This quote is taken from Purdy and Baumann's The New Matadors (1965), pp. 33-4:
The British journal Motor Sport, one of the best, reviews a book: 'Robert Daley does for motor-racing, in his much-publicized and admittedly magnificently-illustrated 'the Cruel Sport" what Hemmingway [sic] did for bull fighting in "Death in the Afternoon", but the presentation will be too lurid and in places too exaggerated for our more discerning readers....' The curious spelling and syntax aside this is typical. Daley broke the convention: he spoke of the risk of the profession, he treated at length of the personalities of the drivers, and he included photographs of crashes, and far worse, photographs of injured drivers. Every attempt must be made, therefore, to keep the book from coming to public attention.
Purdy goes on ...
I think it is sad -- the question of ethics aside -- that this convention should obtain, for these men, the drivers, are not automata, they are almost without exception, extraordinarily interesting human beings. They are men, like other men, except that they have been sorted out, sifted, fined, so that only 15 or 20 first-class hard-hat deep sea divers, or free balloonists, or savers, or matadors, or espionage agents, or only a handful of men in 67 other categories who have chosen to separate themselves form the crowd, from the clerks, the broom pushers, the plebs, and elect to live, shortly perhaps, but fully, at the whistling, blue pointed top of the stack, where there is so little room, and the view so rewarding. Some, a few, pretend, or seem to pretend, that they do not know where they're standing, and don't care. They point is, I think, that they do not care to talk about it. Like most men in high-risk enedeavors, they are not usually highly articulate, although they are almost invariably intelligent. In personality and outlook they vary as widely as other men; in motivation they are usually fascinating and it is a pity, and a loss, that the branch of journalism specializing in their doings, should picture them with blank white faces. It is a disservice,....
The British journal Motor Sport, one of the best, reviews a book: 'Robert Daley does for motor-racing, in his much-publicized and admittedly magnificently-illustrated 'the Cruel Sport" what Hemmingway [sic] did for bull fighting in "Death in the Afternoon", but the presentation will be too lurid and in places too exaggerated for our more discerning readers....' The curious spelling and syntax aside this is typical. Daley broke the convention: he spoke of the risk of the profession, he treated at length of the personalities of the drivers, and he included photographs of crashes, and far worse, photographs of injured drivers. Every attempt must be made, therefore, to keep the book from coming to public attention.
Purdy goes on ...
I think it is sad -- the question of ethics aside -- that this convention should obtain, for these men, the drivers, are not automata, they are almost without exception, extraordinarily interesting human beings. They are men, like other men, except that they have been sorted out, sifted, fined, so that only 15 or 20 first-class hard-hat deep sea divers, or free balloonists, or savers, or matadors, or espionage agents, or only a handful of men in 67 other categories who have chosen to separate themselves form the crowd, from the clerks, the broom pushers, the plebs, and elect to live, shortly perhaps, but fully, at the whistling, blue pointed top of the stack, where there is so little room, and the view so rewarding. Some, a few, pretend, or seem to pretend, that they do not know where they're standing, and don't care. They point is, I think, that they do not care to talk about it. Like most men in high-risk enedeavors, they are not usually highly articulate, although they are almost invariably intelligent. In personality and outlook they vary as widely as other men; in motivation they are usually fascinating and it is a pity, and a loss, that the branch of journalism specializing in their doings, should picture them with blank white faces. It is a disservice,....
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| Ken W. Purdy |
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