---
product_id: 1697872
title: "Levels of the Game"
brand: "john mcphee"
price: "€ 33.81"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.es/products/1697872-levels-of-the-game
store_origin: ES
region: Spain
---

# Levels of the Game

**Brand:** john mcphee
**Price:** € 33.81
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Levels of the Game by john mcphee
- **How much does it cost?** € 33.81 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.es](https://www.desertcart.es/products/1697872-levels-of-the-game)

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- john mcphee enthusiasts

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## Description

John McPheeLevels of the Game

## Images

![Levels of the Game - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71JvVz7UdbL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    The Match Wasn't Over
  

*by G***O on Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2009*

Written for the New Yorker magazine in 1969, this 150 page sports 'classic' has all the punch-and-jab terseness that makes John McPhee's writing both immediate and immediately recognizable. It's fun to read, no question. And it has a way of implying that more is at stake than the ostensible subject of investigation, although McPhee is often artfully cagey about declaring what that "more" might be."Levels of the Game" is constructed around a point-by-point account of a single tennis match played in 1968 by Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner, an African-American and a German-American who were the soul of the championship American Davis Cup team, playing both as singles and as doubles partners. Ashe and Graebner were as much friends as fiercely competitive rivals can ever be, despite their markedly different personalities and world-views. Graebner, the 'spoiled' scion of a conservative Christian dentist, plays stiff and predictable power tennis, "Republican tennis" as it were. Ashe, also a 'privileged child' despite his color and father's illiteracy, is "bold, loose, liberal, flat-out Democratic." Several critics have made McPhee's point more explicitly than McPhee would ever do: "You are the way you play."Like the volleys of an exciting match, the profiles of Ashe and Graebner - their childhoods, their fathers, their training in life and tennis, their quirks and virtues - are lobbed back and forth between the points of the game, from Ashe's first serve to Ashe's last winning stroke. McPhee is crafty; he depicts both men with implicit admiration and maintains as judicious an air of impartiality as an nominee for the Supreme Court under hostile questioning. But there's little doubt about whom he assumes HIS readers will root for, and his tone shows it. Ashe's victory - Ashe's whole career - was a triumph of Civil Rights in America over the forces of stand-pat hold-on-to-your own conservatism. Anyone who doesn't cheer when Ashe scores a point in this match has totally missed the point.When McPhee wrote this book, in 1969, it must have seemed that the societal match which it symbolized was almost over, almost won. Racism had 'charged the net' in the South of Wallace and Faubus, and the ball had been lobbed out of reach. Watching the ads on TV today, couple-watching on the streets of American cities, noting the approval ratings of the First Couple in the White House, one could indeed say that Ashe's victory was prophetic of America's racial Redemption. "Game, set, match to Lieutenant Ashe," McPhee wrote; "When the stroke is finished, he is standing on his toes, his arms flung open, wide, and high."However, if we take this historic match as an analogy for the cultural match-up between conservatism and liberalism, McPhee's success as an oracle is less clear. In 1969 perhaps, the egalitarian ideals of the New Deal and the Great Society might have seemed pervasive and permanent. The 'loose' liberalism expressed in Ashe's tennis was the preferred style of American youth, and the tight hind-end game played by Graebner didn't stand a chance.Ahh, that was before the Culture Wars, before the 'Southern Strategy', before Reaganism and Ollie North, before egalitarian idealism got lost in the Bushes. What McPhee didn't foresee was that Clark Graebner's 'Republican tennis' could claw and scratch, rage and pout, and make a comeback. After all, they play how they are.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    Deep Dive Which Left Me Wanting More
  

*by E***S on Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2021*

It's always a good thing when a book leaves you wanting more, and that's exactly how I felt after I read the last sentence in this short book, which describes the action in a tennis match and also examines the personalities and life of the two competing players, Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner.Ultimately it's a magazine article which was fleshed out a bit more, but its still a riveting read and made me think of how athletes bring their inner self to their game.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    The classic
  

*by D***N on Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2023*

One of the great tennis books—no, sports books—no, Books—of all time. A similarly structured tome about the great Nadal-Federer Wimbledon ’08 final followed the template of “Levels of the Game.” It was good, but nothing tops this one.

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*Product available on Desertcart Spain*
*Store origin: ES*
*Last updated: 2026-03-17*