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Against Death and Time chronicles one fatal season in the post-war glory years of racecar driving. It is the story of the dispossessed young men who raced for "the sheer unvarnished hell of it." Yates has been writing for Car and Driver for more than thirty years and is one of the best-known people in the racing world. He raced his own car for a season in a Plimpton-like adventure recorded in one of his six books, Sunday Driver. He has published widely, from Playboy to the Wall Street Journal, and has appeared on every major television network as a racing and automotive industry commentator. Brock integrates unexpected and fascinating detail into this character-driven story of men compelled to compete against themselves, time, and death. His strategy of a fictional narrator observing, interrogating, and reporting on Brock's real-life protagonists imparts the immediacy of fiction to this minutely accurate account. The book is based on Yates's incomparable experience and interviewswith dozens of surviving racers, widows, car owners, mechanics, and historians, and his deep research in the archives of the Speedway, the Detroit Public Library Auto Archive, United States Auto Club, Henry Ford Museum, Smithsonian Institute, and contemporary newspapers and periodicals.… (més)
The year 1955 was a deadly one in racing. Among the casualties: 80 spectators killed by a wreck at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. This book looks at the events of the year, placing them within their social context.
On the one hand, we think of the 1950's as the era of Ozzie and Harriet, with the rise of the middle-class suburban way of life. But there was another side to that glossy picture; thousands of men, many of whom had seen military action, were restless and seeking thrills. The growth of automobile racing -- a sport which, at that time, had as much as a 50 percent mortality rate among professional drivers in some divisions -- was a part of that, as was the birth of rock 'n' roll and a new type of movie star.
I wonder how many people today realize that actor James Dean was actually on his way to a sports car race in which he planned to participate, breaking in the engine of his new Porsche 550 Spyder, when he had his infamous fatal auto wreck?
This book is different from most non-fiction in that it employs "faction" -- as the author explains, "a first-person, unidentified narrator is a witness to much of the action in an attempt to more intimately link the reader to the real ... events. . . the events are as factual as I could make them, nonwithstanding the passage of time and the blurring of memories." One other fictinonal character is used, who is described an "amalgam of the wealthy, privileged women who followed the sport of automobile racing during that period."
I'm not sure that the faction device helped the story any -- the events were interesting enough in their own right -- but I didn't find it too distracting. I was distracted by some of the grammar/typing errors which abounded in this book. ( )
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
To my beloved wife Pamela, for her inspiration and her passion for life.
Primeres paraules
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
Historians tend to dismiss the fifties as a decade of insipid, pastel-colored lassitude.
Citacions
Darreres paraules
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
The great racing driver Parnelli Jones, who was only beginning his dazzling career in 1955, once observed, "If you're under control, you're not trying hard enough." That perhaps applies to everyone on earth.
Against Death and Time chronicles one fatal season in the post-war glory years of racecar driving. It is the story of the dispossessed young men who raced for "the sheer unvarnished hell of it." Yates has been writing for Car and Driver for more than thirty years and is one of the best-known people in the racing world. He raced his own car for a season in a Plimpton-like adventure recorded in one of his six books, Sunday Driver. He has published widely, from Playboy to the Wall Street Journal, and has appeared on every major television network as a racing and automotive industry commentator. Brock integrates unexpected and fascinating detail into this character-driven story of men compelled to compete against themselves, time, and death. His strategy of a fictional narrator observing, interrogating, and reporting on Brock's real-life protagonists imparts the immediacy of fiction to this minutely accurate account. The book is based on Yates's incomparable experience and interviewswith dozens of surviving racers, widows, car owners, mechanics, and historians, and his deep research in the archives of the Speedway, the Detroit Public Library Auto Archive, United States Auto Club, Henry Ford Museum, Smithsonian Institute, and contemporary newspapers and periodicals.
Google Books — S'està carregant…
(4.5)
1
On the one hand, we think of the 1950's as the era of Ozzie and Harriet, with the rise of the middle-class suburban way of life. But there was another side to that glossy picture; thousands of men, many of whom had seen military action, were restless and seeking thrills. The growth of automobile racing -- a sport which, at that time, had as much as a 50 percent mortality rate among professional drivers in some divisions -- was a part of that, as was the birth of rock 'n' roll and a new type of movie star.
I wonder how many people today realize that actor James Dean was actually on his way to a sports car race in which he planned to participate, breaking in the engine of his new Porsche 550 Spyder, when he had his infamous fatal auto wreck?
This book is different from most non-fiction in that it employs "faction" -- as the author explains, "a first-person, unidentified narrator is a witness to much of the action in an attempt to more intimately link the reader to the real ... events. . . the events are as factual as I could make them, nonwithstanding the passage of time and the blurring of memories." One other fictinonal character is used, who is described an "amalgam of the wealthy, privileged women who followed the sport of automobile racing during that period."
I'm not sure that the faction device helped the story any -- the events were interesting enough in their own right -- but I didn't find it too distracting. I was distracted by some of the grammar/typing errors which abounded in this book. (