AustLit

'What an extraordinary fellow John Clarke was: a comedian who savoured poetry, a political satirist who didn’t do impersonations, a comic genius who was genial. When Clarke died in April, aged 68, while tracking down his beloved birds in the bush, it was apparent he was special to a great swag of people. He was special to people because he was special in himself.' (Introduction)

'The Tournament is one of the oddest and funniest books ever published in Australia. It’s like Afferbeck Lauder’s Let’s Stalk Strine, or the poems of Ern Malley: we could never have predicted its existence, but it allows us to see and hear ourselves differently. John’s early drafts made it plain that he was doing much more than imagine the great minds of the century playing each other at tennis. That would have been peculiar enough, but it would also have been merely amusing, a charming gesture.' (Introduction)