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De onzichtbare mijl
In 1928 deed voor het eerst een ploeg uit Australië en Nieuw-Zeeland mee aan de Tour de France. Het was een van de zwaarste rondes ooit: 5476 kilometer over onverharde wegen, in een vaste versnelling, met spiegelgladde remmen. Niemand verwachtte dat de nieuwelingen de eindstreep zouden halen, zijzelf het allerminst. Boven het stuur van een naamloze Nieuw-Zeelander koersen we met het peloton mee door het Franse landschap, dat onlosmakelijk verbonden blijkt met de laatste oorlog, de Grote Oorlog. Naarmate de renners de slagvelden van het noorden naderen wordt de Tour voor de verteller een hallucinante, door cocaïne en opium gestookte hellevaart naar het verleden van zijn familie. Een verleden dat nauw verweven is met de trauma's van een hele verloren generatie. Snelheid, pijn, het gezwoeg in de bergen, de weigering om op te geven: het wordt allemaal invoelbaar gemaakt. Wielrennen is oorlog, de renners zijn elkaars wapenbroeders. En je rijdt en zweet en bloedt met ze mee.
352 pages, Paperback
First published June 11, 2015
22 people are currently reading
249 people want to read
About the author
David Coventry
6 books7 followersDavid Coventry was awarded the Hubert Church Award for Fiction in 2016 at the New Zealand Book Awards. A graduate of the IIML, his novel The Invisible Mile (2015) re-imagines the gruelling 1928 Tour de France. The novel is Published in New Zealand by Victoria University Press, in the UK and Commonwealth (ex Can) by Picador UK, and the USA and Canada by Europa Editions (June 2017). Translations are to be released in Dutch, Hebrew, Spanish, Danish and German.
The Invisible Mile was shortlisted in the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and was in the NZ top Ten for over a year.
The Invisible Mile was shortlisted in the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and was in the NZ top Ten for over a year.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
November 28, 2017
As a big fan of the Tour de France and a teacher of history, I was drawn to this debut novel about the first English-speaking team to ride the Tour not long after World War I. But I'm sorry to say that I was almost immediately disappointed. The book is far too psychological and impressionistic for my taste, almost like a bad Hemingway impersonation; all the characters speak in the same vague, rambling way. Where there is the promise of plot revelations to interrupt the litany of description, they remain unresolved. I kept reading with the hope that things would improve, but the ending left me even more frustrated. Coventry shows flashes of real talent, but this wasn't the book for me.
September 12, 2016
I loved the premise for this book and really enjoyed the racing parts, however the rest of the book was really hard work. Will be quickly forgotten I feel.
July 11, 2024
David Coventry’s sophisticated and impressive first novel draws on the experiences of a fictional addition to the 1928 Ravat-Wonder team of Australians and New Zealanders in the Tour de France. It’s a story set against a post-war crisis of masculinity, a still battle scarred country, and a brutal test of physicality (although by 1928 the Tour had done away with its 400km+ stages). At the heart of the story – our fictional team member – is a young man guilty that he was too young to fight in the war to end all wars as his older brother, who he idolises and fears, came back broken.
It’s a story of endurance – of drug fuelled racing – and of exploitation, of cyclists by the Tour’s commercial interests, of a ‘camp follower’ woman with whom our narrator strikes up a relationship, and of desperation – many of Coventry’s characters have no option but to keep going.
Coventry’s insight to endurance sport is impressive, and carries a powerful sense of verisimilitude about it. This becomes more powerful as our narrator nears the final stage – the invisible mile is the last mile of the race, when there’s nothing but inertia to keep the riders going. Here he gets distracted by the battle fields – as so many were at the time, the route is anti-clockwise around the hexagone so came north up the former western front towards Paris – and by his brother’s tale of heroism and damage in a plane crash in Belgium. Not the strongest rider in the team, this distraction ultimately costs him everything.
It’s a psychologically rich and unsettling story of one aspect of the post-war lost generation, and of a distinctive but not unique antipodean mythology of masculinity and the 1914-18 war. It’s also impressively and highly efficiently written, with barely a wasted word (all power to the editors at VUP, now Te Herenga Waka Press), although this efficiency costs a little clarity in the denouement that barely matters given the elegance of the rest of the book.
It’s a story of endurance – of drug fuelled racing – and of exploitation, of cyclists by the Tour’s commercial interests, of a ‘camp follower’ woman with whom our narrator strikes up a relationship, and of desperation – many of Coventry’s characters have no option but to keep going.
Coventry’s insight to endurance sport is impressive, and carries a powerful sense of verisimilitude about it. This becomes more powerful as our narrator nears the final stage – the invisible mile is the last mile of the race, when there’s nothing but inertia to keep the riders going. Here he gets distracted by the battle fields – as so many were at the time, the route is anti-clockwise around the hexagone so came north up the former western front towards Paris – and by his brother’s tale of heroism and damage in a plane crash in Belgium. Not the strongest rider in the team, this distraction ultimately costs him everything.
It’s a psychologically rich and unsettling story of one aspect of the post-war lost generation, and of a distinctive but not unique antipodean mythology of masculinity and the 1914-18 war. It’s also impressively and highly efficiently written, with barely a wasted word (all power to the editors at VUP, now Te Herenga Waka Press), although this efficiency costs a little clarity in the denouement that barely matters given the elegance of the rest of the book.
