THE MEANINGLESSNESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER:

Novelist Alan Sillitoe dies: Alan Sillitoe, the novelist, has died at the age of 82, his family said. (Daily Telegraph, 4/25/10)

He left school at 14 and worked in a bicycle factory in his native Nottingham before serving in the RAF.

His breakthrough came with the publication of the novel Saturday Night And Sunday Morning in 1958.

It was made into a film, starring Albert Finney, as was his next novel The Loneliness Of The Long-Distance Runner which featured Tom Courtenay in the lead role.

Both are regarded as classic examples of kitchen sink dramas reflecting the reality of life in Britain at the mid-point of the 20th century.

British author Alan Sillitoe dies aged 82 (AP, 4/25/10)

Sillitoe, a leading member of the 1950s group of so-called angry young men of British fiction, was acclaimed for his uncompromising social criticism and depiction of domestic tensions — often dubbed kitchen sink dramas.

The writer’s son David said his father had died at London’s Charing Cross hospital, but gave no other details.

Sillitoe is best known for his 1958 book “Saturday Night And Sunday Morning,” and 1959 short story “The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner.” Both works were later made into films.

Albert Finney starred in the adaptation of the former, as a disillusioned young factory worker. In the latter, Tom Courtenay portrayed a young delinquent whose prowess at long distance running is seized upon by authorities as proof of their ability to rehabilitate troubled youths.

Recalling his own modest upbringing in Nottingham, central England, Sillitoe once recalled the smells of “leaking gas, stale fat, and layers of moldering wallpaper.”

Anger is a thin gruel.

MORE:
REVIEW: of Saturday Night & Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe (Caroline Miller, The Guardian)
-REVIEW: of Saturday Night, Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe (John Crace, The Guardian)
ESSAY: In praise of ... Alan Sillitoe (The Guardian, 8 November 2008 )

"Whom do I hate?" wrote Alan Sillitoe in his notebook in 1957. A promising sentence, duly topped by what followed. "At a rough guess I would say everyone, hoping to qualify that statement to my satisfaction later." This is the Sillitoe everyone loves: the awkward sod who writes about other awkward sods.

-REVIEW: of # The Life of a Long-Distance Writer: A Biography of Alan Sillitoe by Richard Bradford: A few blemishes wouldn't have gone amiss: The enigmatic Alan Sillitoe remains just that in a life that has been carefully airbrushed, says James Purdon (James Purdon, 1/11/09, The Observer)

Labels don't stick to Alan Sillitoe. He shrugs them off. They wear out. The "Angry Young Man" who shocked Chatterley-ban Britain with Saturday Night and Sunday Morning turned 80 last year, but the "young" was superfluous from the beginning. As he reminds us, there are always good reasons to be angry. As a "socialist author" who sold well in the USSR, he was occasionally invited behind the iron curtain, only to goad his hosts by speaking publicly against the regime's suppression of writers.

FILM REVIEW: Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner (Phelim O'Neill, The Guardian)
FILM REVIEW: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning/The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Philip French, The Observer)

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 25, 2010 8:13 AM