Five very enjoyable essays that are genuinely about tennis, as well as several others things all at once.
I recently re-read the Federer one ("Federer Both Flesh and Not") and I've also read the one about DFW's own years as a highly ranked teenage player in the mid-west before ("Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley") but possibly the most engaging is the one from which the collection takes its title, here renamed "Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Limitation, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness" - Joyce having been an American player who made it into the top 100 in the mid 90s with whom Wallace spent considerable time and who emerges paradigmatically through an essay that's both generous and clear sighted (and funny). Also, Sampras vs Philippoussis at the US Open, Athens and Sparta, democracy and commerce, clever and illuminating.
Side note: it's amusing how much he hates Agassi, and finds every opportunity to express it; eg, in a footnote, "Sampras is surprisingly childlike and cute on the court, in person, in contrast to Agassi, who's about as cute as a Port Authority whore".
I recently re-read the Federer one ("Federer Both Flesh and Not") and I've also read the one about DFW's own years as a highly ranked teenage player in the mid-west before ("Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley") but possibly the most engaging is the one from which the collection takes its title, here renamed "Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Limitation, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness" - Joyce having been an American player who made it into the top 100 in the mid 90s with whom Wallace spent considerable time and who emerges paradigmatically through an essay that's both generous and clear sighted (and funny). Also, Sampras vs Philippoussis at the US Open, Athens and Sparta, democracy and commerce, clever and illuminating.
Side note: it's amusing how much he hates Agassi, and finds every opportunity to express it; eg, in a footnote, "Sampras is surprisingly childlike and cute on the court, in person, in contrast to Agassi, who's about as cute as a Port Authority whore".