November 15, 2016
The Invisible Mile is a book of incredible passion. It is so sensitive that I could literary hear the beat of excitement in every sentence, with each intonation rise. It is built on emotional accents - a rare, yet captivating technique, which makes you want to read the book aloud. From the very first page it suggests you its own rhythm, which you breathe till the end of the book, and then feel short of breath for a while after you finish reading. Only very good books can do this to a reader.
It is amazing how artistically David Coventry managed to create this mood by writing the whole book in present tense. More usually, the present tense books are narrative, they tend to "hide" passion behind the bars of description and reasoning, but The Invisibla Mile is a wonderful example of not following the beaten track and still creating a unique and beautiful work of fiction.
It is amazing how artistically David Coventry managed to create this mood by writing the whole book in present tense. More usually, the present tense books are narrative, they tend to "hide" passion behind the bars of description and reasoning, but The Invisibla Mile is a wonderful example of not following the beaten track and still creating a unique and beautiful work of fiction.
August 20, 2017
The Invisible Mile sounded like a promising read. I thought that the storyline seemed strong and although it's not the type of book that I would typically go for I'm always open minded to different genres so I thought that I would give it a go
I felt like it was quite difficult to immerse myself into the book and I found it to be somewhat disjointed and I didn't feel any real connection with any of the characters.
The part that I found the most difficult to fathom was why the main character who remains nameless focussed a great deal on his brother's experience of the first World War
I enjoyed the grueling details of the Tour de France and it was tied together nicely with an unexpected ending. However, I thought that references to WW1 were unneccessary and I couldn't see any correlation between Tour de France and the war.
I felt like it was quite difficult to immerse myself into the book and I found it to be somewhat disjointed and I didn't feel any real connection with any of the characters.
The part that I found the most difficult to fathom was why the main character who remains nameless focussed a great deal on his brother's experience of the first World War
I enjoyed the grueling details of the Tour de France and it was tied together nicely with an unexpected ending. However, I thought that references to WW1 were unneccessary and I couldn't see any correlation between Tour de France and the war.
October 12, 2017
Esta novela es el mejor ejemplo de que, por mucho que una temática pueda resultar atractiva, siempre cabe la posibilidad de salir escaldado de la lectura. Es el caso de "La milla invisible", una historia que promete aunar ciclismo, primera guerra mundial y el aroma de las primeras décadas del siglo XX. Tres de los elementos que más me interesan pero que, en este caso, han hecho de esta novela una de las mayores decepciones que he tenido el infortunio de leer en muchos años. Solo el empeño por querer terminarlo me ha llevado hasta las páginas finales, porque la historia no me ha invitado en ningún momento a continuar.
July 3, 2016
Couldn't finish it sorry. Perhaps you need to be on the same drugs as the main protagonist to enjoy it. Quite evocative but too deep for my tastes. Looking forward to the documentary on this subject in this year's NZ Film Festival though.
November 15, 2016
I really had to force myself to finish this and at the end I wished I hadn't bothered. The details of the bike race were OK but the rest was so airy fairy - I broke my mean rule of book reading, never read a prize winner! - life is too short to read this - what is it about ???
November 27, 2017
Verbosity does not always equal profundity
Let me begin by saying that David Coventry writes beautifully. Or, to be more precise, he writes beautiful, individual sentences, laced with metaphor and discriptive prowess, and keen observations. So why do I make the distinction? Simply because almost every single sentence in the book is overwritten in this way. It makes reading more of a slog than actually riding the 1928 Tour de France. Often I found myself getting agitated because sometimes being direct is fine- not every element of every sentence should require mental gymnastics to get to the core of the plot. Don't get me wrong- I like an intellectual challenge but this book simply seems to ignore what Freud, in an other context once said- "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!".
In many cases it feel that the author has mistaken verbosity with profundity. There are many conversations detailed in the book, but they are more like those you would expect from characters in a surrealist existentialist play directed by sixth formers- almost a parody, where every single word and action is drenched in meaning and no one responds simply or directly. You get the feeling that even asking any of the characters what time the stage starts the next day would result in a treatise on the fluiduty and temporal nature of time rather than a simple "9:30am". Even the conversations and contributions from the crowds watching the Tour go past are framed as profound- the simple peasant woman mourning her daughter lost during the war seems to speak like a philosophy professor leading a symposium on the nature of loss.
As for the narrator- I don't remember ever getting so annoyed with a fictional character! If he used the energy he expended on his deep conversations (internal and external), getting drunk and spending nights with a female (both in bed and on car journeys in the middle of the night)on actually riding his bike, he would have beaten Franz, never mind Opperman! Cycling is a sport where conservation of effort is one of the keys to success, and this is not reflected in the writing in this book. The closer we get to the end, the more of the character of the narrator is revealed and it is impossible to have any empathy or sympathy for him the longer it goes on.
