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By Bill Altreuter

Is "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" the greatest work of fiction about my sport? Probably not, since it isn't really about the sport at all, but it is certainly the best title for a running novel ever. As movies about running go I'd put Saint Ralph at the head of my list. Movies about running have a lot of the same problems that movies about any sport have. There are usually only two possible outcomes-- Crushing Defeat or Inspiring Victory, and Loneliness avoids those. Other running movie problems: too much Steve Prefontaine. (I was a fan too, but c'mon.); and too much slo-mo (in a movie about sprinters!).

Alan Sillitoe the author of "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" died last week, one of those writers who are remembered for their early success. I haven't read anything of his apart from "Loneliness" but I have a hunch that his subsequent work suffered because his early success distanced him from his great subject, and he ran out of things to say.

Full post as published by Outside Counsel on April 26, 2010 (boomark / email).