An exercise in fiction

The Motion of the Body Through Space Lionel Shriver

Borough

Lionel Shriver, author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, is famous for her opinions. On cultural appropriation, most notably, but also on the perils of metropolitan wokeness, immigration, and, now, with her novel The Motion of the Body Through Space, fitness fanaticism.

This satire revolves around a 60-something couple and their deranged attitudes toward exercise. Serenata is a judgmental voice-over artist who has obsessively exercised for hours every day, though age and a dodgy knee are catching up with her. She’s furious when her previously unfit husband Remington announces that he’s going to run a marathon, since running has always been “her” thing.

As Serenata’s ailing joints force her to dial it down, Remington’s fervour grows steadily more extreme. He resolves to do a triathlon, and is sucked into a cultish “Tri Club” overseen by the uber-irritating personal trainer Bambi. Serenata can’t bring herself to support Remington’s pursuit of what he sees as heroism — firstly, out of jealousy; though later out of fear as it starts to endanger his life.

The dry and acerbic Serenata is an excellent creation. She feels she “invented” exercise, and rankles at any of her hobbies being colonized by coolness. She’s a bit of a loner.

She knows she’s in the tight spot of a hypocrite, and is forced to examine her own attitude toward exercise. “I did not love running ... The only good part is having run,” she tells Remington.

And yet, “exercise, of all things, had grown nonsensically bound up with who she was.”

Still, Remington and his trifriends’ activities amount to a more intense mania. Bambi tells them: “The one thing you never allow yourself to question is why you’re doing this in the first place.”

Ah yes, for Shriver has more than one axe to grind. When the topic of cultural appropriation comes up, it’s unsurprising — and as gleefully contrarian as you’d expect from Shriver.