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The Motion of the Body Through Space: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Lionel Shriver (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.2 1,851 ratings

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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.

Editorial Reviews

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The Motion of the Body Through Space is notionally about fitness fanaticism, but it’s really about physical decline and mortality . . . . What’s remarkable is that Shriver, who is at her most lyrical and compelling when contemplating her characters’ ambivalence, is so inordinately assured of her positions on real-world issues that many of us find confounding. — Ariel Levy, The New Yorker

“The prospective thrill of a new novel by the iconoclast Lionel Shriver is located here, in anticipating the skewing of pieties.” — Joshua Ferris, New York Times Book Review

“The fitness industry is a fat target for satire. And Shriver brings all her ferocious wit to bear to mock its hucksters and disciples.” — Ron Charles, Washington Post

“Painfully funny . . . much of it rings true.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune

Lionel Shriver’s The Motion of the Body Through Space is a caustic satire on the modern obsession with exercise in all its lunatic narcissism, with sideswipes at chiding woke culture. But it also contains the most tender passage I’ve ever read on what it means to grow old in a long marriage. — Janice Turner, The Times (UK)

“Provocative and witty . . . the need for us all to stop moving for a moment and reflect on where we are is Shriver’s main subject.” — Times Literary Supplement (London)

“If you are looking for a new take on how to live well when the body is failing, Shriver could be just the difficult, limping fellow traveller you need.” — The Times (UK)

“A cheeky diatribe on a society determined to go to extremes.”
— Booklist

“Scabrously funny. . . . presents a dyspeptic view of people in thrall to exercise. . . . Few authors can be as entertainingly problematic as Shriver.”
— The Guardian

About the Author

Although Lionel Shriver has published many novels, a collection of essays, and a column in the Spectator since 2017, and her journalism has been featured in publications including the Guardian, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, she in no way wishes for the inclusion of this information to imply that she is more “intelligent” or “accomplished” than anyone else. The outdated meritocracy of intellectual achievement has made her a bestselling author multiple times and accorded her awards, including the Orange Prize, but she accepts that all of these accidental accolades are basically meaningless. She lives in Portugal and Brooklyn, New York.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07W57BNSX
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper (May 19, 2020)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 19, 2020
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3698 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 345 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #560,538 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #351 in Literary Satire Fiction
- #820 in Humorous Literary Fiction
- #4,364 in Contemporary Literary Fiction

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4.2 1,851 ratings

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Lionel Shriver

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Lionel Shriver is a novelist whose previous books include Orange Prize–winner We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Post-Birthday World, A Perfectly Good Family, Game Control, Double Fault, The Female of the Species, Checker and the Derailleurs, and Ordinary Decent Criminals.

She is widely published as a journalist, writing features, columns, op-eds, and book reviews for the Guardian, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Economist, Marie Claire, and many other publications.

She is frequently interviewed on television, radio, and in print media. She lives in London and Brooklyn, NY.

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4.2 out of 5

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Hanna

Shriver at the top of her game

Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2020

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Highly entertaining, with a 'how will this end' tension evenly distributed and kept up till the last page, and a set of characters tirelessly bickering and bouncing ideas off each other with tongues as sharp as Shriver's own.
Among the many things I love about Shriver's novels is her obvious relish in crafting each sentence and her striving to max out the treasures of the English language, dusting off words forgotten in the attic or dashing off novel puns.
Of all the backgrounds she has chosen for her works, this one, the world of amateur endurance athletes, was one of the most promising to me. Of course, the last word about running has not been said. In 'The Motion of the Body Through Space' we come to see exercise through the eyes of somebody who has for years maintained a rigid discipline of daily ten-mile runs from a sense of obligation to the body rather than for the sheer pleasure of running, crippling herself in the process what with wear and tear on the knees. The only time the protagonist really seems to enjoy the motion of her own body through space is when she climbs and rides the bicycle named Carlisle.
– You can read a more personal review in my blog.

11 people found this helpful

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user22

Great read

Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2022

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Seranata, the narrator, is smart, fascinating, and often wickedly funny. She claims to be a misanthrope, but she isn't really. Remember the old bumper sticker: "I love humanity, it's people I can't stand"? Serenata is the opposite of that, and that's what I found endearing. Shriver has taken some heat because Seranata's husband suffered the consequences of being an old white man in a woke environment, but this book is about more than politics. I'd have hoped that folks who say that math is racist would have a sense of humor, but, sadly, ...no.
Shriver has a great ear for dialogue and a great sense of how the move the narrative along. Don't pass it up if you want a fun read, even if it's a little dark.

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2020

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Dorothy Parker was famous for zingers that stung to the quick, but to her great chagrin she wasn’t able to write a novel. If she had, it would have looked like THE MOTION OF THE BODY THROUGH SPACE, another zinger of a book by Lionel Shriver, with zingers on every other line. She’s a literary touretter in the annoying presence of political correctness and virtue signaling, and it all comes together in this novel about Western culture’s obsession with perfect health forever.

