PermalinkWe’re not sure whether to laugh or weep.
The Huffington Post’s William Ambler in “Great Authors Interpret the Olympics”:
Jane Austen on women’s pole vault: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young woman, having assiduously trained through the high school and collegiate ranks, and having endured the deprivations both societal and dietary attendant upon such efforts, must be in want of a medal.
Herman Melville on rowing: “And on and on the wild and wanton craft burst across the silvered depths and strain to be first upon their mark. The oars scream in their wells as they cleave the glassy surface, leaving whirls of creamy spray like tufts of smoke lifted from a wheeling flock as it makes haste from a conflagration. All for the coin! The great golden coin promised them by their master, who even now crouches upon the gunwales and rends the air above their crowns with bellowed slogan and epithet!!”
James Joyce on 100 meter dash: ”..there they were all in a row and fingers splayed and then haunches raised and bang yer off with wind at your back with the screams and the faces melding as the feet so many feet stamping out the time yes with seconds ticking down thought their fractions and the tape rippling like the presents in that little house left in the night yes and the breath comes faster like horses charging yes and a reaching for the last yes yes I won Yes.”
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