There are some twists as we go on, but these are signposted quite early for the more attentive reader (and anagram fans might pick up on one of the most unsavory reveals before it happens). The end of the book left me with mixed feelings- glad that I had finished it, but the actual denouement seemed a bitter cop-out- an attempt to make the reader feel even worse about human nature than a book that is grounded in the aftermath of the First World War (as individuals and countries were still trying to come to terms with it) and other personal tragedies already does.
Coventry has blended fact and fiction in this book- some of the riders and events were real, whereas others are not. This can be distracting if you actually know about history of the Tour de France- yes 1928 did see the first NZ/ Australian team enter and Opperman was a real person (in fact his life story would be worthy of a work on its own). Frantz really won that year and others like Bottecchia who was mentioned in passing existed (although Conventry got the dates of his victories wrong). The narrator is a fiction as is the names of many of the teams he mentions, so part of the problem when reading is the little voice at the back of my head that kept pointing out what was real and what wasn't. To be honest being a cycling fan could actually be an obstacle in getting through this book.
Of course maybe the frustrations, the hard going and the lovely writing are a clever ploy by Coventry to allow the reader some sympathy with the struggles of the riders. After all, they are also surrounded by beauty but are unable to appreciate it because of the demands of just making it through. I felt guilty about not always appreciating Coventry's skill with the written word, but I had had reached saturation point. Sentences that danced around and around what they were meant to describe and left room for ambiguity, and phrases used where words would have done ( "bullets" is dramatic enough instead of "shouts of death") meant that the whole book could be submitted to Pseuds Corner in Private Eye.
Perhaps Coventry's undoubted skills as a wordsmith would be better suited to a travelogue type book, because he could definitely replicate natural beauty on the page, but as for "The Invisible Mile" I have never been so conflicted about a book before. While I don't want a simple linear "We did this and then did that", this doesn't come anywhere near the quality of Tim Krabbé's "The Rider" which takes the same cerebal, pyschologicial approach but does it so much better without feeling so forced.
Let me begin by saying that David Coventry writes beautifully. Or, to be more precise, he writes beautiful, individual sentences, laced with metaphor and discriptive prowess, and keen observations. So why do I make the distinction? Simply because almost every single sentence in the book is overwritten in this way. It makes reading more of a slog than actually riding the 1928 Tour de France. Often I found myself getting agitated because sometimes being direct is fine- not every element of every sentence should require mental gymnastics to get to the core of the plot. Don't get me wrong- I like an intellectual challenge but this book simply seems to ignore what Freud, in an other context once said- "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!".
In many cases it feel that the author has mistaken verbosity with profundity. There are many conversations detailed in the book, but they are more like those you would expect from characters in a surrealist existentialist play directed by sixth formers- almost a parody, where every single word and action is drenched in meaning and no one responds simply or directly. You get the feeling that even asking any of the characters what time the stage starts the next day would result in a treatise on the fluiduty and temporal nature of time rather than a simple "9:30am". Even the conversations and contributions from the crowds watching the Tour go past are framed as profound- the simple peasant woman mourning her daughter lost during the war seems to speak like a philosophy professor leading a symposium on the nature of loss.
As for the narrator- I don't remember ever getting so annoyed with a fictional character! If he used the energy he expended on his deep conversations (internal and external), getting drunk and spending nights with a female (both in bed and on car journeys in the middle of the night)on actually riding his bike, he would have beaten Franz, never mind Opperman! Cycling is a sport where conservation of effort is one of the keys to success, and this is not reflected in the writing in this book. The closer we get to the end, the more of the character of the narrator is revealed and it is impossible to have any empathy or sympathy for him the longer it goes on.
There are some twists as we go on, but these are signposted quite early for the more attentive reader (and anagram fans might pick up on one of the most unsavory reveals before it happens). The end of the book left me with mixed feelings- glad that I had finished it, but the actual denouement seemed a bitter cop-out- an attempt to make the reader feel even worse about human nature than a book that is grounded in the aftermath of the First World War (as individuals and countries were still trying to come to terms with it) and other personal tragedies already does.
Coventry has blended fact and fiction in this book- some of the riders and events were real, whereas others are not. This can be distracting if you actually know about history of the Tour de France- yes 1928 did see the first NZ/ Australian team enter and Opperman was a real person (in fact his life story would be worthy of a work on its own). Frantz really won that year and others like Bottecchia who was mentioned in passing existed (although Conventry got the dates of his victories wrong). The narrator is a fiction as is the names of many of the teams he mentions, so part of the problem when reading is the little voice at the back of my head that kept pointing out what was real and what wasn't. To be honest being a cycling fan could actually be an obstacle in getting through this book.
Of course maybe the frustrations, the hard going and the lovely writing are a clever ploy by Coventry to allow the reader some sympathy with the struggles of the riders. After all, they are also surrounded by beauty but are unable to appreciate it because of the demands of just making it through. I felt guilty about not always appreciating Coventry's skill with the written word, but I had had reached saturation point. Sentences that danced around and around what they were meant to describe and left room for ambiguity, and phrases used where words would have done ( "bullets" is dramatic enough instead of "shouts of death") meant that the whole book could be submitted to Pseuds Corner in Private Eye.
