{"id":2717,"date":"2015-01-31T18:40:07","date_gmt":"2015-01-31T17:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/?p=2717"},"modified":"2015-02-10T11:38:28","modified_gmt":"2015-02-10T10:38:28","slug":"all-that-is-james-salter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/2015\/01\/31\/all-that-is-james-salter\/","title":{"rendered":"All That Is, by James Salter"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2013 I was captured, captivated<\/a> by the spare prose of James Salter\u2019s The Hunters, <\/em>a story of the tense competition between US fighter pilots in the Korean War. All That Is<\/em>\u00a0is similarly spare, and like\u00a0The Hunters<\/em> quite a masculine novel, but it is a different beast.<\/p>\n

\"All<\/a><\/p>\n

Initially I was concerned that Salter\u2019s compact\u00a0style might be ill suited to the span of his narrative, which tracks the life of Philip Bowman from his time in the navy during World War II, and through his life and career as a publisher in New York. Salter sweeps through Bowman\u2019s war experience and early post-war years, and loops back to his childhood, in the space of twenty pages. But then I simply fell into step with the author. There was no click; somehow the mist cleared and I recognised a trusted friend.<\/p>\n

Bowman\u2019s life unfurls in under four hundred pages. This is a big book thanks to its subject \u2013 how to live \u2013 but it does\u2019t feel like a big book because of the poetic economy of Salter\u2019s prose. He writes of the efflorescence of Bowman\u2019s first deep relationship: \u201cIt was love, the furnace into which everything dropped.\u201d The surety of such observations and the elegant, almost unseen, architecture of Salter\u2019s writing permeate the novel; only very rarely does the poetry seem forced.<\/p>\n

The style is all of a piece with the self-confidence that grows within Bowman as he sees himself forging a path through life, both in his relationships with women and his developing professional prowess. And yet, he is never quite in control\u2014he and the people around him are buffeted by events\u2014and nor can he completely understand or connect with the people who fill his life. There is a plangent note of loneliness that seems inevitable but has somehow\u00a0to be confronted.<\/p>\n

All That Is<\/em>\u00a0is a rewarding read.\u00a0James Lasdun\u2019s review<\/a>\u00a0goes into more detail on the themes explored in Salter\u2019s narrative and is pretty much on the money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2013 I was captured, captivated by the spare prose of James Salter\u2019s The Hunters, a story of the tense competition between US fighter pilots in the Korean War. All That Is\u00a0is similarly spare, and like\u00a0The Hunters quite a masculine … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[201],"tags":[261],"class_list":["post-2717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","tag-james-salter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}