I really enjoyed watching some of the Paris Olympics recently. I love watching tennis, but otherwise spend very little time watching sport. Nor do I read about it, and the sport section of a bookshop is a place I only approach if I need a gift for the sport-loving men in my family.
However, I don’t mind reading some sporting moments in novels, so thought I’d award some medals for memorable sporting moments in literature.
The Gold Medal goes to a rugby match (ironically, considering my thorough dislike of ‘thugby’). It occurs in P.G. Wodehouse’s fabulous 1930 short story, The Ordeal of Young Tuppy. Tuppy Glossop has fallen for a very athletic girl and is hoping to impress her by playing rugby in a village match. Wodehouse loved the game, and struggled to describe it from the viewpoint of Bertie Wooster, who knows nothing of it, but the scene is terribly funny as Tuppy is knocked down in a scrum again and again. I think this is quite the best description of rugby ever written: “I know that the main scheme is to work the ball down the field somehow and deposit it over the line at the other end, and that, in order to squelch this programme, each side is allowed to put in a certain amount of assault and battery and do things to its fellow man which, if done elsewhere, would result in fourteen days without the option, coupled with some strong remarks from the Bench.” You can listen to the story being read here.
The Silver Medal is for swimming, specifically a nude swim that takes place in E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View. The heroine Lucy’s brother Freddy and his friend George go off with the Reverend Mr Beebe for a cooling swim in the woodland pond, but unfortunately the ladies all decide a cooling woodland walk would be just the thing. The men have removed all their clothes and the ladies are correctly attired in Edwardian dress. The men dive into bushes to hide private parts, leap into the water, and find their clothes get wet in the process. It is an hilarious scene, and in the classic film version of the novel, it is hysterical.
I award the Bronze Medal to a cricket match (and I’m of the school that would rather watch paint dry than watch cricket). It takes place in Mary Grant Bruce’s Mates at Billabong when Jim and Wally play in a bush match between Cunjee and Mulgoa. Both men have enjoyed cricket at boarding school, but Jim “had allowed himself to become anxious, which is a bad thing for a bowler” and nearly loses the match for his team. Of course, all comes right in the end, and it is an exciting scene, made even better by the drama that takes place as Norah, Jim’s sister, rides home.
Other finalists include Ratty and Mole rowing on the river, with frequent stops for sumptuous picnics (much more my kind of sport), the amazing Quidditch matches in the Harry Potter novels (J.K. Rowling invented a sport that suited her magical world), the horse racing in National Velvet, the golfing battles between Captain Puffin and Major Benjy in E.F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia series, and the superb hunting scenes that take place in so many of Trollope’s novels.
Sport can reveal character and novelists use this to good effect. Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby is said to cheat at golf, Fredrik Backman’s Beartown presents a range of characters all desperate to win at ice hockey and some are prepared to do anything for success, while in Alan Sillitoe’s The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner Colin Smith turns to running for personal rehabilitation. Sport can be used by writers for drama, revenge, courtship, and to show stamina, a strong sense of competition, and the desire to win.
Do you have any much-loved sporting moments in fiction? Do let me know what they are by leaving a comment.
Selected links for relevant websites, books, movies, videos, and more. Some of these links lead to protected content on this website, learn more about that here.
Susannah Fullerton: Sport in Novels
Susannah Fullerton: Jeeves and Wooster appear together for the first time
Susannah Fullerton: A Room with a View Reader’s Guide
The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection by P.G. Wodehouse
A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
Mates at Billabong by Mary Grant Bruce
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, boxed set
National Velvet by Enid Bagnold
Mapp And Lucia by E.F. Benson
The Fixed Period by Anthony Trollope
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Beartown by Fredrik Backmann
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe
Julia Miller
I love the tennis match in Alexander McCall Smith’s ‘Portuguese Irregular Verbs’, where three very staid German professors teach themselves to play tennis using an outdated instruction manual.
Susannah Fullerton
That’s one of his books I have not read, but it sounds great fun. I will seek it out. Thanks!
Penny Harvey
I can never forget the horse race described in Anna Karenina – Vronsky’s relationship with his horse mirrors his relationship with Anna. Also as a piece of writing it is a tour de force.
Mab gross
My favourite book which should be on every school required reading list is “Boys in the Boat” by Daniel Brown. The film was excellent too but, naturally could not match the depth of the book.
Susannah Fullerton
I loved the film, but did not realise it was absed on a book. Thanks for letting me know.