Perhaps Coventry's undoubted skills as a wordsmith would be better suited to a travelogue type book, because he could definitely replicate natural beauty on the page, but as for "The Invisible Mile" I have never been so conflicted about a book before. While I don't want a simple linear "We did this and then did that", this doesn't come anywhere near the quality of Tim Krabbé's "The Rider" which takes the same cerebal, pyschologicial approach but does it so much better without feeling so forced.
March 7, 2018
A massive disappointment. I bought this book to see what all the fuss was about, but any point it is meant to have gets lost in all the verbiage. Although ostensibly about the first English-speaking team to compete in the Tour de France, it simply doesn't ring true and utterly fails to get inside the head of a cyclist, as The Rider does effortlessly from the first lines.
We have clichés about bursting lungs, pain and an obsession with bloodshed and splintered bones, which is presumably the author's clumsy way of telling us that WW1 ended ten years previously, but he makes the point badly and the reader could be forgiven for not knowing that this is the most epic race there is or ever has been, or that the riders are making history. Much of it is simply as unbelievable as it is pointless, such as two riders in the middle of an Alpine stage having nothing better to do than witter on about cod philosophy worthy of Paulo Coelho at his worst
The Tour actually turns into a sub-plot at best, but without a decent main plot to replace it. For instance, a typical chapter begins with a short, perfunctory paragraph about an Alpine stage, as an introduction to a rambling, long-winded, opium-fuelled psychological guessing game between a totally unconvincing narrator and someone who may -- or may not -- be a casual lover, about the former's family history, or relations with other equally non-existent characters, who all sound the same, do not develop in any way and seem to be mere devices for a plot that simply isn't there.
Don't believe the hype, either, about this being a "poetic" work, because the prose is awkward, and often reads like a bad translation, in which the writer struggles with English grammar and vocabulary, oddly reminiscent (consciously or otherwise) of Hemingway in For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Reaching the end of the book was a chore.
We have clichés about bursting lungs, pain and an obsession with bloodshed and splintered bones, which is presumably the author's clumsy way of telling us that WW1 ended ten years previously, but he makes the point badly and the reader could be forgiven for not knowing that this is the most epic race there is or ever has been, or that the riders are making history. Much of it is simply as unbelievable as it is pointless, such as two riders in the middle of an Alpine stage having nothing better to do than witter on about cod philosophy worthy of Paulo Coelho at his worst
The Tour actually turns into a sub-plot at best, but without a decent main plot to replace it. For instance, a typical chapter begins with a short, perfunctory paragraph about an Alpine stage, as an introduction to a rambling, long-winded, opium-fuelled psychological guessing game between a totally unconvincing narrator and someone who may -- or may not -- be a casual lover, about the former's family history, or relations with other equally non-existent characters, who all sound the same, do not develop in any way and seem to be mere devices for a plot that simply isn't there.
Don't believe the hype, either, about this being a "poetic" work, because the prose is awkward, and often reads like a bad translation, in which the writer struggles with English grammar and vocabulary, oddly reminiscent (consciously or otherwise) of Hemingway in For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Reaching the end of the book was a chore.
June 30, 2016
"Everyday I crash and I hope its the end". This sentence probably sums up the action of this book better than any other. But this is much more than a book about the 1928 Tour de France. This is epic literature with all the usual themes present; suffering, redemption, the horrors of war, the camaraderie of men, love and loss. There are also descriptions of the torments of stage racing of such hallucinatory intensity you'll never question why cyclists dope again. Rather you'll question what kind of masochist would choose not to dope. David Coventry has written not just the great Kiwi sporting novel but quite possibly the best novel about cycling ever. To him I can only say "Chapeau!"
April 6, 2016
This book was an incredible read. Unrelenting, lyrical, biblical, brutal! I felt like I was doing the Tour de France myself. I am in two minds about the ending. What I am doing is still thinking about talking about it.
September 14, 2016
I loved this. Great first novel from David Coventry.
November 26, 2017
This review first appeared in The Memphis Flyer (Sept. 14, 2017)
If you're like me, around the time Memphis social media was blowing up over news that Zach Randolph would be wrapping his dishes in newspaper in preparation for a move west last July, you were caught up in the drama of super-sprinter Peter Sagan's disqualification from this year's Tour de France following his fracas in Stage 4 of the race.
I know, I'm still upset about it, too.
My schedule over those weeks was simple: watch the present-day Tour coverage live in the morning, followed by reading The Invisible Mile (Picador), David Coventry's novel set during the 1928 race, at night.
Through the eyes of a domestique, the youngest rider on the team, we witness the unveiling, mile by mile, of the Ravat-Wonder cycling team of New Zealand/Australia, the first English-speaking team allowed in the storied race begun in 1903. (I'm sure you caught that there — it's a 1928 Australian team, and Sagan has been accused of knocking Mark Cavendish, an Australian, from his ride during a final sprint in 2017. It's uncanny.)
Along the way, the young rider carries in his panniers memories of home and a sister whose fate we learn along the journey. His memories of the first World War, too, become vivid with each revolution of his machine's gears.
While a fan of the race, I was unfamiliar with some of the names from the past as the announcers of today's Tour de France rarely take us back beyond the career of Eddy Merckx. So as I read, I made frequent pit stops on Google to learn how easily truth can draft in behind such elegant lies. There was indeed an Australian/New Zealand team first introduced to the 1928 Tour de France, and it was led by Hubert Opperman and Harry Watson, just as in the novel. Other characters such as Camille Van de Casteele were actual participants as well.
