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The Fight
In 1974 in Kinshasa, Zaïre, two African American boxers were paid five million dollars apiece to fight each other. One was Muhammad Ali, the aging but irrepressible “professor of boxing.” The other was George Foreman, who was as taciturn as Ali was voluble. Observing them was Norman Mailer, a commentator of unparalleled energy, acumen, and audacity. Whether he is analyzing the fighters’ moves, interpreting their characters, or weighing their competing claims on the African and American souls, Mailer’s grasp of the titanic battle’s feints and stratagems—and his sensitivity to their deeper symbolism—makes this book a masterpiece of the literature of sport.
Praise for The Fight
“Exquisitely refined and attenuated . . . [a] sensitive portrait of an extraordinary athlete and man, and a pugilistic drama fully as exciting as the reality on which it is based.” — The New York Times
“One of the defining texts of sports journalism. Not only does Mailer recall the violent combat with a scholar’s eye . . . he also makes the whole act of reporting seem as exciting as what’s occurring in the ring.” — GQ
“Stylistically, Mailer was the greatest boxing writer of all time.” —Chuck Klosterman, Esquire
“One of Mailer’s finest books.” —Louis Menand, The New Yorker
Praise for Norman Mailer
“[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation.” — The New York Times
“A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent.” — The New Yorker
“Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure.” — The Washington Post
“A devastatingly alive and original creative mind.” — Life
“Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance.” — The New York Review of Books
“The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature . . . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James, Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each new book.” — Chicago Tribune
“Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through the story like a leaf on a stream.” — The Cincinnati Post
Praise for The Fight
“Exquisitely refined and attenuated . . . [a] sensitive portrait of an extraordinary athlete and man, and a pugilistic drama fully as exciting as the reality on which it is based.” — The New York Times
“One of the defining texts of sports journalism. Not only does Mailer recall the violent combat with a scholar’s eye . . . he also makes the whole act of reporting seem as exciting as what’s occurring in the ring.” — GQ
“Stylistically, Mailer was the greatest boxing writer of all time.” —Chuck Klosterman, Esquire
“One of Mailer’s finest books.” —Louis Menand, The New Yorker
Praise for Norman Mailer
“[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation.” — The New York Times
“A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent.” — The New Yorker
“Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure.” — The Washington Post
“A devastatingly alive and original creative mind.” — Life
“Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance.” — The New York Review of Books
“The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature . . . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James, Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each new book.” — Chicago Tribune
“Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through the story like a leaf on a stream.” — The Cincinnati Post
234 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
About the author
Norman Mailer
281 books1,298 followersNorman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.
Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe, Mailer is considered an innovator of creative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called New Journalism, but which covers the essay to the nonfiction novel. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice and the National Book Award once. In 1955, Mailer, together with Ed Fancher and Dan Wolf, first published The Village Voice, which began as an arts- and politics-oriented weekly newspaper initially distributed in Greenwich Village. In 2005, he won the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from The National Book Foundation.
Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe, Mailer is considered an innovator of creative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called New Journalism, but which covers the essay to the nonfiction novel. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice and the National Book Award once. In 1955, Mailer, together with Ed Fancher and Dan Wolf, first published The Village Voice, which began as an arts- and politics-oriented weekly newspaper initially distributed in Greenwich Village. In 2005, he won the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from The National Book Foundation.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 379 reviews
January 15, 2019
This book was a respectable yet not exactly remarkable 4-star affair, up until the thirty or so pages which described the fight itself. That deceptively diminutive section comprised perhaps the most electrifying, intense, transcendent fight writing I’ve ever encountered. The following is my favorite excerpt from that insane whirlwind of prose:
Flawless victory, Mr. Mailer!
“The barrage began. With Ali braced on the ropes, as far back on the ropes as a deep-sea fisherman is braced back in his chair when setting the hook on a big strike, so Ali got ready and Foreman came on to blast him out. A shelling reminiscent of artillery battles in World War I began. Neither man moved more than a few feet in the next minute and a half. Across that embattled short space Foreman threw punches in barrages of four and six and eight and nine, heavy maniacal slamming punches, heavy as the boom of oaken doors, bombs to the body, bolts to the head, punching until he could not breathe, backing off to breathe again and come in again, bomb again, blast again, drive and steam and slam the torso in front of him, wreck him in the arms, break through those arms, get to his ribs, dig him out, dig him out, put the dynamite in the earth, lift him, punch him, punch him up to heaven, take him out, stagger him—great earthmover he must have sobbed to himself, kill this mad and bouncing goat.
