The end of the Clipperton legend (p. 431)
People on the jr. tour sometimes asked tiny Mario if that’s why Eric Clipperton always seemed so terrifically glum and withdrawn and made such a big deal out of materializing and dematerializing at tournaments, that the very tactic that let him win in the first place kept the wins, and in a way Clipperton himself, from being treated as real.
Context
Clipperton hauling home trophies the U.S.T.A. refuses to count: a kid whose victories — and self — don't register as real, glum at the summit, confiding only in Mario. The achievement-shaped variant of the book's depression: getting the craved thing and finding no one home.