James Salter

Light Years, James Salter's melancholy novel of love and loss, is not for the faint of heart. This is a book defined by its sadness, by its sense of defeat. It's a novel very much in keeping with the themes explored in Salter's most famous work, A Sport and a Pastime. And yet, despite that familiar sense of the ephemeral, of sorrow lurking in the shadows, it's a book that seems to move beyond Sport, that pushes Salter's thesis a step further: here is an indictment of marriage and monogamy, a warning about all love becomes. 

I should say, A Sport and a Pastime is one of my favorite books, and it's one I've written about before on this blog. Part of what I enjoyed so much about the novel is its sense of wonder, its praise of the spontaneous and of discovery. Sure, there's a melancholy quality to that book, too, but ultimately, Salter leaves room for love, for ecstasy. 

Love is explored at great lengths in Light Years as well, though Salter's conclusions are decidedly different: marriage, he seems to argue, is bound less to die than it is to wilt. The thing never quite succumbs, but it does fray; it does become unknown, even to its participants. For Salter, monogamy is an impossibility, if only because time itself is its victim, slipping from our hands, curiously, lightly. 

I must say: this vision is not for everyone, and this book is not, either. No doubt, Salter was a first rate stylist, and there is evidence everywhere of his masterful touch. But A Sport and a Pastime is simply a better book: it's more complete; there's more air to breath; there's a greater appreciation for place and for human potential. It's a novel that knows nothing of marriage, and everything of that state before self-consciousness, before assigning titles to love. 

Salter writes in Light Years of an old suit, pressed so many times only the spots remain. That, in a nutshell, is Light Years - and as I say, it's not for everyone. A Sport and a Pastime, by contrast, is a book about sewing that suit; about assembling its parts, about stitching it together. And true, the suit is bound to be stained. But at least at the beginning the thing is colorful and exciting. All that's left in Light Years is the bill for its cleaning.