And Ali, gloves to his head, elbows to his ribs, stood and swayed and was rattled and banged and shaken like a grasshopper at the top of a reed when the wind whips, and the ropes shook and swung like sheets in a storm, and Foreman would lunge with his right at Ali’s chin and Ali go flying back out of reach by a half-inch, and half out of the ring, and back in to push at Foreman’s elbow and hug his own ribs and sway, and sway just further, and lean back and come forward from the ropes and slide off a punch and fall back into the ropes with all the calm of a man swinging in the rigging.”
Flawless victory, Mr. Mailer!
February 25, 2022
An entertaining account of the Ali-Foreman bout in Zaire and the days preceding the bout. At times Mailer can be pompous and frustrating (though that's part of reading a book by Norman Mailer). But he seems to have reigned himself in with this 200 page book. I haven't read a Mailer novel in ages, despite the fact that he is one of my favorite writers.
Mailer is pretty digressive - the book is not about the Ali-Foreman fight alone. It is about Zaire, its about Mailer himself, African philosophy, about the psyche of boxers and even politics.
Mailer uses figurative language extensively, especially while describing the art of boxing and the psyche of boxers. Some of his similies and metaphors are unbelievably pertinent and clever.
Mailer's description of the bout between Ali and Foreman is pulsating. Some of the philosophical stuff went over my head. Mailer is pretty honest about his racism and his problem with Islam. I saw the ending coming because Mailer uses foreshadowing to tell us who would win the fight.
The book has an amazing cast of larger than life characters - Mohammed Ali, George Foreman, Hunter S Thompson, George Plimpton, Mobutu and Don King.
Well worth the read, for fans of boxing and sports writing. And even others who enjoy great literature.
Mailer is pretty digressive - the book is not about the Ali-Foreman fight alone. It is about Zaire, its about Mailer himself, African philosophy, about the psyche of boxers and even politics.
Mailer uses figurative language extensively, especially while describing the art of boxing and the psyche of boxers. Some of his similies and metaphors are unbelievably pertinent and clever.
Mailer's description of the bout between Ali and Foreman is pulsating. Some of the philosophical stuff went over my head. Mailer is pretty honest about his racism and his problem with Islam. I saw the ending coming because Mailer uses foreshadowing to tell us who would win the fight.
The book has an amazing cast of larger than life characters - Mohammed Ali, George Foreman, Hunter S Thompson, George Plimpton, Mobutu and Don King.
Well worth the read, for fans of boxing and sports writing. And even others who enjoy great literature.
April 22, 2024
The whites of Ali's eyes showed the glaze of a combat soldier who has just seen a dismembered arm go flying across the sky after an explosion.
What a colossal disappointment! This book came highly recommended from various male friends and has a good rating on here. But for me this should have been retitled 'All About Norm' as that's the real subject of Mailer's narrative gaze: himself.
Everything is filtered through a framework of Mailer's thoughts, prejudices, biases, and the main subject is his self-aggrandizing ego. There are long rambles into how Mailer feels about what he calls 'the Blacks' (and he seems obsessed with documenting the precise colour of Black men's skin) allowing himself, with the freedom of 1975, to confess his 'sheer hate for the existence of Black on earth'.
The ostensible subjects - Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, and their legendary fight in Kinshasa, Zaire - are all made subordinate to Norman Mailer. It's only barely allowed for us to 'see' either man without their words and actions being filtered via the over-written prose of Mailer - who seems to consider himself and his opinions the stars of this show.
I expected the prose to be clipped and sparse like that of Hemingway, fading out to allow the subjects to take centre stage, but instead it's florid and verbose, awash with lurid similes like the one quoted at the head of this review. The boxers are almost always described in terms of their race; they are likened to animals - bulls, lions, pumas - to expose both their power and, more troublingly, to suggest their less than human status. When Foreman comes out of his house he is flanked by 'Blacks', not bodyguards. This is a constant throughout the book and when the racialising wasn't putting my back up, the sheer ineptitude of the writing did the job: when we finally - finally! - get to the fight, a punch is described as sounding like 'a bat thunking into a watermelon' - eh?
Anything we learn about the two boxers or the fight feels like it's struggled out from the muffling overthrow of Mailer's own self-obsession: there's a fascinating story here about Ali, Foreman, boxing, Zaire - but all I could hear was Mailer's petulant (white, male) ego screaming me, me, me!
