The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman

A Bone-Shaking Tour Through Cycling’s Flemish Heartlands

By: Harry Pearson

Narrated by: Harry Pearson

Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

Bloomsbury presents The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman by Harry Pearson, read by Harry Pearson.

Longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2019.

Every nation shapes sport to test the character traits it most admires.

In The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman, committed Belgophile and road cycling obsessive Harry Pearson takes you on a journey across Flanders - through the lumpy horizontal rain, up the elbow-juddering cobbled inclines, past the fans dressed as chickens and the shop window displays of constipation medicines as he follows races big, small and even smaller, through one glorious, muddy spring.

Ranging over 500 years of Flemish and European history, across windswept polders, along back roads and through an awful lot of beer cafes, Pearson examines the characters, the myths and the rivalries that make Flanders a place where cycling is a religion and the riders its Lycra-clad priests.

©2019 Harry Pearson (P)2020 Bloomsbury Publishing Pty Ltd

Critic reviews

"An enormously entertaining cycling journal." (Times Literary Supplement)

"A joy." (Ned Boulting)

Once A Year….

….I set out on a 100 mile bike ride on what is inevitably a dank, cold, morning in northern New England. My annual birthday slog: a tradition started over a decade ago, complemented, beginning in 2000, with this wonderful story buzzing in my ears. The vivid details of Flemish rural life, the wry English humor, the astute observations about cycling, about Belgium, about cycling in Belgium, make for a joyful listen. And it transports me to the Flanders countryside as I pedal away the hours. I will set off again once more tomorrow, the fourth time this book will accompany me, now as much a tradition as the ride itself; an old friend to keep me company on the long chilly day.

Huge fun even if you don't care about cycling

I love Pearson's writing and his wit and I wish that Audible would do his "Racing Pigs and Giant Marrows". This book is great fun, even for someone like me who knows nothing about cycling. I was given an insight into a a very weird passion in a unique part of the world. I loved the way in which the author would talk to strangers who professed to have no interest in cycling but who would then regale him with deeply-held opinions about an upcoming cycling star or the history of a particular event. And I found myself rolling the names of the events around in my head (and sometimes out loud, provoking some odd looks): Liège Bastogne Liège; the Hell of the North; Paris-Roubaix...
Highly recommend
I've just put his latest ("the Farther Corner") into my basket as a Christmas treat.

Detailed observation and dry humor

Let’s get this straight: Harry Pearson does not like the music played at Flemish races. Other than that he has a passion for the place, people, and quirks of Flemish cycling. Reportage on a single season with historical reflection going back to the origins and key moments and people. Author’s reading sometimes lacks the timing of his own humor but is otherwise apt and preferable to a dull actor’s rendition. A hidden gem for cycling fans and those who like sports writing.

Brilliant

A must listen for those of us who love cycling. Well written and read. Perfect for social distancing.

Like a Breugel painting

This book is like a Breugel painting but where the serfs and peasants plowing the fields are instead suffering on old iron bicycles. A complete slog. As for narration, the author’s voice is one that would come out of one of H. Bosch’s creatures. All of the register of a baritone horn blown by a depressed demon. The book is meanwhile highly encyclopedic, plodding on like a dour Flemish cyclist. Cycling history and figures of 100 years ago and the contemporary world and riders all blur together in a gloomy Belgian downpour.

That said, the writing is not infrequently beautiful and hilarious. And I learned a lot about cycling and about Belgium, and I now have an interest in seeing the races and scenes that he describes, though I won’t expect much. The races now seem like an entertainment for in between drinking beer.

The spirit of flanders

Has listened to this book many times, it truly captures the spirit of bike racing in flanders, told in a brilliantly dry manner capturing the irony and dry sense of humour of the region