“A Rally Against Reason — And a Triumph” or “The Conquest That Wasn’t”? You decide!

Our good insider friends in the British literary establishment have very kindly offered some reviews of our future publication, Les Conquêtes Normandes d’un Tennisman Vieillissant. And in true literary spat style, they’ve managed to completely disagree with each other without, I have to say (well, I would), fully understanding the nature of the beast. Here they are in all their literary glory.

A Rally Against Reason — And a Triumph

By C. W. Bramble, TLS Literary Correspondent

In Les Conquêtes Normandes d’un Tennisman Vieillissant, the line between delusion and destiny becomes smeared with red clay, sweat, and surrealism. The novel is, unapologetically, an absurdist fable — a sort of Waiting for Godot in tennis shoes — and it is glorious.

The central figure, “Lord” Andy of Kirkintilloch, strides into Roland-Garros not simply to compete, but to conquer. This is not the tale of a tennis match, but a phantasmagorical pilgrimage. Alongside him are Hac, his Proust-quoting coach who believes herself to be Phoebe Snetsinger, and Evelyn, a club captain who channels the bombast and poise of Serena Williams. That none of this is meant to be taken literally is precisely the point.

The prose is deft, elliptical, and slyly musical. The metaphors — tennis as theatre, as ritual, as memory — pile up like ill-judged drop shots, but then resolve, suddenly, into moments of unlikely clarity. At its best, the book does what few sports novels attempt: it captures the inner theatre of competition — the rituals, delusions, and heroic self-mythologies of ageing athletes.

Some will dismiss this as indulgent nonsense. And they may be right. But what rich nonsense it is.

The Conquest That Wasn’t.

By Dr. Harriet Blore, TLS Senior Critic

There is a certain kind of novel — postmodern, self-aware, proudly ludicrous — that seeks to turn incoherence into literature. Les Conquêtes Normandes d’un Tennisman Vieillissant is one of them. Sadly, it is not among the better ones.

The conceit — an ageing amateur tennis player staging a hallucinatory campaign at the French Open — is stretched so far beyond plausibility that satire and sincerity become indistinguishable. His companions, a woman who believes herself to be the world’s greatest birdwatcher and another who channels Serena Williams, serve as comic relief in a narrative that frequently forgets it’s supposed to be funny.

The language veers from the poetically overwrought to the embarrassingly twee. A goat offers strategic advice. Line judges become existential symbols. Characters quote Proust while doing squats. One is reminded not of Beckett, but of someone who once read Beckett’s Wikipedia page.

It is possible, of course, that this is all the point — that the novel is meant to be a pastiche, a tennis-shaped fever dream. But even in dreams, we long for form, for purpose. Here, all we find is a man talking to himself on a court no one else can see.

So, what’s it to be: “A Rally Against Reason — And a Triumph” or “The Conquest That Wasn’t”? For one week only, we’re sending out free, pre-publication copies of the book and offering you the chance to write your own review – which we will incorporate in the book itself. Just leave your contact details here and we’ll get straight back to you!