July 16, 2017
One of the factors that tends to dampen my enthusiasm for boxing is that the matches themselves take place so infrequently; if you enjoy watching a certain fighter, it might be months or likely even years before you can watch him fight again. This is due in part, to be sure, to the toll taken on the participants. But contrast this with a sport like Major League Baseball, which offers an embarrassment of riches- 162 games a year, one game almost every single day from April to October. Baseball, a friend said to me recently, "is pastoral, it seems to exist outside of time" (and theoretically, there is no limit to how long a baseball game can last)- there is an unhurriedness to baseball, something comforting about its always being there in the background of one's life as needed, and something comforting about the rhythm of an individual pitcher's unvarying mechanics and delivery, like waves crashing ashore and receding. Furthermore, it almost seems vulgar to suggest that anyone would ever make money off of baseball, or gamble on the outcome (although even players themselves have, many times), that it is anything more than a moving painting of the American heartland in all its good sportsmanship, patriotism and innocence. Baseball is a myth. Boxing, on the other hand, is openly sleazy and violent- this is part of its appeal. The matches sometimes (often, I think?) take place in Las Vegas, which is an indisputably sleazy city. If baseball runs like clockwork, whether or not a boxing match even happens depends on esoteric demands the fighters make of each other (drug tests, weight class, and of course money), as well as a legion of promoters, fixers, TV execs, etc., all getting their cuts. Coming up with a snazzy name for the fight also seems to be crucial. All this for an event that could conceivably be over within a few minutes.
A fight means different things to different people; the events leading up to it are often more interesting than the fight itself. For Mobutu, the dictator of what was in 1974 Zaire, the fight between Ali and Foreman seems to be a way to shore up domestic political support, hosting it as a 'gift' for his people; it is in the basement of the structure, the Stade du 20 Mai, that Mobutu's police force has recently summarily executed 50 purported criminals rounded up from the street- there could still very well be dried blood in the fighters' dressing rooms, Mailer notes. Anyone even remotely connected to the fight seems to descend on Kinshasha about a month in advance: the journalists who spend their time analyzing the matchup from every conceivable angle, its technical and psychological aspects, hanging on every word from the fighters and their trainers as hints to the potential outcome; infamously crazy people like Don King roaming the hotel hallways ("How he could talk...no verbal situation could be foreign to him...once you became accustomed to the stately seesaw of his rhetoric it gave nourishment to your ear the way a Cossack's horse in full stride would give drumbeats to the steppes"); and each fighter's managers, trainers, bodyguards, sparring partners, and miscellaneous hangers-on, occasionally getting acrimonious with each other in the lobby of the Inter-Continental, Foreman's manager's expression seeming to suggest, when asked about the fight, "nobody knows the evil you will see." Mailer's assignment struck me as being a lot of fun- get paid to live in a nice hotel for a month, write down observations, listen to Ali talk, and drink into the wee hours of the morning? I'll take that job if no one else wants it. But maybe it was too much fun: Hunter S. Thompson was there too, to cover the fight for RollingStone, and "never did materials seem more ready", Mailer writes, "for the sensational repudiation Hunter could give to organized madness"; but Thompson seems to have spent most of the time sloshed.
The book finds its main focus in the contrast between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. If, like me, you don't know much about boxing, you might instinctively assume that Ali was the favorite; but this is 1974, Ali in his early 30s is considered to be slightly past his prime, and Foreman, in his mid-20s, is undefeated. The two seem to be opposites not only in the ring- Ali the artist and tactician, Foreman the slugger- but in terms of personality. Mailer captures how Ali, with "the same hysteria one first heard ten years ago", seems to need to talk, even though it also seems to drain him physically, and "something in his voice promised that you would never know how much he believed of what he had to say"; whereas Foreman is reserved and cryptic, sometimes gnomic in his brevity. Ali famously refused to fight in Vietnam, for which he lost his championship title and was banned from fighting for four years of what should have been his athletic prime; Foreman as a kid was accused of
"drunkenness, truancy, vandalism, strong-arm robbery", became a purse-snatcher, and at that "was a total failure; undone by his victims' cries for God's assistance, he was compelled to run back and return all the purses."...We know the rest of the story. Foreman joins the Job Corps, and wins the Heavyweight title in the Olympics before he is twenty-one. He dances around the ring with a little flag. "Don't talk down the American system to me", he says in full investiture of that flag, "its rewards will be there for anybody if he will make up his mind, bend his back, lean hard into his chores and refuse to allow anything to defeat him. I'll wave that flag in every public place I can", to which Ali would shout at a boxing writers' dinner six years later, "I'm going to beat your Christian ass, you white flag-waving bitch."There was a real poetry and humor to Ali's insults. According to Wikipedia, the basketball star Wilt Chamberlain once challenged Ali to a fight, and Ali intimidated the 7'2'' Chamberlain into calling it off with the following suggestions of what might occur in their fight: "timber!", and "the tree will fall!" Earlier, observing Foreman flanked by his bodyguards, Mailer seems to be writing the screenplay introduction for the ultimate Rocky villain:
Other champions had a presence larger than themselves. They offered charisma. Foreman had silence...a Heavyweight champion must live in a world where proportions are gone. He is conceivably the most frightening unarmed killer alive. With his hands he could slay fifty men before he would become too tired to kill any more...one reason Ali inspired love was that his personality invariably suggested that he would not hurt an average man, merely dispose of each attack by a minimal move and go on to the next. Whereas Foreman offered full menace. In any nightmare of carnage, he would go on and on."Yeah I've heard of you", Foreman tells Mailer. "You're the champ among writers." Kind of funny that writers instinctively ascribe art to boxing, and boxers ascribe the principles of a fight to writing. Writing in this view is just another game; you're either the champ or you're a nobody, you're either dominant or getting knocked out.
