 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | Before Federer versus Nadal, before Borg versus McEnroe, the greatest tennis match ever played pitted the dominant Don Budge against the seductively handsome Baron Gottfried von Cramm. This deciding 1937 Davis Cup match, played on the hallowed grounds of Wimbledon, was a battle of titans: the world's number one tennis player against the number two; America against Germany; democracy against fascism. For five superhuman sets, the duo’s brilliant shotmaking kept the Centre Court crowd–and the world–spellbound.
But the match’s significance extended well beyond the immaculate grass courts of Wimbledon. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the brink of World War II, one man played for the pride of his country while the other played for his life. Budge, the humble hard-working American who would soon become the first man to win all four Grand Slam titles in the same year, vied to keep the Davis Cup out of the hands of the Nazi regime. On the other side of the net, the immensely popular and elegant von Cramm fought Budge point for point knowing that a loss might precipitate his descent into the living hell being constructed behind barbed wire back home.
Born into an aristocratic family, von Cramm was admired for his devastating good looks as well as his unparalleled sportsmanship. But he harbored a dark secret, one that put him under increasing Gestapo surveillance. And his situation was made even more perilous by his refusal to join the Nazi Party or defend Hitler. Desperately relying on his athletic achievements and the global spotlight to keep him out of the Gestapo’s clutches, his strategy was to keep traveling and keep winning. A Davis Cup victory would make him the toast of Germany. A loss might be catastrophic.
Watching the mesmerizingly intense match from the stands was von Cramm’s mentor and all-time tennis superstar Bill Tilden–a consummate showman whose double life would run in ironic counterpoint to that of his German pupil.
Set at a time when sports and politics were inextricably linked, A Terrible Splendor gives readers a courtside seat on that fateful day, moving gracefully between the tennis match for the ages and the dramatic events leading Germany, Britain, and America into global war. A book like no other in its weaving of social significance and athletic spectacle, this soul-stirring account is ultimately a tribute to the strength of the human spirit. |
Average Customer Rating:   OK, but just OK I really wanted to like this book more than I did. I generally love books like this. I just finished and enjoyed The Sixth Game by Mark Frost about a memorable baseball game and all the players. The idea for this book was intriguing, a memorable tennis game with many side stories about three of the major tennis players of the 20's and 30's who were part of the game. But I think the author misfired. Idea - 10. Execution - 4.
The major players the German, Cramm. and the Americans Budge and Tilden were all sort of larger than life. The author includes a lot about the players especially Cramm and Tilden. In fact, I enjoyed his covering their lives and trials and the pre war times much more than his covering of the game. His coverage just wasn't that exciting. I think he made a mistake focusing so much on the game, or maybe it is difficult to inject excitement into reporting a tennis match. Anyway, the result is a really uneven book. He also goes on and on about the other tennis stars during the era, and recounts, or so it seems, hundreds of games and matches. Skimming is in order for those parts of the book.
Turns out homosexuality plays a big part in the respective lives. In fact, the author seems kind of obsessed with that topic.( "Not that there is anything wrong with that" )
I would give it three stars at the absolute best. Solid effort from Marshall Jon Fisher Well worth a read for sports fans in general and tennis fans in particular. The three players featured in "TS" are all genuinely engaging and interesting, and the time period in which the match took place was obviously pivotal in the 20th century.
Highly recommended. Just barely 4 stars - good but not great. As I write this review, having only just finished the book, I must confess to a decidedly mixed reaction. The story of the 1937 Davis Cup match between American Don Budge and the German aristocrat Baron Gottfried von Cramm is certainly a compelling one. Indeed, the reportage of the actual championship match between Budge and von Cramm is gripping entertainment, replete with colorful quotations and a fine sense of pacing. However, the author too often falls into the biographer's trap of regurgitating facts and miring an otherwise solid narrative in a minutiae of statistics; in this case a myriad of names and scores read and forgotten almost simultaneously.
