Written in John Clarke's unique style, he comments on notable people in history from all fields of life as though they were participating in a tennis tournament. It pokes fun at both the people and the world of elite tennis. Very clever but unless you know the people or the tennis, it is easy to miss the significance of the commentary. ( )

Sadly, this is the first book in my LibraryThing library which I have chosen not to finish.

For years I have been a fan of John Clarke's work on television in Australia, especially the brilliant "The Games", and also his weekly political satire on ABC's "7:30 Report", so when I picked this up (thankfully for next to nothing at a school fair), I was excited by the prospect of how this peculiar tennis tournament would pan out.

Well, the answer is not as interestingly as the Australian Open which is about to finish its first week as I write this.

I'm undecided as whether 'The Tournament" is incredibly clever or incredibly twee. But I can't be bothered to finish it and find out. After reading the first 80 pages or so, in which the same sort of thing happens again and again, I decided to put it down for a couple of days. On returning to it, I decided to cheat, and skip forward to the semi-finals, but it was still the same.

The idea is this: Clarke has gathered all the giants of world culture and intellectual endeavour, and plays them off head-to-head so to speak to find a 'winner', in men's singles & doubles, women's etc you get the idea. The after-match press conferences use quotes and actions that you would expect from each character if they were in fact being interviewed after a match. Kurt Godel, for example, argues the score with Stephen Spender, requiring "verifiable proof". And so it goes. ( )

"A tournament that pits some of the greatest creative artists, thinkers, wits, polemicists and celebrities of roughly the past hundred years against each other at the notionally sporting, but sometimes bruising, art of tennis, allows Clarke marvellous latitude for his brilliant satirical wit, his love of the one-liner and his unerring nose for literary parody ... Game, set, match and championship: J. Clarke." Australian Book Review