Mailer chronicles every portent and dream, every conceivable variation of nature and the occult, leading up to the fight. Foreman's dreams, for example, include "a rather complicated" one about teaching a dog to ice-skate; one of Foreman's bodyguards supposedly has a perfect record of seeing in his dreams, the night before the match, the number of the round in which Foreman's opponent will be KO'd. This time, Mailer reports, there's something wrong with the bodyguard's dream, some imperfection, and the bodyguard refuses to speak about it. Mailer goes running with Ali, and finds that he can keep Ali's pace for a solid mile- surely a bad sign for Ali. Outside Mailer's hotel room, he finds that his balcony, which does not have a railing, is separated from his neighbor's by only a six-inch concrete partition; he has the urge to go out and step from one balcony to the next, which involves holding on for a few seconds to nothing but the partition, and finds that he can only bring himself to do it while drunk. He worries that his lack of courage makes him unworthy to root for Ali, may even doom Ali somehow. Ali watches a horror movie the night before the match (held at 4 a.m. local time), Baron Blood, and enjoys it. Mailer wonders if, for a fighter, "the refinement of your best reflexes which sex offered" would be "worth the absence of rapacity it might also leave?" If the book occasionally suggests more about Mailer as a person than the reader wants to know, well, that's part of reading Mailer also. The thing is, Mailer can seriously write- I'm not sure how many people under the age of 35 realize this. My friend Billy is the only other Mailer fan I know who is my age. Yes, Mailer refers to himself in the third person throughout this book, which is weird. And you may not agree or like everything he has to say; but there is not a lazy sentence in the book. Writers like Mailer remind me of language's potential to shape perception, render the haze of thought lucid, and offer pleasure. There are memorable lines throughout- "A man should not open his limbs to sorcery any more than he might encourage his soul to slip into the mists"; "'Have a good run', he said, like the man in the water waving in martyred serenity at the companions to whom he has just offered his spot in the lifeboat"; "All that spirit, all that prick. The two never came together"; "The mood of the bus was like a forest road on a wet winter day"- and maybe it makes sense, being so attuned to portents, that he would also write well about weather:
Then the rainy season, two weeks late...came at last to term with the waters of the cosmos and the groans of the Congo. The rainy season broke, and the stars of the African heaven came down. In the torrent, in that long protracted moon-green dawn, rain fell in silver sheets and silver blankets, waterfalls and rivers, in lakes that dropped like a stone from above, and with a slap of contact louder than the burst of fire in a forest.Does Mailer ever question the nature of boxing, the violence of it, why he and others enjoy it? No, not really. A couple of reviews here criticize him for that. But is he obligated to? Maybe Mailer, who often wrote about violent people (Gary Gilmore, Lee Harvey Oswald), as well as being one himself to a certain degree, saw violence as an unremarkable fact of life, and took it for granted that people, including himself, were attracted to it. One may find this objectionable, or just realistic, but I don't see it as a flaw in the book.
There's incredible tension as he describes Ali in his dressing room before the fight, a tension not necessarily connected to the question of which fighter would win. One is reminded of Mailer's comment that certain observers genuinely feared for Ali's life:
He read the names aloud...and once again contrasted the number of nobodies Foreman had fought with the number of notables he had met. It was as if he had to take still one more look at the marrow of his life. For the first time in all these months, he seemed to want to offer a public showing of the fear which must come to him in a dream. He began to chatter as though no one were in the room and he were talking in his sleep, "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, you can't hit what you can't see"..."It must be dark when you get knocked out", he said, contemplating the ogre of midnight. "Why, I never been knocked out...I been knocked down, but never out." Like a dreamer awakening to the knowledge that the dream is only a net above one's death, he cried out, "That's strange...being stopped." Again, he shook his head. "Yeah", he said, "that's a bad feeling waiting for night to choke up on you..."If at all possible, it is probably most exciting to read this book without knowing the outcome of the fight. I thought I probably knew at first, but was then pleased to realize that I had been confusing The Rumble in the Jungle with The Thrilla' in Manila, in which Ali fought Joe Frazier, and that I did not know the outcome after all.
