Customer Reviews

Intimate Portrait of the Tour De France: Masters and Slaves of the Road

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Terrific pictorial study of an event that is more than just a sporting spectacle. Some of the text hasn't translated to English so well, but that is only a minor grumble. Rare to find anything in English about the lives and traditions of yesteryears road heroes.

Yes, this book has amazing photographs, which alone are worth the price. But the text is also entrancing: it is one of the great collections known so well in the Roman Catholic tradition as 'lives of the saints'.

The saints in this case are the legends of the Tour, especially those legends from countries steeped in the culture of the Tour, France, Italy, Spain and Belgium. In one case, Gino Bartali, it is suggested that he might indeed be a saint. The ultimate indicator of sainthood is perhaps the statement that 'he inspired only the best thoughts amongst the top journalists of the time'!

But the English speaking world may be disappointed that none of their heroes have been honoured. While only two English speakers, Greg LeMond (USA) and Stephen Roche (Ireland) have ever won the race, many others have tried and failed gallantly.

But the culture of the bicycle is inherently Continental. Anglophones can comprehend a little of this from Brunel's purple prose, translated with all the reverence due to a great religious spectacle.

True to its title, this elegant little book takes up the personal lives and characters of a collection of participants in the Tour de France. Translated from the French edition, it is perhaps the only book in the English language to do so.

Its greatest asset is undoubtedly the extraordinary and historic photographs, some of which have become famous in their own right and are now available as poster-sized reproductions. They alone make the book a treasure. By "intimate" the author means just that: Coppi soaking his tired feet in a bidet; Anquetil getting a haircut; Pingeon in his bath. Sometimes the photos tell a story on their own: Charly Gaul looking through a glass, darkly; Hinault and LeMond as passionate friends.

What the book lacks-frustratingly and sometimes maddeningly-is any sort of organization. It is a more or less chronological series of portraits beginning with Bottecchia and ending with Indurain, but there are no headings or chapters and there is no table of contents. So, while you can safely assume that Thevenet precedes Hinault, you might never guess that Dietrich Thurau appears in between, let alone that a single photograph of a sleeping Luis Ocana is also sandwiched in.

A far more serious fault is the simply abysmal quality of the writing. It is at best idiosyncratic, always prone to purple and sometimes all but incomprehensible. On Merckx: "Annihilated by the controversies of life, he was very disconcerted by the brutal disappearance of his manager ... This sphinx was an ecumenical and taciturn human being that destiny refused to spare." Forensic analysis places the blame on a translator armed with little more than a French-English dictionary.

Nevertheless, if you love the Tour and its history, buy the book. Soon, before it goes out of print. Don't expect biography, though, or try to look up your favorite rider. Just turn the pages, look at the wonderful pictures, and use the essays as a point of departure for thoughts of your own.

This book is by far the best pictorial I have seen for the sport of cycling. It covers the early men of le Tour as well as more recent stars, and it can be amusing to see what was considered to be good back then (such as smoking cigarettes to "open up the lungs") and compare it with today's standards. In short, the photos are amazing, and it can give even a newcomer a feel for the greatest cycling event in the world.