Terry Davis

This book contravenes so many of my usual tastes in reading material that it's a wonder that I love it so much, but I do. It's written in present tense, which normally grates on me horribly. There's really next to no conflict to speak of, none of the build and release of dramatic tension that are the hallmarks of the typical novel's plot. It is a first-person account of three or four months in the life of a high school senior, as he goes to school, works as a bellhop at a hotel, and trains for a key upcoming wrestling match, none of which sounds like riveting subject material. Yet it's one of my favorite books of all time.

This book is simply the the best, most honest novel about being a teenager that I have ever read, and that's why it stays so strongly with me even to this day. Every element of high school - triumph, boredom, insecurity, the struggle to fit in, sexual self-discovery, first loves, discovering that the adults around you are just humans themselves - it's all here, written in a voice that's tender, funny, and charming.

My view of this book is probably biased by the fact that I read it for the first time as a high school senior, a wrestler myself, and it resonated with me like the voice of a good friend. But hey, what are these book reviews, if not one man's opinion? Highly, highly recommended.… (altro)

Merideth says: All in all, this book is not that bad. Sports books rank somewhere below historical fiction in my personal continuum, and wrestling has always struck me as a fairly ridiculous pastime. However, Louden is a very likable guy, and his descriptions of his sport and his home have a lyrical, idyllic quality.

What really sinks this book for me, and, I think, for most teens, is how very dated the whole thing feels. Aside from the descriptions of clothes, movies and music that are firmly rooted in the '70s; Louden espouses a sort of half-baked hippy philosophy that will feel very alien to a child of the technological age. This dated quality, combined with some fairly vulgar language and a big dollop of sex make it hard to envision the right reader for this book.… (altro)

If Judy Blume’s Forever served as a model for “young adult” novels for young women, Terry Davis’s Vision Quest (Viking, 1979) might well have done the same thing for young men. Physically, emotionally, sexually, socially—even spiritually, in a way—Louden Swain is living the life guys would like to be living by the time they’re eighteen. Though his parents have recently divorced, he is living with his supportive and understanding father, who is also a non-interventionist father. He acquires a live-in girl friend without too much effort on his part; she is his companion, sex partner, emotional support, talk buddy—and someone to look after (well, sorta). He has a job in a restaurant, sometimes doing takeouts, but this does not seem to interfere with his schedule. However, perhaps most important, he is a wrestler.

Terry Davis himself was on his wrestling team and served for a time as a coach. Louden decides to challenge himself by going for a lower weight class (147) in order to face the three-time state champion from a rival high school. We learn about his eating (and not eating), his nose-bleeds, his fainting, his excreting as well as his workouts, running, and practice matches. We follow him and his team through their season, right up to the big match. We learn about his nerves and his confidence, his determination and his doubts.

The novelist John Irving—himself a wrestler—called Vision Quest "the truest novel about growing up since The Catcher in the Rye. " Jonathan Yardley, reviewing it for Sports Illustrated, described it as “honest and funny and altogether true to life,” and said the characters are “people so thoroughly decent and attractive that one wants to reach out and embrace them all.”

Asked by a kid writing a paper on the book to describe its writing style, I once responded something like this: “On the surface it imitates a hard-nosed realistic style, determined to show what high-school sports are really like, what first sex, first love, is really like, how teenage boys talk to each other, what it's really like to live the life of a—Ok, I'll use your term—’lost soul.’ But beneath the surface, I think a ‘romantic’ style emanates from this account of growing up—NOT school-girl ‘romantic,’ or Danielle-Steele ‘romantic,’ but genuine romanticism. Maybe ‘insightful’ would be a better term than ‘romantic.’ The elements of the plot that fit in with this style are the otherworldly aspect of training for wrestling, Louden’s tender relationship with his artist/lover, the influence of his thoughtful English teacher, the respect for the outdoors and the beauties of nature, a need for quiet and solitude, and especially the central allusion to the Native American ‘visionary’ experience. The title itself, from the very beginning, points the reader toward a ‘soulful’ style.”

Another feature that I would now add to that list—one of the most important ones—is a source of both the realism of the action and the romanticism of the style: the relationship between Louden and his teammates. There are the lively give-and-take, the nicknames (Smoozler, Balldozer, Sausage Man), the good natured harassment but the cheering and support when the time for the match rolls around. And, on occasions, there is what Louden calls “mellow” talk.

Louden is a very literate young man. “I read quite a bit,” he says. “This may be why I’ve done pretty well in school so far. There may be a correlation between reading a lot and appearing to know things. Downstairs in the employees’ bathroom, along with my secondhand copy of Gray’s Anatomy, I’ve stashed The Confessions of Nat Turner. At home in the downstairs bathroom I keep Pathology, a gigantic book by a physician named Robbins. When I’m tired of reading it I balance it on my head to strengthen my neck.”

That, of course is the way the focus on the “vision quest” comes about. “I got into [American Indian culture] by way of Thomas Berger’s Little Big Man. From Berger I went to Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, to Black Elk Speaks, and then to everything I could get my hands on.”

His friend Kuch, picking up on the idea, goes him one step further, turning him on to a book called Seven Arrows by a Northern Cheyenne: “Read this sonofabitching book, man. It is un-fucking-believable!” So they both explore the idea of the vision quest.

“That’s the idea of it all,” Louden says: “to discover what you are and who your people are and how you fit into the circle of birth and growth and death and rebirth. I can see how you could get pretty far inside yourself sitting naked and hungry and alone on some mountain for a couple days and nights.”

Wrestling, of course, becomes Louden’s vision quest, or rather his training for wrestling: the stringent dieting, the rigorous exercise, cleaning oneself out, facing conflict without hostility or disrespect.

For there is little or no hostility or disrespect in this book. All these people are, as Yardley says, “decent and attractive,” sensitive and sensible. So much so that it may be an exaggeration to describe this book as “honest . . . and altogether true to life,” as Yardley does. There is not the usual conflict within this plot. The parents divorce, but there is no real conflict. There is rivalry between the teams, but not harsh conflict. There is tension within some of the characters, but no severe self conflict. The film version, to introduce a bit more uncertainty, lets the girl friend think their relationship is interfering with his athletic training, so she moves on. Not in the book. Though I describe the book as insightful, there is no peak experience or sudden insight.

The gentle unanimity among the main characters is never more obvious than in this brief dialogue. Louden’s Dad begins,

“Don’t let things get out of control.”
He looked like he was going on, but Carla interrupted. “Dad,” she said, “I’m not pregnant and I’m not going to get pregnant.”
“Well, you’ve got to be sure to use—”
“Condoms,” I interrupted. . . .
“Rubbers.” Carla smiled.
“Prophylactics.” Dad nodded.
“Worth a pound of cure.” I smiled at Carla.

So, generally, the book is a bit idealistic.

But how refreshing, just this once, to read a conversation between two winning athletes in a novel who talk about “the meaning and importance of different things in life.”

“I bring up Fitzgerald and Agee and Carlos Casteneda and other fairly contemporary guys like that. But Balldozer [who wrestles at 185] always talks about Rousseau and Voltaire and Montaigne and Shakespeare and other guys long dead.”

Oh, and Carla plays Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major.

And Sausage plays the flute. “His band seems to be influenced by Chicago and Santana, with Sausage adding a flavor of Jethro Tull.”

Refreshing.… (altro)