Then he must have come to the end of this confrontation with feelings that moved in on him like fog..."Yes", he said to the room at large, "let's get ready for the rumble in the jungle", and he began to call to people across the room.
"Hey, Bundini", he cried out, "are we gonna dance?"
But Bundini did not reply. A sorrow was in the room.
"Does anybody hear me?" cried Ali. "Are we going to the dance?"
The Referee...had been waiting. George had time to reach his corner, shuffle his feet, huddle with the trust, get the soles of his shoes in resin, and the fighters were meeting in the center of the ring to get instructions. It was the time for each man to extort a measure of fear from the other...Foreman...had done it to Frazier and then to Norton. A big look, heavy as death, oppressive as the closing of the door of one's tomb.
To Foreman, Ali now said (as everybody was later informed), "You have heard of me since you were young. You've been following me since you were a little boy. Now, you must meet me, your master!"...Foreman blinked, Foreman looked surprised as if he had been impressed just a little more than he expected. He tapped Ali's glove in a move equal to saying, "That's your round. Now we start."
July 11, 2013
Deeply mixed about this book. Mailer's aggressive, deeply masculine prose is perfectly suited to describing physical activity, so the chapters dealing with the actual boxing match are very nearly perfect: exciting, suspenseful, and just breathless enough. Among the very best sports writing that I've read.
On the other hand, Mailer's aggressive, deeply masculine prose causes problems when describing just about anything else. The build-up to and aftermath of the fight are narcissistic, self-serving, condescending, and more than a little racist. His research is lazy. He's clearly in awe of Ali. He makes no effort to explore his own biases about race, boxing, Africa, or anything else. I can't for the life of me figure out what the point is.
Very similar themes are handled much more sensitively and lucidly (if at a fraction of the breathless excitement level, since it's about tennis and not boxing) by John McPhee in his superb "Levels of the Game." Boxing-as-metaphor was never done as well as in AJ Liebling's "Ahab and Nemesis." Read those instead.
On the other hand, Mailer's aggressive, deeply masculine prose causes problems when describing just about anything else. The build-up to and aftermath of the fight are narcissistic, self-serving, condescending, and more than a little racist. His research is lazy. He's clearly in awe of Ali. He makes no effort to explore his own biases about race, boxing, Africa, or anything else. I can't for the life of me figure out what the point is.
Very similar themes are handled much more sensitively and lucidly (if at a fraction of the breathless excitement level, since it's about tennis and not boxing) by John McPhee in his superb "Levels of the Game." Boxing-as-metaphor was never done as well as in AJ Liebling's "Ahab and Nemesis." Read those instead.
July 2, 2017
Βαθμολογία: 9/10
Ο Νόρμαν Μέιλερ ήταν ένα πολύ μεγάλο όνομα στον χώρο της Αμερικάνικης λογοτεχνίας και δημοσιογραφίας, έχοντας στο ενεργητικό του δεκάδες μυθιστορήματα, δοκίμια, δημοσιογραφικά ρεπορτάζ και χρονικά, βραβευμένος μάλιστα δυο φορές με το βραβείο Πούλιτζερ. "Oι γυμνοί και οι νεκροί", "Ένα Αμερικάνικο όνειρο", "Οι στρατιές της νύχτας", "Μαίριλυν", "The Executioner's Song" (δυστυχώς αμετάφραστο στα ελληνικά), είναι μερικά από τα γνωστότερα και πιο πολυσυζητημένα έργα του.
Ε, όταν ένας τέτοιος συγγραφέας γράφει βιβλίο για έναν από τους ιστορικότερους αγώνες πυγμαχίας όλων των εποχών, αυτόν ανάμεσα στον Μοχάμεντ Αλί και τον Τζορτζ Φόρμαν, που έγινε στις 30 Οκτωβρίου του 1974 στο στάδιο "20η Μαΐου" της Κινσάσα, πρωτεύουσας του (τότε) Ζαΐρ, δεν μπορεί παρά να είναι ιδιαίτερο, αξιοπρόσεχτο, οξυδερκές, δυναμικό, κατάλληλα δραματικό. Και όντως είναι. Το μέρος στο οποίο περιγράφεται ο αγώνας δεν είναι και τόσο μεγάλο όσο ίσως θα περίμενε κανείς, όμως είναι από τα πιο δυνατά κομμάτια που έχω διαβάσει. Ο Μέιλερ περιγράφει τα προεόρτια του αγώνα, τον ίδιο τον αγώνα, καθώς και λίγο μετά το τέλος του. Περιγράφει τον Αλί και τον Φόρμαν, την όλη αδημονία για τον μεγάλο αγώνα, την δική του εμπειρία από την όλη δημοσιογραφική κάλυψη, παράλληλα όμως κάνει σχόλια για τους μαύρους, την Αμερική και την Αφρική.
