The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. It tells the story of a rebellious youth (played by Tom Courtenay), sentenced to a borstal for burgling a bakery, who gains privileges in the institution through his prowess as a long-distance runner. In fact, he completely rejects the Marxist tradition by emphasizing his individuality--even though the characters in this book are all strongly, proudly, and defiantly English working class, they reject a too-strong group identity, and even perhaps have a certain spirit. Especially for a writer who's acclaimed for giving life to working-class protagonists who usually get ignored in british lit, it seems like he doesn't have a lot of sympathy for his own creations. A classic of northern working class literature, it’s as relevant today as it was in the 1950s it describes. The title story is the best known, owing largely to the 1962 film of the same name, directed by Tony Richardson and starring Tom Courtenay and Michael Redgrave. Meanwhile, at home, his father's long years of toil in a local factory have resulted in a terminal illness for which he refuses treatment and dies, leaving Colin as the family’s jobless breadwinner. This book s. "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner" is an outstanding short story collection. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner at Amazon.com. That's not saying it is the only story of merit because there are several stories that are compelling. To escape the restrictive circumstances of his existence he takes to running, long distance, and is really, really good at it, barely breaking into a sweat. The lesson we might draw from our experience, however, is very different from that of the long-distance runner. It is overseen by the Governor (Michael Redgrave), who believes that the hard work and discipline imposed on his charges will ultimately make them useful members of society. The screenplay was written by Alan Sillitoe from his 1959 short story of the same title. I like the consistency of the atmosphere. All deal with lower class English families. Hutchings, William. From his short-story collection The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1959), … Colin symbolically burns some of his portion of the insurance money and uses the rest to treat Mike and two girls they meet to an outing in Skegness, where Colin confesses to his date, Audrey (Topsy Jane) that she is the first woman he's ever had sex with. “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner” by Alan Sillitoe (The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, Vintage 1987)A classic for every literary runner’s anthology, this story affirms distance running as a journey through which linear time and … It is the second screenplay he adapted from his own work after the also fantastic Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960). Since then he has written novels, stories, poems, plays, travel books, and stories for children. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is a kitchen sink drama that is based on a short story by Alan Sillitoe, who also wrote the script. He tells the surly detective (Dervis Ward) he knows nothing about it. It was an immediate success, telling the story of a rude and amoral young labourer for whom drink and sex on Saturday night provide the only relief from the oppression of the working life. Sillitoe was born and raised in Nottingham, England, in a working-class family. Literature about running has changed over the course of history. The protagonist of the title story has to be one of the great rebels of literature, and an interesting opposite to the Marxist concept of an individual's political (class) consciousness. He never regrets his actions, believing it strengthened his independence and mind, even though it results in soul-destroying manual labour. Smithappears in The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner. I bought this book because I was attracted to the title, but only realized after the fact that it's an anthology. The protagonist in the narrative is Smith, a Nottingham adolescent from a simple home in a poor working class neighborhood. Sillitoe does a great job of capturing the humanity in these characters without reducing them to caricatures. The building had been used by the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes during the Second World War. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. The stories here take place in working class England in the immediate pre and post WWII era. The Governor was once a runner himself, and he is especially keen on Colin's abilities because, for the first time, his charges have been invited to compete in a five-mile cross-country run against Ranley, a nearby public school with privileged pupils from upper-class families. The boy turns to long-distance running as a method of both emotional and physical escape from his situation. Smithappears in The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. The characters are all in unhappy and near inescapable circumstances. At the end, Colin is back in the Borstal's machine shop, now ignored by the Governor. Sillitoe's discontent with the status quo is represented well in his short story The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. The proud Governor looks on as the starting gun is fired. Finally, the day of the five-mile race against Ranley arrives, and Colin quickly identifies Ranley's star runner, Gunthorpe (James Fox). But most of all they are just very good and often very moving stories. As part of the Angry Young Men who redefined British culture in the fifties, Sillitoe must have been pretty important in his day, but now what we have folks like Roddy Doyle and tons of dialect novels, Sillitoe seems a little quaint. Not quite the same thing. The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner: Stories - Ebook written by Alan Sillitoe. All in all Sillitoe is clearly a good writer and I will check out other works by him. A juvenile offender (Sir Tom Courtenay) at a tough reform school impresses its Governor (Sir Michael Redgrave) with his running ability and is encouraged to compete in an upcoming race Colin rebels by refusing a job offered to him at his father's factory. The loneliness of the long-distance runner. Stories that captured the working class told by people who grew up in that class. Colin is then shown with a group of other young men, all handcuffed. It’s distinctly British and middle-class and despite sixty years or so, youth’s expectations and disappointment in the older generations — and in the opposite sex — hasn’t changed much. One of the great novellas to come from post-war Britain, a brilliant exercise in sustained narrative and characterization, an utterly compelling voice. The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner § Historical context, Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists, "Bryanston Films : An Experiment in Cooperative Independent Production and Distribution", http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/loneliness_of_the_long_distance_runner, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Loneliness_of_the_Long_Distance_Runner_(film)&oldid=997398088, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat-VIAF identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 31 December 2020, at 08:54. The film depicts Britain in the late 1950s and early 1960s as an elitist place, where upper-class people enjoy many privileges while lower-class people suffer a bleak life, and its Borstal system of delinquent youth detention centres as a way of putting working-class people in their place. Synopsis "The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner" begins with Colin Smith (Tom Courtenay) running, alone, along a bleak country road somewhere in rural England. A juvenile offender (Sir Tom Courtenay) at a tough reform school impresses its Governor (Sir Michael Redgrave) with his running ability and is encouraged to compete in an upcoming race, but faces ridicule from his peers. I want to qualify this rating by saying that the title story in this collection is fantastic, and a few of the others were lovely in their own way. However, more than half of these stories are dated back to the 40s and 50s. These short stories, while gritty and bleak, are well worth the read. The story is part of an anthology of short stories by the same author. In “Uncle Ernest,” a middle-aged furniture upholsterer traumatized in World War II, now leads a lonely life. See all 3 questions about The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner…, Britain's Angry Young Literature (50s & 60s), Agosto - Septiembre 2014: La soledad del corredor de fondo, March 2013 - Classic - The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe. I love the Northern accent and slang, so I often read very slowly in order to absorb as much as I could. “The Work of Play: Anger and the Expropriated Athletes of Alan Sillitoe and David Storey.” Modern Fiction Studies 33.1(1987): 35–47. Read this book using Google Play Books app on your PC, android, iOS devices. Much to his surprise, he discovers a knack for the sport and quickly becomes a local star. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner Critics Consensus. "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner" is a short story by Alan Sillitoe, published in 1959 as part of a short story collection of the same title. This is shown interspersed with a series of flashbacks showing how Colin came to be incarcerated, beginning with one showing his family's difficult, poverty-stricken life in a lower-class district of industrial Nottingham, where they live in a prefab. Don't get me wrong, the writing is amazing, is really gritty and feels very real and each story captures you and pulls you along. Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner A bleak, but powerful 1960 British film that ranks as one of the most important United Kingdom imports of the decade. [4] The purity of running was taken away when Smith entered the race for his own and his institution's benefit — a commodity useful for his patrons' own promotion. The story was adapted for a 1962 film of the same title. It is full of bitter, angry realism, a heady mix of despair, resignation and empowerment 'The Loneliness of the Long. 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