Along for the ride is "Big" Bill Tilden (still the greatest tennis champion of all-time), who served as coach to the German team. The author devotes ample space to the formative years of each man. However, some men are simply more interesting than others. Tilden was a bigger-than-life sports figure, as famous in his day as Babe Ruth, who was twice sent to prison for having sexual relations with underage young men. The Baron was one of the most dashing and handsome young men to ever play the game of tennis, but a known [...] who's every move was watched and recorded by the Nazis. He was convicted of violating the infamous "Paragraph 175" and sent to prison. In later life he was briefly married to heiress Barbara Hutton. By comparison, Budge is simply, bluntly, boring.
There is quite a bit to recommend "A Terrible Splendor" [and I should note that readers with a real love of tennis are sure to enjoy this much more than I did], not the least of which is the amount of hidden LGBT history presented. However, on the whole I was left with an unquenched thirst for more of the von Cramm's story; what a great movie his life would make.
Many Lives, One Match A Terrible Splendor by Marshall Jon Fisher is one of the best books I've read this year for [...]. The subtitle of the book is "Three Extraordinary Men, A World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Every Played" and it is all this, and so much more. It is certainly the very best tennis book I've ever read but even for non-tennis players, this book will hold you from first page until the last, providing suspense, thrills, and very sobering, moving, and compelling history.
In telling the lives of Baron Gottfried Von Cramm, German tennis player, Don Budge, an American player from head to toe, and Bill Tilden, one of the mightiest racquet-wielders ever, and building their stories around the 1937 Davis Cup match between Cramm and Budge, Fisher brings to vibrant life the years between the two world wars, and the very different places that each of these players came from and answered to. Fisher illustrates through strong and engaging writing the dramatic differences that country, age, and sexual orientation played for these three men, and brings home the magnitude of their achievements, on court but also in their lives.
Cramm was an aristocratic German with impeccable good looks, sportsmanship, and tennis playing. Opposed to the policies and practices of the Nazis, and gay, Cramm was safe from Nazi persecution only so long as he kept winning tennis matches for Germany. Budge was a middle-class American with phenomenal tennis skills, a love for Jazz and good times with the Hollywood cronies who befriended him, and solid support from the United States Tennis Association. Bill Tilden was the most famous tennis player of his time and into our own, as heralded for his amazing and enduring tennis-playing as for his off-court persona, infamous for his on-court antics, and highly irritating to the USTA for his bullheadedness as well as his ill-closeted gayness. Fisher gives us insight into all three, as well as solid introductions to many other figures of the times, including American tennis player Gene Mako, Queen Mary of England, English playwright Christopher Isherwood, German-Jewish tennis player Daniel Prenn, up and coming American Bobby Riggs, Hollywood types like Jack Benny and Charlie Chaplin, heiress Barbara Hutton, and Nazi terrors Goring, Himmler, and Hitler himself. That was the mix of the 1930s, a world indeed "poised for war." For some, World War II would bring persecution, deprivations, and personal tragedy, for others a new responsibility and realization of life's chaos, and for others, death.
The tennis match around which A Terrible Splendor is structured is told with perfect timing, building momentum and suspense then taking a break (neither disruptive nor jarring) to tell more of the background history, personal and political and social, and then taking us back into the match. The book drove me through emotional ranges of tears, anger, and excitement, and I could not put it down, as caught up as I was in the amazing lives of these three very distinct individuals, the times they lived in, and the match itself. Indeed, I was on the edge of my seat throughout this marvelous book and unsure until the end who won this incredible battle that went five sets, who survived the spiraling years into World War II, and who met the promise of a world beyond tennis and beyond war. I will never forget Cramm, Budge, or Tilden, or this great book, A Terrible Splendor. Elegant! With the elegance that von Cramm played tennis, Marshall Fisher writes. I don't know much about tennis,or at least I didn't before reading "Terrible Splendor" but was fascinated by the game, the history, and the humanity of the players. It is indeed a thought provoking book and a fun, entertaining read. I recommend it to anyone interested in history, tennis, and the working-out of human existence. |  |
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