This week, in the first installment of our website's monthly book club, TENNIS.com's editor, Kamakshi Tandon, and I will be talking about Gordon Forbes' 1996 memoir "Too Soon to Panic."
Hi Steve,
Of course I've been reading Federer's blog– isn't everyone reading Federer's blog? There's never been this much pre-blog buzz for any player, not even Rafael Nadal during Roland Garros, and it seems to have translated into quite an audience.
The first entry was quite good – "I thought for a second that maybe I should practice naked" is the line that really makes the piece, referring to the fans clamouring for his clothes as he walked to practice.
Those who loathe Federer will loathe the blog ("Konnichiwa"... "On Saturday I had an incredible experience meeting with the Crown Prince"... "I love Japanese food a lot and I eat it anywhere I go as it seems to be the 'in' food"). Those who worship him will adore it ("Konnichiwa"... "On Saturday I had an incredible experience meeting with the Crown Prince"... "I love Japanese food a lot and I eat it anywhere I go as it seems to be the 'in' food"). Personally, I'm always surprised by how textured Federer's personality is, particularly for someone who's world famous and a career athlete, because both encourage shiny banality.
Still, not even Federer is immune to the one thing that's afflicted all the blogs this year – a compulsive need to talk about food. At the beginning, it was breakfasts. Bran muffins, cereal, waffles – you name it, it was there in excruciating detail. I did have a theory about this. Somewhere on the questionnaire or list of instructions the ATP was handing out, there were the words, "e.g., what you had for breakfast." The players were obviously mistaking that suggestion for a strict order.
But then I began to wonder if it was just a reflection of how things really are. There are only two eras that matter when it comes to player blogs – pre-Dmitry and post-Dmitry. The range of meals has expanded a little post-Dmitry, but overall, food hasn't lost much market share. The Pioneer himself did his fair share of musing on edibles, including the lowly hot dog: "Oh what a thing of beauty it was!!! No exclamation point will ever be able to convey it!"
Federer, as I said, has been no different. "Captain Wasabi" may not come up with the most original practical jokes, but he's not shy about sharing his dietary profile.
It does make sense that tennis players would be obsessed with food. Their profession requires them to be obsessed with their physical selves, to which food is intimately connected.
I looked back in Too Soon to Panic to see if there was any supporting evidence for this. Sure enough, there was, but also a reminder that players once had to be obsessed about meals for a very different reason:
Every evening in these small streets [in Paris] we would gather on the sidewalks outside our hotels to discuss the important question of where and what to eat. It became a matter of prestige to know which bistros gave the best deals. Abie refused to become party to these events, muttering things about "peasants" and "showin' a bit of class" and taking Heather off to more extravagant places.
But then he had his "shippers," and we had to make do on "expenses" – in Paris about fifty dollars for the two weeks. So evening meals were grave financial considerations.
**
"How about," Trevor might say," vegetable soup, a steak-frites with petit pois, fruit salad and a glass of lait frais *for seventy frances? Is that or isn't that a deal?" (Seventy old francs – about a dollar.)
"At the Restaurant Sylvano you get the same for sixty-five and they put an egg on top of the steak," Vermaak might say For Ian, a fried egg on top of a steak worked all kinds of physical wonders.*
"But its a thinner steak," Jean might add.
"A much thinner steak," Renee would confirm.
One evening Torsten Johannsen, the wily Swede, listened to the discussion with a twinkle in his eye, then finally said: "How about soup, a thick steak, peas and chips, fruit salad and ice cream, bread and coffee, for fifty-five francs?"
"Where?!" we chorused.
"I dunno, but it's cheap!" he said, hugging his joke to himself.
*Occasionally, though, we ended up at better restaurants.
DIARY NOTES*
*Always this question of food! Today Abie and Budge Patty had a discussion in the competitors' stand. Abie was hungry and going on about sandwiches and meatballs. They were watching Ramanathan Krishnan playing Boro Jovanovic, and between points Patty argued that there actually were other foods in Paris besides hamburgers and meatballs. Eventually, to prove his point, he'd taken us to this restaurant, where, when we got there, he muttered something to the headwaiter and was given a table. Patty speaks French
After the waiter explained everything, Abie, wanting the* plate du jour, caused the first stir by ordering the pas de deux. Then, when it didn't immediately arrive, he accosted the waiter and said: "Hey Camerera! Per favore! Before uno hombre dies! That is, if it's not too molto trouble! Subito la mangiare. Chop-a-chop!"
"You must excuse my friend here," said Patty wearily. "He speaks only Italian."
Top that, Rog. The great expectations surrounding Federer's blog were a little surprising, to be honest, because they seemed to contain the implicit assumption that great players make great bloggers. But we've long accepted the idea that great players don't make great coaches; and effective coaching and effective blogging share one element – the ability to transmit experience.
That's also Forbes' greatest strength as a writer, a sum of the uncanny adjectives you mentioned, the remembered phrases, and the captured emotions. Too Soon to Panic retraces the paths to some of the game's great citadels. Here's Wimbledon:
*On the Wednesday after Queens, I go to Roehampton to watch the players trying to qualify for Wimbledon. The weather is fine and I've plenty of time, so I take the train to South Kensington and change at Earl's Court -- the District Line, platform four. There is a train waiting, and above it, on the ancient signboard, a lighted arrow points: WIMBLEDON. The train is old and stands thee with open doors, panting and muttering to itself. I board and sit in the soft old seats. At last, with a sneeze, the doors close, and we canter off at a measured place along tracks that are now so out of shape that the train lurches and sways.
...What has made it so special? One can make a list of reasons, but the true answer is not an easy one to write down. Rather, it is something that, when you arrive there, you feel in the air... You can approach the club from the Southfields side down Wimbledon Park Road, or from the Wimbledon side down Church Road. The roads surrounding the club are winding and confusing, but one thing is certain. Whichever one you take, when you first see the centre court with its purple rainments and green ivy, you always get the same feeling.*
These passages are just bridges to more arresting and amusing moments, of course, but they're important all the same. When you've read a skilful, memorable description of an event, your own experience of it is all the more evocative.
On vacation in California some years ago, I was riding in a car without much idea of where we were, but there was something about the grey skies looming over the green hills that suddenly made me think of John Steinbeck. I got a quiet thrill a few minutes later we passed a battered old shop sign and in the corner was written: "Salinas." Steinbeck once wrote, "I think I would like to write the story of this whole valley... so it would be the valley of the world."
All the stories we read about Wimbledon, including Forbes', do the same thing. Going there, the flashes of recognition make us feel like we're part of a greater collective. When you change at Earl's Court and take the District line to Southfields, you're not just going from one train to another -- you're taking a pilgrimage. And the train doors really do close with a sneeze.
It also means that if you never get to go, it doesn't matter so much – you already know what it's like.
That's as good a reason as any to list A Handful of Summers is one of the tennis books, and perhaps even the tennis book. (You're right, I don't really subscribe to 'greatest-ever' lists – the process is so much more important than the end result – but I do like 'my favourite' lists, and it's at or near the summit on my one for my tennis books.) It captures, in technicolour, an era in tennis of which only faint traces remain. And at the same time, it pins down some of the game's most timeless feelings.
More on the differences between the two books later. For the moment, what's your greatest-ever list of Forbes anecdotes?
Kamakshi