Subject
Nabokov's soccer gloves
From
Date
Body
Here's the passage from SPEAK, MEMORY:
Of the games I played at Cambridge, soccer has remained a wind-swept
clearing in the middle of a rather muddled period. I was crazy about
goal keeping. In Russia and the Latin countries, that gallant art had
been always surrounded with a halo of singular glamour. Aloof,
solitary, impassive, the crack goalie is followed in the streets by
entranced small boys. He vies with the matador and the flying ace as an
object of thrilled adulation. His sweater, his peaked cap, his
kneeguards, the gloves protruding from the hip pocket of his shorts, set
him apart from the rest of the team. He is the lone eagle, the man of
mystery, the last defender. (p.267)
- Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Of the games I played at Cambridge, soccer has remained a wind-swept
clearing in the middle of a rather muddled period. I was crazy about
goal keeping. In Russia and the Latin countries, that gallant art had
been always surrounded with a halo of singular glamour. Aloof,
solitary, impassive, the crack goalie is followed in the streets by
entranced small boys. He vies with the matador and the flying ace as an
object of thrilled adulation. His sweater, his peaked cap, his
kneeguards, the gloves protruding from the hip pocket of his shorts, set
him apart from the rest of the team. He is the lone eagle, the man of
mystery, the last defender. (p.267)
- Susan Elizabeth Sweeney