The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein

I am a huge fan of motorsport. I have no real clue why, but I absolutely love either driving in circles really fast, or just watching other people do it. I even actually paid for the 2021 Formula One season video pass! It is inexplicable and absurd.

So, I've been very curious about this book for a long time. How can one possibly convey the thrill, intensity, and split-second fury of racing in the slowest possible medium? And, from a dog's point of view? When I saw this book in a tiny free library in Palo Alto, I had to give it a go.

I will note this book is a departure from my effort to read sci-fi by women and people of color -- but, I have just purchased Ada Palmer's books, and will be back in form soon!

Before I go any further, please be warned that The Art of Racing in the Rain suffers quite a bit from the men-writing-women problem, and all of the characters are white by default. More positively, there is a healthy and wholesome gay couple written years before same-sex marriage was legally recognized in Washington (where the story takes place). Still, the book feels 13 years old -- I had to power through some parts that are frustrating from a progressive outlook in 2021 (for example, the exclusive use of the pronoun "he" to refer to a racing driver). Honestly, it would be great if the book could be refreshed with inclusive language. But, by acknowledging these feelings and letting them be, I was able to deeply enjoy the story.

There's a particular joy to a book like this, because it's short, sweet, and self-contained. It sucked me in: I read it in one go this past Friday night. I've done this only a few times, with The Great Gatsby (which I devoured a day before visiting NYC) and The Hunger Games (which devoured me and gave me weird nightmares). Luckily, The Art of Racing in the Rain is much less stressful and more joyous than the other two.

The story is about a racing driver named Denny, but told through the eyes of his dog, Enzo. As it is told by a dog, the diction is deliberately simple. We follow the full course of Enzo's experience from youth to death, riding the highs and lows of his and his human's victories and tragedies. To say much more would ruin the story; instead, I'll focus on the aspect I found most delightful.

It is really, really hard to drive a car quickly on a wet racetrack. To get it right, every aspect of just a single corner must be broken down and analyzed microscopically. Each action that a driver takes automatically is a place where things can go horribly wrong or gloriously right. You have to consider the car's weight distribution on entry, the choice of braking and turn-in point, the rate of steering, anticipative steering and throttle corrections to mid-corner under- or oversteer, the apex speed, the throttle roll-on, and keeping the car on the asphalt while maximizing exit speed. But, if you stop to think about any of those, then you're already going too slowly -- and good luck correcting any errors!

Denny and Enzo's shared years together are conveyed, mistakes, triumphs, and all, in analogy to the few seconds encompassing one rainy racing corner. The book provides a massive sense of time dilation, like imagining each step of Shiva's dance as the entire creation, preservation, and destruction of the universe (just, many orders of magnitude smaller). Reading this book lets you fully immerse yourself and revel in this analogy.

If you can endure language and plot points that are out of date, I recommend throwing yourself wholly into The Art of Racing in the Rain.

Update: I just watched the movie, and it's wonderful. They smoothed out the plot, removed the troublesome men-writing-women bits, and cast Jess from Gilmore Girls (Milo Ventimiglia) as Denny. They completely did justice to the very best parts of the story -- and, rare for a movie adaptation, the dialogue was nearly all taken directly from the book. What an absolute treat!