The Tournament
Text Classics
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
‘Ingenious flair for encapsulating a writer, artist or thinker in a few sentences…A funny, clever book.’ Washington Post
The streets of Paris are full of celebrities and media, and out at the stadium the crowds are already huge as players pound the practice courts in preparation for the greatest tournament of the modern era…From all corners they’ve come, the stars of the modern game. What a line-up!
The most unusual tennis tournament in history is about to start. Einstein’s seeded fourth. Chaplin, Freud and van Gogh are also in the top rankings. World number one is Tony Chekhov. In all, 128 of the world’s most creative players—everyone from Louis Armstrong to George Orwell, Gertrude Stein to Coco Chanel—are going to fight it out until the exhilarating final on centre court. First published in 2002, John Clarke’s The Tournament is a brilliant, bizarre comic novel. This new Text Classics edition features an introduction by Michael Heyward.
John Clarke was born in New Zealand. He was and remains one of Australia’s best known and most loved faces on TV. A comedian, writer and actor, his appearances included the famous Fred Dagg character, The Gillies Report and The Games. John’s books include A Dagg at My Table, The Howard Miracle and The 7.56 Report. His only novel, The Tournament, was published in the UK and the US to great critical acclaim. John Clarke died in 2017.
‘What Peter Ustinov once did for Grand Prix motor racing, The Tournament does for tennis and world culture combined.’ Clive James
‘A brilliant invention from a national treasure.’ Daily Telegraph
‘Game, set, match and championship: J. Clarke.’ Australian Book Review
‘A genius-touched tour de farce…A wondrously comic tumult of personalities, anachronisms, jokes.’ Kirkus Review
‘An affable book full of the hubbub and potential hilarity of high and other culture translated to the domain where things get serious: sport.’ Australian
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Clarke's chatty latest novel boasts an outrageous premise: the greatest minds of the 20th century 128 of them to be exact have gathered in Paris for a two-week tennis tournament. Hence there's "Jerry" Salinger, "SuperTom" (T.S.) Eliot, "Plum" (P.G.) Wodehouse and other luminaries (Darwin, Magritte, Earhart, Wittgenstein, Rachmaninov, Barthes, etc.) trading backhands and parrying wits. One-liners abound, about "Doc" Freud's theories regarding seeing ones' parents "in the act of congress" and "Ernie" Hemingway's constant search for the sun. Clarke's apparent aim beneath the yuks is to offer an entertaining cultural education. But with a new game beginning every few paragraphs, readers are introduced to a dizzying array of characters who never transcend caricature. Dali plays imaginary tennis, Auden expounds in verse and Munch sits "throughout the press call with his hands up to his face, his mouth open and a look of blind panic in his eyes." A few short interludes allow relief from the tennis-game-recap narrative, most notably the communist conspiracy surrounding the disappearance of Rosa Luxemburg and a number of other individuals from the tournament, but the novel quickly returns to tennis. The author of The Complete Dagg, A Dagg at My Table and others writes an intermittently amusing tale, but readers may feel this was a great idea best realized in a shorter, more comic form.
