I cracked open Marathon Man by William Goldman, some fifty years after first reading and admiring it, and found myself appalled at its crudity. It’s an ingenious book in its structure, which is to tell several seemingly disconnected narratives about a grad student, a spy, and an escaped war criminal (and several others), linking them together only gradually (the grad student’s brother is a businessman who is revealed to be the aforementioned spy, whom we know only by his code-name until the moment of revelation.) When I first came across that revelation in 1977, I remember literally gasping in shock. But now many of Goldman’s effects and mannerisms seem hokey to me, particularly the grad student’s grasp of his field and his arch relationship with his dissertation advisor—the pair seem to engage in a non-stop war of “Who’s Smarter?” showing off their expertise in idiotic ways that display more than anything else how insecure they both are about their retention of trivia and dates. The subject of various dissertations being discussed, in the field of history, are particularly dumb, and way too general and vague for an actual dissertation-- “Tyranny in the United States,” for example, would be instantly shot down rather than praised by any potential advisor worth a package of peanuts.
How often am I disappointed in re-reading one of my old favorites? Hard to say. Certainly less than 50% of the time, yet it stings when I realize how crude my tastes used to be, or else how poorly something I enjoyed has dated.
I haven’t read the book in a long time, so I don’t know if this was implied, and I didn’t find out until years later that in the movie that Doc and Commander Janeway were lovers..
Looking at the wiki on the book, I didn’t realize that Goldman had writtan a sequel in 1986 called “Brothers.”
I don’t often reread books so I can’t comment on the disappointment decades later bit. I’ll definitely avoid doing it with this one given the OP’s experience. I suspect though that I might more likely pick up things now that I missed when young for many books on reread.
That reveal was subtle in the book and probably what I most remember about it! The “Oh!!!” moment when the I realized that “Janey” wasn’t the woman I had been picturing but short for Janeway.
I don’t recall reading about “the grad student’s grasp of his field and his arch relationship with his dissertation advisor”, which must form a very tiny part of the plot. Seems like an odd basis on which to judge the book.
Sorry–I was attempting to hit “clever” and I hit “inept” instead. I was thinking of Marathon Man as a good read, and I was thinking of “Brideshead Revisited” so I decided to call this thread “Goodreads Revisited.”
I’m afraid to, now. My copy is so old, it has the good parts in red ink, which I understand later editions cheaped out on.
At the time I read it, grad school was in the future for me, so I bought into the nature of the relationship, but later events convinced that no historian in all of recorded history has ever had such a lame discussion about dissertation topics with his dissertation advisor. Also dissertation topics generally begin much later in the process than the first day you meet your advisor, who generally doesn’t emerge until years into your coursework. The idea that you come into a doctoral program in history with your topic already formed is ridiculous–you might at best have a vague idea where you’d like to go, but your (eventual) advisor will reshape that topic several times before approving of it.