The Invisible Mile is a long look at the Tour de France in its infancy. Today's participants ride from one day's finish to the next day's start aboard luxury motor coaches with masseuses, team doctors, and personal chefs. Their gear is the most high-tech, up-to-date available and, in most cases, is designed for each rider. It is science on pedals. But aren't most sports these days? Science in pads, science swinging a bat, science running a faster and faster mile.
The constant for professional athletes (for most, anyway, as the dollar sign is still the ultimate measure of a personal best) is heart. And the men of the earliest Tour de France had it in torrents as they trudged up the same mountains they do today — the Pyrenees, the Alps — on machines made of heavy steel, not feather-weight carbon fiber, while carrying their own spare tubes across their backs and bags full of gears to be changed out manually depending on ascent or descent. Once at the finish, they searched for lodging and for restaurants that were still open, as they may have finished a stage in darkness or in early morning. Coventry puts us in that mindset, taking us to the flat plains and rocky outcrops of France with poetry mingled into his peloton of prose to fit us on the saddle so we can see and feel the road ahead.
"I shouted at myself as I climbed," Coventry writes. "My bones felt the terror of my muscles as they stretched and shrank. Trying to take me up and up, they seemed to bend to the effort. I say this, but we were barely pedalling. And it's a heavy agony. I thought only to cry when we hit the snowline. The pain was exquisite and I could not comprehend how my body kept working me onwards. It was deep, it was everywhere, surrounding every part of me. I felt myself become damaged; I felt every muscle disintegrating, lungs and heart turning to bloody pulp in my chest. But I went on, and it's not a case of knowing how, rather it is the case that we did."
If you're like me, around the time Memphis social media was blowing up over news that Zach Randolph would be wrapping his dishes in newspaper in preparation for a move west last July, you were caught up in the drama of super-sprinter Peter Sagan's disqualification from this year's Tour de France following his fracas in Stage 4 of the race.
I know, I'm still upset about it, too.
My schedule over those weeks was simple: watch the present-day Tour coverage live in the morning, followed by reading The Invisible Mile (Picador), David Coventry's novel set during the 1928 race, at night.
Through the eyes of a domestique, the youngest rider on the team, we witness the unveiling, mile by mile, of the Ravat-Wonder cycling team of New Zealand/Australia, the first English-speaking team allowed in the storied race begun in 1903. (I'm sure you caught that there — it's a 1928 Australian team, and Sagan has been accused of knocking Mark Cavendish, an Australian, from his ride during a final sprint in 2017. It's uncanny.)
Along the way, the young rider carries in his panniers memories of home and a sister whose fate we learn along the journey. His memories of the first World War, too, become vivid with each revolution of his machine's gears.
While a fan of the race, I was unfamiliar with some of the names from the past as the announcers of today's Tour de France rarely take us back beyond the career of Eddy Merckx. So as I read, I made frequent pit stops on Google to learn how easily truth can draft in behind such elegant lies. There was indeed an Australian/New Zealand team first introduced to the 1928 Tour de France, and it was led by Hubert Opperman and Harry Watson, just as in the novel. Other characters such as Camille Van de Casteele were actual participants as well.
The Invisible Mile is a long look at the Tour de France in its infancy. Today's participants ride from one day's finish to the next day's start aboard luxury motor coaches with masseuses, team doctors, and personal chefs. Their gear is the most high-tech, up-to-date available and, in most cases, is designed for each rider. It is science on pedals. But aren't most sports these days? Science in pads, science swinging a bat, science running a faster and faster mile.
The constant for professional athletes (for most, anyway, as the dollar sign is still the ultimate measure of a personal best) is heart. And the men of the earliest Tour de France had it in torrents as they trudged up the same mountains they do today — the Pyrenees, the Alps — on machines made of heavy steel, not feather-weight carbon fiber, while carrying their own spare tubes across their backs and bags full of gears to be changed out manually depending on ascent or descent. Once at the finish, they searched for lodging and for restaurants that were still open, as they may have finished a stage in darkness or in early morning. Coventry puts us in that mindset, taking us to the flat plains and rocky outcrops of France with poetry mingled into his peloton of prose to fit us on the saddle so we can see and feel the road ahead.
"I shouted at myself as I climbed," Coventry writes. "My bones felt the terror of my muscles as they stretched and shrank. Trying to take me up and up, they seemed to bend to the effort. I say this, but we were barely pedalling. And it's a heavy agony. I thought only to cry when we hit the snowline. The pain was exquisite and I could not comprehend how my body kept working me onwards. It was deep, it was everywhere, surrounding every part of me. I felt myself become damaged; I felt every muscle disintegrating, lungs and heart turning to bloody pulp in my chest. But I went on, and it's not a case of knowing how, rather it is the case that we did."
