Welcome, ladies, gentlemen, ball-kids and baffled bystanders, to another Julian Writes instalment — the podcast series that bravely asks: what if Roland Garros is less a tennis tournament and more a literary ambush? Alors… bienvenue, mes amis. (Nailed it.)
Today we’re going neck-deep into Les Conquêtes Normandes d’un Tennisman Vieillissant, where our “hero” — the ever-modest, entirely reliable, definitely-not-spiralling Lord Andrew Murray of Kirkintilloch — takes a polite tumble down a rabbit hole of grandeur. And who’s holding the ladder? Lewis Carroll, of course. The Red Queen practically runs the warm-up: speak in French and remember who you are — advice which Lord Andrew interprets as: become a legend immediately, preferably on clay, and preferably while hallucinating. Très chic. Très officiel. Très… oui.
We unpack the rhythmic pop-ups of the ball boys Dum and Dee (because nothing says “elite sport” like a nursery-rhyme metronome), and the moment his opponent Corentin Moutet commits the ultimate crime: he gets turned into a pig on court — a glorious little nod to Carroll’s Pig and Pepper logic, where reality is negotiable and dignity is optional. Mon Dieu. Quelle surprise. Ooh là là. (I’m fluent now, apparently.)
Then there’s the recurring “awoke with a start” motif — the book’s way of winking at us and whispering: this entire Grand Slam may be a dream-state. Letterboxes widen into walkways, tennis balls develop French accents, and the court itself starts behaving like a sentence that’s forgotten how to end. C’est n’importe quoi. Pas possible! Mais… voilà.
And just when you think it’s all pure nonsense, we drag in Jean Cocteau — that delicious phrase about being plunged back into the night — and suddenly the comedy has a bruise underneath it. Because these Carrollian fragments aren’t just playful flourishes: they’re masking something darker. A dazed, fractured consciousness. A man trying to narrate himself into glory… after a glider crash near Calais. Quel drame. C’est la vie. Je suis fatigué. (Emotionally. Spiritually. Grammatically.)
So yes — bon… on y va — come with us as we lovingly dismantle the “Greatest GOAT’s” fantasy layer by layer… until what’s left is not just satire, but a strangely poignant story of delusion, denial, and medical distress — served, naturally, with a side of French and a pig in the baseline. Bien joué, hein? D’accord, d’accord. And if any of that was wrong, look: on fait comme on peut. Voilà. À la fin!
Ready, steady…? Allons-Y!
(Podcast generated by JPS with a little help from Mork and Mindy down in the Podcast Basement)
Les Conquêtes Normandes d’un Tennisman Vieillissant
The third in the “Confessions” series, Les Conquêtes Normandes d’un Tennisman Vieillissant picks up from where The Courting Lives left off and tracks Andy’s inexorable rise to become the greatest GOAT: or Greatest of All Times as they have it in contemporary tennis parlance by challenging for the French Grand Slam at Roland Garros. But the thwarted love stories continue and take on a darker tone as his fans become more fanatical: ambition, delusion, unrequited love… it’s all here in…
