Levels of the Game

As has become something of a habit, after reading a mystery novel I read a John McPhee book while traveling out west. This year's book was Levels of the Game, a short book that came out in 1969 which chronicles a 1968 tennis match between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner, of whom I'd never heard.

McPhee has written better books. The whole thing is almost embarrassingly retrograde in its waspiness and reads like a lengthy "compare and contrast" exercise in which much of American middle class society is supposed to be elucidated. Nonetheless I persisted. Mixed in with the play by play -- excessively breathless even for someone like me who watches some tennis highlights on YouTube most nights of the week -- are real nuggets.

The portrait of Ashe's father is worth the price of admission, as is this quote from Graebner, addressing himself to fellow pro Charlie Pasarell: "You're from the social class, the inbred class, and you're wealthy. Don't you want to protect what you have? I can see a man like Jimmy Ling, of Ling-Temco-Vaught, being a Democrat, because he wants contracts with the government. But I can't see why anyone else -- you, H.L. Hunt, my father -- would want to contribute to things like Medicare and Medicaid. How can you be a Democrat?" 

All in all, I'm happy to be moving forward.