody really has much fun at it. Rarely in practice or never in meets. Oh they like the idea of it all right, they like going to competitions, and they like being on a team and the general hullabaloo of being a jock. But when you get right down to it, while you’re doing the thing itself, it’s not a lot of grins. (54)

One of the inescapable sacrifices of being a professional is that you can no longer enjoy your pursuit as an amateur (in the word’s original meaning of lover). A non-athlete can relate to this dilemma, and in reading this passage see it from another angle. Also, these athletes are officially considered amateurs, and so are denied of the benefits of being a  professional (namely money). Thus one conflict intersects with another. The whole section is both amusing and moving. Once a Runner derives all its power from this sort of authentic observation. Parker’s descriptions of Cass running another 120+ mile week and dealing with life’s “little surprises” through unrelenting effort can stand on their own. I can see that “running to him was real”– these realities need no grandiose pronouncements. Like a stream, the story is always depositing credibility on one side and eroding it with campy silliness on the other.

In Running with the Buffaloes, Colorado cross country coach Mark Wetmore tells his runners, “Everyone in Boulder wants to be you.” A lot of people say they want to be Quenton Cassidy, and it’s easy to see why. Even without the contrived plot, Cass is a like a superhero, existing outside the flow of normal society, following a mysterious code and living among “we happy few” band of brothers in Doobey Hall who all have strange and mighty talents. Yet most people can be pretty good at running, and Cass’s lifestyle is available in limited form, for those who really want it. Judging by actions, few actually do.

The sacrifices of pursuing running to the degree Cass does  are always guaranteed, while the mystique fades in the repetition of training. The daily grind has to be enjoyable on some level. If one gets past the mundane toil, questions arise…. Victor Frankl said “He who has a why can survive almost any how.” But Cass doesn’t think about fundamental doubts, right? What if he ran 60 quarter-miles and it didn’t matter at all? There is no objective reason why he should live this way. This is the truth Cass faces during his grueling interval workout; these are the “important things” Denton learned. For Quenton Cassidy, running can give order and meaning to a chaotic and absurd reality, narrowing down life to a few basic objectives. And when it doesn’t, life is unpleasant indeed. This is the “hard diamond” at the heart of Once a Runner, and why, despite obvious flaws, it’s worth a read.