October 6, 2017
A real challenge to read, I can´t even imagine how a translator could possibly passably transform it into another language (even though I´m a translator myself). The endless grind of ploughing through the narrator´s thoughts is at least as gruelling as riding the Tour must have been in 1928. That said; and yet, extremely rewarding. The cover on my version has a quote from a review that goes something like "bruising, beautiful and ultimately transcendental" and that is exactly how I experienced it. It may well be that the transcending one experiences as the last page is turned is very like the joy one feels after stopping hitting one´s head with a hammer.
As an ex-racing cyclist and ex-history teacher, I was hard put to fault the novel factually anywhere. In fact, in the 360 or so pages there was only one reference which didn´t match with my sources and that was the length of one stage. Not only is this completely and utterly trivial, it is easily explained by the fact that sources may well differ for a event so long ago, even if millions watched or read about it. For one as picky as I am, this was very gratifying; nothing like the hollywoodised mutants of other fiction-based-in-truth.
I perceive the narrative that I found so difficult to plough through as the incoherant convoluted foggy awareness of a cyclist tortured by the triple-edged sword of exhaustion, his past and a myriad of drugs used to numb the pain and repetiton. I don´t like dealing with my own thoughts, let alone those of a fictive sportsman voluntarily destroying his body, mind and soul in an impossibly gruelling cycling marathon under inhuman conditions with, in hindsight, regulations equally inhumane and unfair. This veil finally seems to lift a little towards the end of the race/story, where the narrating protagonist completes a few stages without (excessive?) cocaine, opium, ephedrine, ether and/or alcohol - only to violently fall again in the story´s concluding pages. Yet, I reiterate, one comes away from the book feeling elated, inter alia, safely cradled in the knowledge that you´ll never have to agonise the way these poor bastards did way back then.
Ending a novel is an art in itself. How many endings have left you dissatisfied, empty, incomplete, perplexed, frustrated, angry even? David Coventry´s ending has the potential for all of these, yet I find he masters the craft more than satisfyingly.
For those of you who are simultaneously avid cyclists and history buffs, this book will give you ample opportunity to mirror your own experiences and send you running to search engines to corroborate the facts of a fascinating Tour de France. The wiki page on the riders and teams of this Tour de France alone can keep you busy for hours.
But, enough. Time to strap your feet in the toeclips, wash your last pre-race pill down with a spectator´s flagon of cheap wine and let David Coventry take you on the race of your life.
As an ex-racing cyclist and ex-history teacher, I was hard put to fault the novel factually anywhere. In fact, in the 360 or so pages there was only one reference which didn´t match with my sources and that was the length of one stage. Not only is this completely and utterly trivial, it is easily explained by the fact that sources may well differ for a event so long ago, even if millions watched or read about it. For one as picky as I am, this was very gratifying; nothing like the hollywoodised mutants of other fiction-based-in-truth.
I perceive the narrative that I found so difficult to plough through as the incoherant convoluted foggy awareness of a cyclist tortured by the triple-edged sword of exhaustion, his past and a myriad of drugs used to numb the pain and repetiton. I don´t like dealing with my own thoughts, let alone those of a fictive sportsman voluntarily destroying his body, mind and soul in an impossibly gruelling cycling marathon under inhuman conditions with, in hindsight, regulations equally inhumane and unfair. This veil finally seems to lift a little towards the end of the race/story, where the narrating protagonist completes a few stages without (excessive?) cocaine, opium, ephedrine, ether and/or alcohol - only to violently fall again in the story´s concluding pages. Yet, I reiterate, one comes away from the book feeling elated, inter alia, safely cradled in the knowledge that you´ll never have to agonise the way these poor bastards did way back then.
Ending a novel is an art in itself. How many endings have left you dissatisfied, empty, incomplete, perplexed, frustrated, angry even? David Coventry´s ending has the potential for all of these, yet I find he masters the craft more than satisfyingly.
For those of you who are simultaneously avid cyclists and history buffs, this book will give you ample opportunity to mirror your own experiences and send you running to search engines to corroborate the facts of a fascinating Tour de France. The wiki page on the riders and teams of this Tour de France alone can keep you busy for hours.
But, enough. Time to strap your feet in the toeclips, wash your last pre-race pill down with a spectator´s flagon of cheap wine and let David Coventry take you on the race of your life.
August 30, 2024
This is an ok book, but it does take a while to get used to the author's writing style. The first paragraphed sucked me in when it stated that 'The road was planted in the middle of the wind'. What cyclist can't relate to that? It reminded me of an equally relatable sentence in the great Mark Cavendish's book 'Boy Racer' which waxed lyrically about the pure misery of cycling in a similar vein: 'The roads....(were) narrow, gnarly and constantly undulating, with coarse, grey tarmac that gripped your tyres like a fifth break pad, and wind that seemed to gust in every direction except at your back.'
This book is about cycling, but it is also a book about broken people recovering (and not recovering) from World War One, personal tragedy and addiction. Set against the backdrop of a 1920s Tour de France and all the physical suffering that entails are a collection of bizarre people making bizarre decisions and saying (and thinking) bizarre things. A toxic mix of exhaustion and cocaine does nothing to help the protagonist's state of mind.
