Thursday 21 April 2011

Anyone For Tennis

I don't know if you remember, but earlier this year I blogged about an idea that had been mooted by the Institute of Fine Arts situated on Campus that they would run a book discussion group in conjunction with this summer's exhibition on tennis in art.  They were running into difficulties because there aren't that many books that feature tennis to any great extent.  Indeed, even when I put out a call for suggestions the blogging world found itself pushed for ideas.

Well, earlier this week I was contacted about the final selections and this is the list that the people organising the event have come up with.


Double Fault, Lionel Shriver
A Room with a View, E M Forster, (romance between Lucy and Cecil)
Period Piece, Gwen Raverat
Love Among the Chickens, P G Wodehouse, (Chapter XIII. Tea and Tennis)

As you can see, the connections between the game and the narrative in most of the books are as tentative as the texts I came up with, so there obviously really is a gap in the market out there just waiting to be filled by someone other than Lionel Shriver.  Nevertheless, I've signed up to participate because I want to encourage the Institute's attempt to reach out to a wider audience.  I think the basic idea of linking exhibitions with other art forms is a really good one and who knows what possibilities there may be in relation to future exhibitions.  

So, I will try and whip some enthusiasm for Double Fault, difficult as I know I'll find it.  I have real problems with Shriver's written style.  It doesn't matter how good or otherwise her work may be, the surface structure just gets in between me and it.  Forster, of course, is never any hardship and this particular book a wonderful summer read.  And, I suspect that the same will be true of the Wodehouse.  I don't know the chosen book, but doubtless it will be good for a wry smile at the very least and if it has to do with tea then it's bound to be a winner where I'm concerned.  I think the Raverat is a memoir.  I must check.  If that's the case then I will be very interested in it because I know she and her husband were good friends of the Woolfs and I enjoy anything to do with Bloomsbury.

What with this and the Summer School June to September is going to be a busy reading period, but then how does that make it different from any other period in my life?  What I will find interesting about this project is to see what the dynamics of the group will be like.  I've never been involved in an ad-hoc coming together like this before.  All the book groups I've belonged to have been made up of people who, for the most part, already knew each other.  There is the potential here for a certain amount of fireworks as people jostle for position.  It could work very well or it could be a recipe for disaster.  I shall just have to wait and see.


12 comments:

  1. Hello Annie,

    This is comment, which goes slightly off topic, sorry!
    I was just browsing your final book selection list and the name Gwen Raverat jumped out at me.
    Not because I have read any of her work, but because of her connection with Charles Darwin.
    Her name is known to me, as my husband knows her grandson, William Pryor and the coincidence meant that I had to leave a comment.

    Yvonne

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  2. Yvonne, I love coincidences like that. It probably explains the Woolf connection as well. She knew the Darwin family quite well, I believe.

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  3. I have a copy of Double Fault, largely because I was looking for books on women athletes at one point. I am listening to a book of hers right now as well. I obviously don't have the same problems with her as you do! But this one I'm listening to now, her latest, is awfully preachy. Anyway, the best book on tennis is David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, which I'm sure I mentioned before, but that is by no means a good book group book unless everyone wants to devote months to it!

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  4. Oh Dear, Dorothy, I do not want to spend the summer being preached at! I think the Shriver will be the first one we read, so at least we will get it out of the way quickly. And you're right about 'Infinite Jest', both in terms of its quality and its lack of suitability -shame.

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  5. Room with a View is one of my very favorites! And though I've yet to read PG Wodehouse (other than a story or two) he sounds like fun as well. Since you mention it no books come to mind with tennis in them though I can think of a movie or two! Not very helpful, though! You'll have to let us know how it goes!

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  6. Hi Annie,

    Gwen Raverat was Charles Darwin's grandaughter and did indeed know Virginia Woolf well.

    Gwen's grandson William Pryor, has edited and published the complete correspondence between Gwen, her huband Jaques and Virginia Woolf, under the title: Virginia Woolf and the Raverats.

    http://www.amazon.com/Virginia-Woolf-Raverats-Different-Friendship/dp/1904555020

    Yvonne

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  7. Danielle, I hope we get enough people to get the project off the ground. I'm a bit concerned that the summer months may not be the best time to try and organise something like this.

    Yvonne, thank you for link. That is just my sort of book. I daren't buy anything else this month, I've been very rash with my spending I'm afraid, but it is on the list for next month, definitely.

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  8. Finding good books on a theme is always tricky isn't it ... but I can see why you want to support the Institute. Good luck with the reading ... I look forward to seeing the review.

    (I have another book in my head that has some tennis in - not that it is the subject - but I can't quite pull it up. Maybe a Wharton? Anyhow, seems like here's a subject that's waiting for the right writer to come along!)

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  9. WG, maybe we should offer some sort of award and see if anyone will take it up.

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  10. Sounds good ... reminds me of hearing Alexander McCall Smith talk once. He suggested the Drycleaning Novel still had to come into its own. So many opportunities out there just waiting for the right writers! No excuse for writer's block...

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  11. It will be interesting to see just how tennis related each of those books turns out to be. I hope the group ends up being a fun one!

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  12. Stefanie, I just hope we're not expected to limit our discussion to the tennis aspects, otherwise I can see our time together being very limited.

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