The Motion of the Body Through Space

By Lionel Shriver

Book Overview

In Lionel Shriver's entertaining send-up of today's cult of exercise--which not only encourages better health, but now like all religions also seems to promise meaning, social superiority, and eternal life--an aging husband's sudden obsession with extreme sport makes him unbearable. After an ignominious early retirement, Remington announces to his wife Serenata that he's decided to run a marathon. This from a sedentary man in his sixties who's never done a lick of exercise in his life. His wife can't help but observe that his ambition is "hopelessly trite." A loner, Serenata disdains mass group activities of any sort. Besides, his timing is cruel. Serenata has long been the couple's exercise freak, but by age sixty, her private fitness regimes have destroyed her knees, and she'll soon face debilitating surgery. Yes, becoming more active would be good for Remington's heart, but then why not just go for a walk? Without several thousand of your closest friends? As Remington joins the cult of fitness that increasingly consumes the Western world, her once-modest husband burgeons into an unbearable narcissist. Ignoring all his other obligations, he engages a saucy, sexy personal trainer named Bambi, who treats Serenata with contempt. When Remington sets his sights on the legendarily grueling triathlon, MettleMan, Serenata is sure he'll end up injured or dead. And even if he does survive, their marriage may not. The Motion of the Body Through Space is vintage Lionel Shriver written with psychological insight, a rich cast of characters, lots of verve and petulance, an astute reading of contemporary culture, and an emotionally resonant ending.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0062328255
• ISBN13: 9780062328250
• Release Date: May 2020
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

When the Medicine Becomes the Poison:

Lionel Shriver has written a quietly devastating novel about the fine line between exercise as liberation and exercise as obsession. Following a retired couple, a lifelong exerciser now sidelined by chronic knee pain, and her husband, who discovers triathlons after a humiliating forced retirement, Shriver maps with precision how movement can become meaning, and how that meaning can metastasize. The husband's descent is recognizable and unsettling. Triathlon delivers everything a suddenly purposeless man craves: community, discipline, ritual, structure, metrics, identity. It also quietly consumes his relationship, his finances, and ultimately his health, the very things it promised to protect. This is a novel about what we reach for when meaning disappears, and what it costs when we reach too hard. For anyone who has thought seriously about why we move and what we ask of it, this is essential and uncomfortable reading.