The Last Days of Roger Federer Audiobook Libro.fm

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One of Esquires best books of spring 2022

An extended meditation on late style and last works from one of our greatest living critics Kathryn Schulz New York

When artists and athletes age what happens to their work Does it ripen or rot Achieve a new serenity or succumb to an escalating torment As our bodies decay how do we keep on In this beguiling meditation Geoff Dyer sets his own encounter with late middle age against the last days and last works of writers painters footballers musicians and tennis stars whove mattered to him throughout his life With a playful charm and penetrating intelligence he recounts Friedrich Nietzsches breakdown in Turin Bob Dylans reinventions of old songs J M W Turners paintings of abstracted light John Coltranes cosmic melodies Bjorn Borgs defeats and Beethovens final quartetsand considers the intensifications and modifications of experience that come when an ending is within sight Throughout he stresses the accomplishments of uncouth geniuses who defied convention and went on doing so even when their beautiful youths were over

Ranging from Burning Man and the Doors to the nineteenthcentury Alps and back Dyers book on last things is also a book about how to go on living with art and beautyand on the entrancing effect and sudden illumination that an Art Pepper solo or Annie Dillard reflection can engender in even the most jaded and ironic sensibilities Praised by Steve Martin for his hilarious tics and by Tom Bissell as perhaps the most bafflingly great prose writer at work in the English language today Dyer has now blended criticism memoir and humorous banter of the most serious kind into something entirely new The Last Days of Roger Federer is a summation of Dyers passions and the perfect introduction to his sly and joyous work