錯雜談。

長跑者的寂寞

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Loneliness_of_the_Long_Distance_Runner
ref: http://blog.udn.com/jason080/4015564
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The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is a short story by Alan Sillitoe which was published in 1959 as part of a short story collection of the same name. The work focuses on Colin, a poor Nottingham teenager from a dismal home in a blue-collar area, who has bleak prospects in life and few interests beyond petty crime. The boy turns to long-distance running as a method of both an emotional and a physical escape from his situation. The story was cinematically adapted as The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner in 1962 with Sillitoe writing the screenplay and Tony Richardson directing.


Plot
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When he is caught by the police for robbing a bakery, Colin is sentenced to be confined in Ruxton Towers, a Borstal (prison school) for delinquent youths. Taken there in handcuffs and detained in bleak and highly restrictive circumstances, he seeks solace in long-distance running, attracting the notice of the school’s authorities for his physical prowess. Long-distance running offers Colin a welcome distraction from the brutal drudgery of the Borstal regime and he is offered the prospect of early release from Borstal, if he wins in an important cross-country competition against a prestigious public school. For Ruxton Towers to win the cross-country race would be a major PR boost for the establishment, and Colin has an obvious incentive to cooperate.

However, when the day of the race arrives Colin throws victory away: after speeding ahead of the other runners he deliberately stops running a few metres short of the finishing line, even though he is well ahead and could easily win. Seconds tick by as Colin stands there, in full view of the amazed race spectators who shout at him to finish the race. However, he deliberately lets the other runners pass him and cross the finishing line, thereby losing the race in a nihilistic gesture of contempt and defiance aimed against his Borstal captors, and the repressive forces that they represent. In deliberately losing the race, Colin demonstrates his belief that the race (and the Establishment values that it symbolises) is meaningless, that the approval of his supposedly social superiors is worthless, and that he resolutely refuses to play by their rules. The response of the Borstal authorities to Colin's action is heavy-handed. With the prospect of early release gone, Colin resigns himself to the drudgery of the soul-destroying manual labour he is forced to do. However, looking back on his actions he has no regrets.

Author: Alan Sillitoe
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2010.4.27《出版之門》綜合報導 

上世紀50年代英國文學界著名工人作家艾米斯．西利托（Alan Sillitoe, 1928-2010，艾倫．西利托），25日在倫敦查靈克羅斯醫院去世，享年82歲。

據報導，西利托1928年4月4日出生於一個製革工人家庭，從小在諾丁漢的貧民區長大，14歲輟學後開始在工廠當工人。二戰時，他被徵入皇家空軍當無線電報務員，因染上肺病被送往馬略卡島療 養。1948年，他在療養期間開始寫作，後來更成為專業作家。 

西利托 一生創作了50多部詩歌散文集、旅行錄、成人和兒童小說，以及大量的戲劇影 視劇本等各種題材作品。他的很多作品都和他的童年有關。1958年，西利托發表長篇小說處女作《週末晨昏》（Saturday Night
and Sunday Morning，又譯《週六晚和周日晨》），成為戰後英國文壇第一位反映工人階層日常生活、情緒和心理 變化的作家，發行量達創紀錄的600萬冊。他的另一部短篇小說集《長跑運動員的孤獨》（The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner，長跑者的孤獨）獲得1960年的霍桑頓文學獎（Hawthornden Prize）。兩部成名作此後均被改編成電影，並獲好評。因為這兩部代表作，西利托被評論家列為上世紀50年代末英國文壇激進浪潮代表作家。