The Tournament

Clarke, an Australian-New Zealand author, poet and screenwriter, has produced an entire novel of original and utterly compelling one-liners covering a truly impressive range of 20th century philosophers, scientists, poets, dancers, painters and so forth, as they compete in the intellectual tennis match of the 20th century: Salvador Dali is cautioned for hanging his watch over the net, Einstein's serves only appear to exceed the speed of light and James Joyce's on-court verse is a wonder to behold (here, in his match against an increasingly peeved T S Eliot): "'Tell me a tale of Jim and Tom' hummed Joyce to himself, 'all of the river is flowing Jim, the river is flowing over him, the rivering under the floater Tom, the blow to just under the nose is gone, and into the afterglow is one, and go with afterburners on, and go with the flow from here to there, and go with knowing your man Flaubert, and everythings fine and Dante there, and then as you hit the final straight, you hammer it down the line and wait, and look at the time and consummate.'" If you have even a superficial grasp of half the participants, it's endlessly entertaining and one can only marvel at Clarke's wit and insight.