Γενικά είναι ένα συναρπαστικό χρονικό ενός συναρπαστικού αγώνα πυγμαχίας. Ο Μέιλερ με το βιβλίο αυτό κατάφερε να περάσει στον αναγνώστη το κλίμα της εποχής γενικότερα και του αγώνα ειδικότερα, να σκιαγραφήσει τα πορτρέτα των Αλί και Φόρμαν (με φανερή προτίμηση στον Αλί) και, τέλος, να δώσει μια άλλη εικόνα της Αφρικής. Η γραφή είναι πολύ καλή, οξυδερκής, με κάποια βαθιά νοήματα και αρκετές περιγραφές που θυμίζουν ποίηση. Επίσης εντύπωση μου έκανε που η όλη αφήγηση είναι σε τρίτο πρόσωπο, σαν να γράφει κάποιος τρίτος το βιβλίο και όχι ο ίδιος ο Μέιλερ. Σαν να ήθελε ο Μέιλερ να αποποιηθεί τον ρόλο του πρωταγωνιστή και να δείξει ότι απλώς ήταν εκεί, μαζί με χιλιάδες άλλους, για να δει τον πραγματικό πρωταγωνιστή, τον μεγάλο Μοχάμεντ Αλί.
Ο Νόρμαν Μέιλερ ήταν ένα πολύ μεγάλο όνομα στον χώρο της Αμερικάνικης λογοτεχνίας και δημοσιογραφίας, έχοντας στο ενεργητικό του δεκάδες μυθιστορήματα, δοκίμια, δημοσιογραφικά ρεπορτάζ και χρονικά, βραβευμένος μάλιστα δυο φορές με το βραβείο Πούλιτζερ. "Oι γυμνοί και οι νεκροί", "Ένα Αμερικάνικο όνειρο", "Οι στρατιές της νύχτας", "Μαίριλυν", "The Executioner's Song" (δυστυχώς αμετάφραστο στα ελληνικά), είναι μερικά από τα γνωστότερα και πιο πολυσυζητημένα έργα του.
Ε, όταν ένας τέτοιος συγγραφέας γράφει βιβλίο για έναν από τους ιστορικότερους αγώνες πυγμαχίας όλων των εποχών, αυτόν ανάμεσα στον Μοχάμεντ Αλί και τον Τζορτζ Φόρμαν, που έγινε στις 30 Οκτωβρίου του 1974 στο στάδιο "20η Μαΐου" της Κινσάσα, πρωτεύουσας του (τότε) Ζαΐρ, δεν μπορεί παρά να είναι ιδιαίτερο, αξιοπρόσεχτο, οξυδερκές, δυναμικό, κατάλληλα δραματικό. Και όντως είναι. Το μέρος στο οποίο περιγράφεται ο αγώνας δεν είναι και τόσο μεγάλο όσο ίσως θα περίμενε κανείς, όμως είναι από τα πιο δυνατά κομμάτια που έχω διαβάσει. Ο Μέιλερ περιγράφει τα προεόρτια του αγώνα, τον ίδιο τον αγώνα, καθώς και λίγο μετά το τέλος του. Περιγράφει τον Αλί και τον Φόρμαν, την όλη αδημονία για τον μεγάλο αγώνα, την δική του εμπειρία από την όλη δημοσιογραφική κάλυψη, παράλληλα όμως κάνει σχόλια για τους μαύρους, την Αμερική και την Αφρική.
Γενικά είναι ένα συναρπαστικό χρονικό ενός συναρπαστικού αγώνα πυγμαχίας. Ο Μέιλερ με το βιβλίο αυτό κατάφερε να περάσει στον αναγνώστη το κλίμα της εποχής γενικότερα και του αγώνα ειδικότερα, να σκιαγραφήσει τα πορτρέτα των Αλί και Φόρμαν (με φανερή προτίμηση στον Αλί) και, τέλος, να δώσει μια άλλη εικόνα της Αφρικής. Η γραφή είναι πολύ καλή, οξυδερκής, με κάποια βαθιά νοήματα και αρκετές περιγραφές που θυμίζουν ποίηση. Επίσης εντύπωση μου έκανε που η όλη αφήγηση είναι σε τρίτο πρόσωπο, σαν να γράφει κάποιος τρίτος το βιβλίο και όχι ο ίδιος ο Μέιλερ. Σαν να ήθελε ο Μέιλερ να αποποιηθεί τον ρόλο του πρωταγωνιστή και να δείξει ότι απλώς ήταν εκεί, μαζί με χιλιάδες άλλους, για να δει τον πραγματικό πρωταγωνιστή, τον μεγάλο Μοχάμεντ Αλί.