Sometimes it felt like reading a book by Groucho Marx, or with Groucho slipped in undercover as one of the characters (Serenata, the author’s alter ego), waving a cigar in the air and effortlessly lobbing bons mots at every posturing jerk. The MC’s rousing speech to the participants before the upcoming MettleMan race—the fictional counterpart of the Ironman Triathlon—ends with a good example of a Shriver zinger that pricks the windbag:
.

“ . . . Pain? Pain is the fire in which we are smelted, and out the other side of that furnace we are tempered like steel. We are the human race, Mach Two. We are the stronger, leaner, meaner, fiercer, more powerful members of mankind who will prove there are no limits, and there is nothing we can’t achieve, because WE—ARE—METTLEMEN!”

The crowd erupted with cheers loud enough to cover Serenata’s murmur, “Leni Riefenstahl, where are you?”
.

The wisecracks aren’t confined to Serenata’s character, but bleed into all the others, making the characters less distinguishable.

Shriver is nothing but deadly serious about hypocrisy and do-good huffers-and-puffers. One segment of the story especially stands out when Groucho is momentarily unmasked as Kafka. In a flashback scene, Serenata’s husband, Remington, is hauled before a city tribunal “on disciplinary charges for threatening behavior and racially and sexually aggravated assault” (he had slammed his hand on his female supervisor’s desk). There is a long exchange between him and the members of the hearing:
.

CURTIS: … When Ms. Okonkwo told you about this LED purchasing order, what did you do?

REMINGTON: I slammed my hand on her desk.

CURTIS: And why did you do that?

REMINGTON: Because I lost my temper.

CURTIS: And would you say that you “slammed” the desk very hard?

REMINGTON: That is what the word slammed was meant to convey, yes.

CURTIS: And would you say that the sound your hand made was extremely loud?

REMINGTON: It was fairly loud.

CURTIS: And how did Ms. Okonkwo react?

REMINGTON: I think she was startled. I was startled. I very rarely lose my temper.

. . . .

CURTIS: Well, when people seem to be putting a whole lot of effort into controlling themselves, you can’t help but wonder what all they’re controlling.

TRINITY: Right. We can’t help but wonder what exactly it was that you were so determined to keep from getting out. What disturbing things you might have done and said if you hadn’t felt “scrutinized.”

REMINGTON: Let me get this straight. You’ve hauled me before this committee because I lost control for two seconds. And now I am being raked over the coals because the rest of the time I exercised control?

CURTIS: Do you consider yourself a racist, Remington?

REMINGTON: No. Although I have yet to witness anyone declaiming about how they’re not a racist without sounding like one.
.

The scene is eighteen pages long of Remington’s growing exasperation and powerlessness, and the reader—this reader, at least—feels pulled in and all the air sucked out of the kangaroo courtroom—a dozen-and-a-half pages of surrealism scissored from Kafka’s "Der Process".

One published reviewer has faulted Shriver for being “didactic” in this novel. Well, yes, she is—unapologetically didactic—but that’s just a half of it. She is also a refreshing voice to solitary souls in this time of upheaval and mind-boggling cant for pure solutions to every perceived imperfection and hurt and injustice. In the noble tradition of Sir Philip Sydney’s "Defence of Poesy", Lionel Shriver both delights and teaches, as did Jonathan Swift and Groucho Marx.

20 people found this helpful

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jps

Well reasoned and intriguing however....

Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2020

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While this book by Ms Shriver was very intriguing and challenges our notions of the merits of physical conditioning as humans, I must say that she washed away any benefits of the read with an afterword that I can only characterize as word vomit. After a lengthy, and thought intriguing, treatise of human experience through long time employment firing, subsequent replacing with physical conditioning, and the trappings of obsession on a seemingly strong marriage, we have to slog through an afterword that simply shows the author has a very high opinion of her own insight. I don’t need a tome on the ravages of aging. Her afterword simply means that she would be exceedingly boring to have a beer with as she waxes poetically, and mind you, suicidal thought inducing, on a variety of subjects that you would not give 2 cents to hear about. Writers are gifted people and they give us new insights on many issues through the power of fiction. But please, learn when your writing leaves the plateau and becomes mind numbingly worthless in relation to the brilliance of the original story. Stop before you enter the afterword of this book. You won’t then subsequently wish you had that 45 minutes back to be more productive. What I really wonder is why Ms Shriver thought this was good, relevant, or even mildly competent as an ending?

