synopsis:

this book is about The seventeen years old Smith who is imprisoned in a Borstal, a prison for juvenile. He gets there, because he broke into a bakery with his pal Mike and pinched the cash box. In the Borstal his personality doesn't change, but he finds a new way of thinking. Every morning he gets up early and does his long distance run. Running makes him contemplative. A lot of question about his life appear in his thinking, like his adolescence, his father, honesty and his "war". His war is the fight between them who he calls "in-lawers" and "out-lawers", and he is certain, that this fight is the most important war, the real war.

At the first day in the Borstal, the governor tells him that he wants to make him to a honest man, but during his stay in the Borstal, Smith comes to the conclusion that his honesty is not the same as the governor's. To make Smith a honest man, the governor wants him to be a long distance runner and win the "Borstal Blue Ribbon Prize Cup For Long Distance Cross Country Running (All England)".

But to run like being always hunted after and only because an "in-lawer" orders him to, is impossible for Smith. So he uses the cross country race not to change his life and become an honest man, but to hit the governor in an unexpected and painful way by losing on purpose. afterwards he uses the rest of his stay in Borstal to prepare for a grand job...

on this book:

Born in Nottingham in 1928 to a working class family, serving in the Air Force, and going through many struggles, Alan Sillitoe is known as an effective representative of the English working class. Through 'The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner' he effectively criticises the legal system of England, which deprives individualism from its people, is ineffective and interferes with people's lives.in 1962 a film based on this novel came out.