December 30, 2008
Chapters 13-15, about the actual fight, are perhaps the best description of a live sporting event I've ever read, and worth five stars alone. The rest is somewhat discursive, but there is something inherently enjoyable about the very thought of Norman Mailer undertaking an early-morning jog with Muhammad Ali after eating a large meal, getting drunk and gambling all night long with George Plimpton. In fact, I think I've had dreams like this.
January 23, 2014
A few things to know about Norman Mailer: 1. He's full of himself and he's full of baloney. Mailer has never been devoid of ego. He plays the game of writer as prize fighter, and considers every book a match for the crown. He's in the ring with the heavyweights and he wants to out write them all. This gives rise to a great amount of personal huffery that manifests in totally unsupportable opinions (e.g., good fucking makes good babies, ((from a different book)) and a strange belief in his ability to manipulate cosmic forces. He spends pages describing a drunken balancing act that puts a marker in the universe that could just possibly influence the match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. 2., he's an absolutely brilliant journalist, and artist, capable of accurate description, great insight, and beautiful sentences. The joy in reading Mailer is that he keeps defect and attribute in tension, and even has a sense of humor about himself,
And so he brought his remarkable gifts to bear on a boxing match that a great part of the world saw fit to pay attention to, intelligencia saw fit to write about, and fight aficionados talk about forty years later - The Rumble in the Jungle.
Ali v. Foreman and a ten-million dollar purse in the heat, humidity, corruption, and danger of Kinshasa, Zaire. Mailer takes us into the cosmic scene of the African spirit world, the political scene of a country gone to hell, the social scene, the architectural oddities of a stadium that was used to store and torture political prisoners when it wasn't being used for sporting events, the training, the media circus, the fight, and its aftermath, and as deeply into the minds of these two fighters as is possible. What an eye for detail, old Norman has, and what a facility with words to get it all down, from the rapid flurry of combination punches, to the feel of the African night.
Here are a few bits:
On two other fighters, "As boxers, Ellis and Liston had such different moves one could not pass a bowl of soup to the other without spilling it."
On Foreman's marked stillness, "One did not allow violence to dissipate; one stored it. Serenity was the vessel where violence could be stored. So everyone around Foreman had orders to keep people off. They did."
And this final bit of nature writing, "The rainy season broke, and the stars of the African heaven came down. In the torrent, in that long protracted moon-green dawn, rain fell in silver sheets and silver blankets, waterfalls and from above, and with a slap of contact louder than the burst of fire in a forest. It came in buckets, a tropical rain right out of the heart overhead."
But I'm leaving out the 219 words that describe the 8th round knock-out, a description so beautiful it's a marvel it's about a blow to the head that fell a huge man - a heavyweight champion.
I like Mailer. His journalism is almost always a good read, and he's the godfather of Gonzo. The Fight is worth it.
And so he brought his remarkable gifts to bear on a boxing match that a great part of the world saw fit to pay attention to, intelligencia saw fit to write about, and fight aficionados talk about forty years later - The Rumble in the Jungle.
Ali v. Foreman and a ten-million dollar purse in the heat, humidity, corruption, and danger of Kinshasa, Zaire. Mailer takes us into the cosmic scene of the African spirit world, the political scene of a country gone to hell, the social scene, the architectural oddities of a stadium that was used to store and torture political prisoners when it wasn't being used for sporting events, the training, the media circus, the fight, and its aftermath, and as deeply into the minds of these two fighters as is possible. What an eye for detail, old Norman has, and what a facility with words to get it all down, from the rapid flurry of combination punches, to the feel of the African night.
Here are a few bits:
On two other fighters, "As boxers, Ellis and Liston had such different moves one could not pass a bowl of soup to the other without spilling it."
On Foreman's marked stillness, "One did not allow violence to dissipate; one stored it. Serenity was the vessel where violence could be stored. So everyone around Foreman had orders to keep people off. They did."
And this final bit of nature writing, "The rainy season broke, and the stars of the African heaven came down. In the torrent, in that long protracted moon-green dawn, rain fell in silver sheets and silver blankets, waterfalls and from above, and with a slap of contact louder than the burst of fire in a forest. It came in buckets, a tropical rain right out of the heart overhead."
But I'm leaving out the 219 words that describe the 8th round knock-out, a description so beautiful it's a marvel it's about a blow to the head that fell a huge man - a heavyweight champion.
I like Mailer. His journalism is almost always a good read, and he's the godfather of Gonzo. The Fight is worth it.