The book focusses on the wandering thoughts of the protagonist as he rides each long stage and in this there is little doubt that the author has read 'The Rider' by Tim Krabbe. It doesn't touch on the brilliance of that book, but it does go a lot darker. A lot darker. And I think it is here that it gets frustrating. There are issues that are left unexplained. In one instant a young Spanish cyclist is viciously beaten for no apparent reason. It happens, it is observed, it is relayed to the reader, and that's it. You are left wondering why? I don't mind open ended books that allow you to think and fill in the gaps yourself, but sometimes a nice concise explanation is appreciated. The conclusion is a perfect example (spoiler alert). As the protagonist drifts down the river with his broken arm and rocks being thrown at him by thugs on the bank (again, for no apparent reason), we are left wondering if it is really happening at all or just a drug induced vision brought on by his ever- increasing paranoia? In fact, we are left wondering if any of the whole saga happened at all!
This book is about cycling, but it is also a book about broken people recovering (and not recovering) from World War One, personal tragedy and addiction. Set against the backdrop of a 1920s Tour de France and all the physical suffering that entails are a collection of bizarre people making bizarre decisions and saying (and thinking) bizarre things. A toxic mix of exhaustion and cocaine does nothing to help the protagonist's state of mind.
The book focusses on the wandering thoughts of the protagonist as he rides each long stage and in this there is little doubt that the author has read 'The Rider' by Tim Krabbe. It doesn't touch on the brilliance of that book, but it does go a lot darker. A lot darker. And I think it is here that it gets frustrating. There are issues that are left unexplained. In one instant a young Spanish cyclist is viciously beaten for no apparent reason. It happens, it is observed, it is relayed to the reader, and that's it. You are left wondering why? I don't mind open ended books that allow you to think and fill in the gaps yourself, but sometimes a nice concise explanation is appreciated. The conclusion is a perfect example (spoiler alert). As the protagonist drifts down the river with his broken arm and rocks being thrown at him by thugs on the bank (again, for no apparent reason), we are left wondering if it is really happening at all or just a drug induced vision brought on by his ever- increasing paranoia? In fact, we are left wondering if any of the whole saga happened at all!
April 7, 2025
*Audiobook*
This is a really hard review to write as I really didn't enjoy this book, but I also thought it was beautiful. If it had not been an audiobook, I would have stopped after a chapter or two. Now, to clarify, it's beautifully written. It's poetic and elegiac, but it's also not that interesting. I picked it up, wanting to read a book about the Tour de France. This is my error, I wanted a nonfiction book, so I can't in any way blame the author for that. I stuck with it, and it's a thoughtful novel about loss and dealing with loss, about the Great War, about what we run from in the shadows of our own thoughts. But I just couldn't bring myself to care about any of the characters. To me, all the characters were that one step too far from reality for me to connect with. Emotions seemed detached. Characters seemed to talk in ridiculous, tortured ways. And the Tour de France itself seemed like The Hunger Games or something.
It's very frustrating. Not what I wanted. Beautiful all the same.
Would I recommend this book? Hmmm... Yes, but also no. It's not bad, but you need to know what you are getting yourself in for. I didn't, and it affected my experience.
This is a really hard review to write as I really didn't enjoy this book, but I also thought it was beautiful. If it had not been an audiobook, I would have stopped after a chapter or two. Now, to clarify, it's beautifully written. It's poetic and elegiac, but it's also not that interesting. I picked it up, wanting to read a book about the Tour de France. This is my error, I wanted a nonfiction book, so I can't in any way blame the author for that. I stuck with it, and it's a thoughtful novel about loss and dealing with loss, about the Great War, about what we run from in the shadows of our own thoughts. But I just couldn't bring myself to care about any of the characters. To me, all the characters were that one step too far from reality for me to connect with. Emotions seemed detached. Characters seemed to talk in ridiculous, tortured ways. And the Tour de France itself seemed like The Hunger Games or something.
It's very frustrating. Not what I wanted. Beautiful all the same.
Would I recommend this book? Hmmm... Yes, but also no. It's not bad, but you need to know what you are getting yourself in for. I didn't, and it affected my experience.
June 22, 2020
2,5/5
Tenía depositadas muchas expectativas en este libro. La premisa, para mi gusto, era interesantísima: conocer el ciclismo y el Tour de 1928 de la mano del primer equipo de habla inglesa en participar en la ronda gala, formado por ciclistas australianos y neozelandeses. El resultado, sin embargo, es disperso, soporífero y con la sensación de haber perdido una oportunidad para recrear con rigor y pasión el ciclismo en sus inicios (medios, avituallamentos, droga y alcohol, brutales etapas de montaña, accidentes, anécdotas....). En lugar de los esfuerzos titánicos para no abandonar el libro habría preferido un rigor en exponer los esfuerzos titánicos de los ciclistas que, en 1928, se lanzaban a la locura de realizar las etapas del Tour, con los medios de la época.
Tenía depositadas muchas expectativas en este libro. La premisa, para mi gusto, era interesantísima: conocer el ciclismo y el Tour de 1928 de la mano del primer equipo de habla inglesa en participar en la ronda gala, formado por ciclistas australianos y neozelandeses. El resultado, sin embargo, es disperso, soporífero y con la sensación de haber perdido una oportunidad para recrear con rigor y pasión el ciclismo en sus inicios (medios, avituallamentos, droga y alcohol, brutales etapas de montaña, accidentes, anécdotas....). En lugar de los esfuerzos titánicos para no abandonar el libro habría preferido un rigor en exponer los esfuerzos titánicos de los ciclistas que, en 1928, se lanzaban a la locura de realizar las etapas del Tour, con los medios de la época.
