Tennis Tomes to Undertake

Joe Samuel Starnes — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:34:08 +0000

The new tennis book A Terrible Splendor was favorably reviewed by Jay Jennings in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal, and sounds like it is definitely worth checking out for those interested in tennis and Davis Cup history. Definitely worth a read is the marvelous literary tennis anthology Jennings put together in 1995 called Tennis and the Meaning of Life: A Literary Anthology of the Game. It’s full of great stories, novel excerpts and poems. My favorite is Barry Hannah’s story, “Return to Return,” a story that crackles with Hannah’s always surprising sentences and ultimately spawned the novel The Tennis Handsome. One of the best poems is ”Bjorn Borg” by William Scammel that has the deft description: “Nobody knew what went on/behind that block of stone,/whether chess against a breaking wave/or just a corny Abba tune.” And normally, a terrible story would not be something to commend in an anthology, but if you want to sample some of the most grandiose prose ever put to the page by one of the greatest players of all time, check out Bill Tilden’s story “The Phanton Drive.” Here is Tilden’s first adjective/adverb-laden repetitive sentence: “The departed shade of the old Champion idly strummed with one hand on the golden strings of his celestial harp and arranged the folds of his celestial robes around him with the other.” That’s all you really need, but I can’t help but also share the last line: “The racquet lay unheeded by the Gate of Heaven.” If you want to know what happens in between, buy the book. I can’t guarantee you’ll like Tilden’s story (read it as unintentional parody), but most of the collection is excellent. If you like tennis and reading, you won’t be sorry.

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Tennis Tomes to Undertake