One person found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Wish It Could Have Been Twice as Long

Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2020

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Lionel Shriver is one of my favorite modern authors, if not my favorite -- it's a close tussle with Thomas Wolfe. In any case, this book was, as ever, wonderfully written and imagined, especially for this 64 year old. The issues examined, though reaching far and wide through the current concerns of our society, frame the central concern of all who live -- that we die -- and the defenses against it. That this concern is surrounded by wry observances on the common scene made it so good that I wanted it to go on when it ended. My only objection to the story is that each character was so interesting in their own right that I would have liked to hear more about each of their stories. But books, like life, have a limit.

10 people found this helpful

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I. Humphrey

Wildly entertaining novel for Gym Generation

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 26, 2022

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I could criticise ‘The Motion of the Body Through Space’ for the lame plot and many one-dimensional characters, and that it seems like an essay collection mashed into a novel. Nevertheless, I found this a wonderfully entertaining, well written and effortlessly easily-read novel.

It deals with a large number of themes: The nature of and obsession with exercise. Exercise as maintenance or glorification or mortification of the flesh or addiction? Do you exercise to live or live to exercise? What happens when age or injury or illness restricts exercise? How does the preoccupation with exercise impact on the rest of your life? Cultural appropriation. The ageing process. Submitting to younger and less experienced bosses?

I related strongly to the central character: This could have been written about me, and I’m sure many people will feel the same.

It is so easy to read that it invites criticism. I was inclined to complain that the prose lacked poetry. But I think this is just because you feel if something is easy to read that it can’t be deep or artistic. Actually I think there is a deep artistry in writing simply and clearly. Ian McEwan, for instance, has this down pat. The last novels that I read effortlessly, McEwan’s ‘Machines Like Me’, and Ishiguro’s ‘Never Let Me Go’, are great works. There is a place for difficult novels, like Richard Powers or Thomas Pynchon, or Thomas Mann, but not every novel needs to be difficult, and it is clearly a great art to write an effortlessly readable work.

It has a strange epilogue that makes some trite observations about what happens to our characters and society and work in the near future. It also inserts the idea apparently for the first time that there is nothing wrong with living and having lived an unimpactful life.

She writes simply, clearly and engagingly about important subjects. This was my first Lionel Shriver book, and it won’t be my last.

2 people found this helpful

Peter

Not politically correct

Reviewed in Canada on September 24, 2020

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I know her from the Spectator where she is an incredibly witty columnist.
This novel treats her own and society’s fitness obsession with gleeful disdain, the failings and success of her marriage with wisdom, along with sufficient scepticism of life today.

Laura Athena

Tender yet incisive depiction of marriage and ageing

Reviewed in Australia on March 18, 2022

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Lionel Shriver is one of my favourite writers. I've enjoyed everything she's ever written. This one is no exception, as it depicts a long married couple's struggles with ageing and the breakdown of their bodies, and how that affects their identities (each of them identifying with athleticism). What happens when an old man decides to take up marathon running, and pushes himself past his limits? What happens when his wife who used to be the athletic one in the marriage, has a busted knee meaning she can never reach her past levels of fitness?
While in classic Lionel Shriver fashion, there is plenty of the depiction of everyday resentment and irritation in the marriage, what sticks with me is how tender and loving the story is. Especially at the end. The last few chapters especially stick with me more than anything else.

Amazon Customer

Nothing.

Reviewed in Canada on August 6, 2020

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Interesting premise.

Just a Number

Very engaging but Shriver should reign in her irritations

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 20, 2020

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Very very readable but IMO LS lets her general bitching at the state of the world just get the better of her here - the entire book and main character are a vehicle for aspects of modern life she loathes. She writes compellingly on the dispiriting aspects of ageing, and coming to terms with a body that will gradually weigh down on us and fail. The reason I love her books is because I share her views pretty much (particularly as I have been diagnosed with arthritis at 44) but I couldn't help feeling a little dirty and mean-spirited after finishing this one. A somewhat ineffective element is that the narrator and the main character are basically the same cynical voice, so there is no 'relief' when we step back from her - there is no neutral tone to retreat to. Even as someone equally angry at aspects of modern life, it can get too much for me if there is no escape to some kind of calm acceptance. Shriver's attempts at the end to tie it all up with a positive tone of 'life is meaningless but we've got to enjoy what we can' just doesn't wash. The entire novel until the pat ending, although extremely readable and at times laugh-out-loud funny, is a rant. This isn't surprising, it's what she seems to do best, but it makes me start to want a bit more imagination. The secondary support characters are not developed enough and in many cases are cardboard cutout with no nuance, just objects inserted to allow the 'heroine' to get more irritated, eg the daughter. LS has never surpassed the brilliance of 'Kevin', and one of the delights of that novel was how long it was. This is a tad too short and it felt as though she ran out of rant-energy at the end. Big Brother was more satisfying to me, and the Property stories just brilliant. Lionel, please give us something huge, more nuanced and set in London. I'm looking forward to it!

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