September 13, 2018
I did not enjoy this book. The style was very "psychological," as another reader has described it. I found it annoying and it didn't help me to get into the story. There were some very long sentences.
The book was less about cycling and more about a fictional rider trying to come to terms with himself and his family's history. There was a lot of showing and not telling, which can be good, but sometimes I was confused. I was also taken aback by a very nasty description of a war crime that one of the characters suddenly described. I wouldn't recommend this one.
The book was less about cycling and more about a fictional rider trying to come to terms with himself and his family's history. There was a lot of showing and not telling, which can be good, but sometimes I was confused. I was also taken aback by a very nasty description of a war crime that one of the characters suddenly described. I wouldn't recommend this one.
January 16, 2021
This has a great premise, the story of the five Australian and New Zealand cyclists in the 1928 Tour de France, but it doesn’t live up to its promise as the often hallucinatory narrative of the unnamed fictitious Kiwi rider is a little too excessive and extensive which detracts from the interesting pure racing description from the before-derailleurs-days when they often stopped for wine. Hubert Opperman is the star, the other Anzacs real individuals, as the war and post-war impact and the narrator’s family feature, though his love interest is a very clumsy addition that doesn’t work
March 28, 2023
I read this because as a keen cyclist I was intrigued with the early Tour de France setting. In this it whetted the appetite to learn more rather than provided answers. But that is not what this book is about. I was reminded of the style of Virginia Woolf but on steroids (cycling pun intended). Easy to read too fast and but for the unsatisfactory ending I would have done so in order to sink more into the rich mixture of psychological directions. But the ending! I won’t spoil it but I felt like I’d been led up the garden path - or is that the steep hill with a puncture?
January 4, 2018
This book has a great story to tell and does the cycling really well but it also tries to to show the impact of the 1WW on those who are racing and had been involved or impacted by the war, this work less well. Some of the writing was too mystical and flowery for me. The 1928 tour is a great story and there is a film "Le Ride" that tries to recreate the rdie that I would like to see, but it appears to only be available in NZ
October 5, 2017
I don't know what to think about this book. In some ways I felt I was suffering as much as the chief protagonist, reading page after page wondering when the phyisical pain would end. The descriptive prowess of the author is not in question as I resonated with the action on the course. But I wish I could have worked out what was going on. Sometimes I was in the kind of hazy trance the narrator often inhabited trying to figure out the plot. Or maybe that was my mistake.
January 14, 2018
This is a wild and beautiful fictionalised account of a New Zealand and Australian team that rode the 1928 Tour de France. At times the prose are quite stunning, leaving pictures that I struggled to dislodge from my thinking. There is a lot of drugs, anger and grief in the story and this often left me feeling as if I was tripping and lost. A well written book, the end is maybe a little disappointing, but well worth the read.
August 16, 2017
Grande y angustiosa novela que nos muestra el tour de Francia de principios del siglo XX de un modo diferente pero muy humano y ensordecedor. Cinco estrellas por el gran debut de David Coventry aunque existan capítulos realmente inquietantes y quizás difíciles de seguir pero, su forma de narrar, las merece.
December 28, 2025
La historia en que se basa el libro es muy interesante y poco conocida incluso entre los aficionados al ciclismo como es mi caso. Sin embargo el modo en que se cuenta en el libro me acabó resultando escasamente atractivo, con ritmo muy lento casi siempre. Me hubiese gustado un estilo de narración más apasionado y no tan frío hasta resultar en muchos capítulos distante y aburrido. Al final me quedé con ganas de conocer muchos más detalles tanto de los protagonistas de la historia como del desarrollo de aquel Tour de Francia tan distante en el tiempo y tan diferente a los actuales.
January 16, 2018
I thought this would be more like "Boys in the Boat", and while it did have lots of information about the Tour de France, and the narrative was based on a true story, it went in lots of different, meandering directions, some of which did not succeed in the goal of great storytelling.
August 9, 2019
A funny book...not funny haha ....more funny strange...inasmuch as it seems like it is going to be a fictional history of an actual event (the first English speaking team in the Tour re France)..which ultimately it is and yet....the Cycling seems secondary and instead we are faced with intense back stories and reflections which are almost Henry Miller like.
The above wouldn't be a bad thing but I was expecting something with a bit more focus on the actual team and how a team alien in many ways to the continental model got on with it.
Anyhow as a Cycling book...it's not a favourite..as a read however ..perfectly fine.
The above wouldn't be a bad thing but I was expecting something with a bit more focus on the actual team and how a team alien in many ways to the continental model got on with it.
Anyhow as a Cycling book...it's not a favourite..as a read however ..perfectly fine.
June 27, 2017
Enjoyed the descriptions of the Tour but would have preferred less of the melodramatic parts of Novel
July 29, 2017
Most of it didn't work for me. Tortured soul in a bike race. I wish I had just read Chapter 21.
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