A Brief Review of James Salter's 'A Sport and a Pastime'

[olliegreenman]

A Sport and a Pastime is all at once incredibly intricate, and utterly simple. Salter’s writing is beautiful and weaves masterful images, and he skillfully manages to create a fully immersive atmosphere for much of the book. If I were to rate it according to the ubiquitous star system, I would likely assign it 3.5 stars. A midline rating such as this would accord credit for the gorgeous language, but still leave plenty of room for critque because overall I felt that the story, itself, was lacking.

A Sport and a Pastime reads like a seamless stream of vignettes with a hardly-linear timeline, and while this occasionally made the story tricky to follow, this wasn’t really what bothered me. Ultimately, I didn’t feel a strong connection to any of the characters, and most of them were difficult to keep track of anyway because of their inconsistent page-time.

The main story, between Anne-Marie and Dean, was enjoyable and offered some subtle and perceptive insights, but these bits of wisdom did not make up the bulk of their narrative together. To be blunt, more than half of the novel was made up of scenes of a sexual nature. I don’t make this note as pure criticism, as Salter’s writing often truly shone in these intimate passages and proved to be some of the better sex scenes I’ve read in novels. However, a story that is mostly about sex, no matter how beautifully presented, is not particularly engaging, unless that’s exactly what you’ve come to a book for. Sensual and captivating, absolutely, but alone they could not form enough substance for a satisfying story.

The narrator of the story is curiously distant, and admittedly voyeuristic, and the reader is really given very little chance to get to know or care about him. Indeed, his name doesn't even come to me off the top of my head. It is he who beginnings the story, and he who ends, but unfortunately because he was such an enigmatic character, his true connections and emotions to the rest of the story feel unclear, and this caused the ending to feel somewhat contrived.

It's been a while since I last read this book, but it is one that, although I remember very little of the actual plot, still remains with me. The images that Salter created still have yet to leave my mind's eye, and there's a good deal of worth in that alone.

What are your thoughts, dear readers?