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The Last Days of Roger Federer by Geoff Dyer review – the art of bowing out
From Roger Federer to Bob Dylan, George Best to Jean Rhys, Geoff Dyer roams widely in this finely crafted study of endings
Geoff Dyer has always been an essentially youthful literary presence. Across a career that has blended novels, biography, essays, criticism, memoir and journalism there has been a consistently wide-eyed curiosity about the disparate things that catch his attention: DH Lawrence; jazz; Burning Man; Russian cinema; drugs; the Somme … Of course, one of the main things that has always caught Dyer’s attention is Geoff Dyer, and he now attempts to bring his trademark freshness, bounce and humour to an examination of the decidedly unyouthful spheres of “things coming to an end, artists’ last works, time running out”. This is his moment. While Dyer may still be young at heart, he is also now in his mid 60s, had a mini-stroke in his mid 50s and his tennis habit has left him with “multiple permutations of trouble: rotator cuff, hip flexor, wrist, cricked neck, lower back, and bad knees (both)”.
Dyer’s obsession with tennis has only grown in intensity over the years. He still plays twice a week – although these days he’s unable to serve overarm – and his TV time has been significantly multiplied by a friend sharing a password for the Tennis Channel. The endless speculation as to Roger Federer’s retirement has naturally been of interest and it became important to him “that a book underwritten by my own experience of the changes wrought by ageing should be completed before Roger’s retirement”. (“Yes, ‘Roger’, not ‘Federer’,” he explains, “even though I’ve never met him it’s Roger, always and only Roger.”)
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