I love that the Tournament of Books ended in a similar manner to March Madness: just as the underdog Butler put up a valiant fight against top-seeded Duke, Duke edged past by a single point. And in the Tournament of Books, we had the juggernaut “Wolf Hall” against the formidable “The Lacuna,” and the judges split evenly down the middle, requiring Jessica Francis Kane, Official Judge of the Final Round, to adjudicate the tie. (Don’t worry, I won’t try to push the metaphor further and compare Coach K to Hilary Mantel).
So yeah, “Wolf Hall” won. But only by a hair! Consider the blowouts of previous years: “The Mercy” by Toni Morrison tearing up “City of Refuge” 11 – 6; “The Brief Life of Oscar Wao” cudgeling “Remainder” 12 – 4; or the no-competition knockout of “Absurdistan” by Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” in a 15 – 2 shamefest.
So by comparison, this came down to the wire (Do you like all the sports cliches used in this post? Use your own in the comments section!).
Might there be some kind of psychic connection, a metaphysical (metaliterary? metasportsical?) link connecting the Tournament of Books to March Madness? I believe this must be the case.
Check out the final comments and also the Biblioracle recommendations, which needs to be made into a blog, and then would be my favorite name ever for a blog.