August 13, 2013
Anything else I write here will only recapitulate my praise for Mailer’s handling of the eponymous subject. Doubtless, too, those who’ve read Mailer—or who’ve merely formed unshakable judgments on the writing based on the public man of dubious character (yes, that’s settled)—already have their minds made up, rendering attempts at persuasion futile.
So, another direction: Read the following linked article, if you can stomach it, a psycho-vivisection of Richard Nixon of equal velocity and incisiveness to his portraits of Foreman and Ali in this volume. Call it a litmus test: if it passes muster, then this book might be for you. If, contrarily, the first paragraph or two sets your teeth grinding and fists balling, then, hey, no loss and you can thank me for the forewarning. Such is the task of separating noteworthy writing from the notoriety of a polarizing figure, a shadow-jester who draws a trail of rage-red memories at his very mention, who still elicits contempt from those who care about such quaint things as journalism that aspires to lasting value (because it is this rarefied group, with its range of opinion, that will have heard of Mailer at all, as the ranks of an older literate generation shrink—not excluding any present readers of this site, naturally).
In summary: Who dares to say we couldn't use a figure of Norman Mailer's eminence right now? Too many, after all, have followed his example without the requisite supply of brains and rigor.
Anyway, here is that litmus test: The Genius, November 2, 1972.
So, another direction: Read the following linked article, if you can stomach it, a psycho-vivisection of Richard Nixon of equal velocity and incisiveness to his portraits of Foreman and Ali in this volume. Call it a litmus test: if it passes muster, then this book might be for you. If, contrarily, the first paragraph or two sets your teeth grinding and fists balling, then, hey, no loss and you can thank me for the forewarning. Such is the task of separating noteworthy writing from the notoriety of a polarizing figure, a shadow-jester who draws a trail of rage-red memories at his very mention, who still elicits contempt from those who care about such quaint things as journalism that aspires to lasting value (because it is this rarefied group, with its range of opinion, that will have heard of Mailer at all, as the ranks of an older literate generation shrink—not excluding any present readers of this site, naturally).
In summary: Who dares to say we couldn't use a figure of Norman Mailer's eminence right now? Too many, after all, have followed his example without the requisite supply of brains and rigor.
Anyway, here is that litmus test: The Genius, November 2, 1972.
May 10, 2013
exhilarating and damn near perfect. less about the fight (though very much about the fight) than about mailer's own crazy-making demons. builds to an absolutely thrilling climax and ends quietly and beautifully with an earned sense of peace. the first mailer book i've ever read where he really just nails an ending. great book.
January 13, 2019
One of the most amazing and historic boxing matches in the colorful history of the sport occurred in 1974 when Muhammad Ali surprised the world and defeated George Foreman to reclaim the world heavyweight title in Zaire. Much has been written about this fight, including this book by renowned author Norman Mailer.
Part historical, part play-by-play and part memoir (Mailer inserts himself in the book), the reader will get an interesting perspective of this fight and the setting in which it took place. Since the book was originally published in 1975, one can easily note that there are sections and passages that would not pass an editor’s eye today, such as when Mailer stated that “Africa is shaped like a pistol, say the people here, and Zaire is the trigger.” He also writes most of the book in a masculine point of view, sometimes a little too much that might make a reader uncomfortable.
At the beginning of the book, he does state that he is going to do this, so it is not unexpected. This will also allow the reader, should he or she wish to continue, to get a different perspective. One part that I did enjoy was when Norman (how he referred to himself throughout the book) went jogging with Ali when the boxer was doing road work. While the pace was slower and he didn’t last the entire length of the run, it was nonetheless something that is not typically found in other books on this fight.
The best aspect of the book are chapters 13 through 15, the fight itself. Here, the “masculinity” of Norman’s writing shines best, as the reader will feel like he or she is ringside. Not just from the punches or reading about Ali’s famous strategy by leaning on the ropes early, but also from what is said by each fighter and their corners. There are similar segments earlier in the book when Mailer visits each fighter’s training and workouts. Knowing how the fight ends before starting the book, it was amazing to see that some of the popular myths about that fight, such as that Foreman was not prepared, are simply that – myths, not actual events.
Some of the early portions of the book seem to drag, but this is an overall quick read and very entertaining. As long as the reader keeps in mind the biases and the time period in which this is written, it should be able to be enjoyed by many readers.
https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...
Part historical, part play-by-play and part memoir (Mailer inserts himself in the book), the reader will get an interesting perspective of this fight and the setting in which it took place. Since the book was originally published in 1975, one can easily note that there are sections and passages that would not pass an editor’s eye today, such as when Mailer stated that “Africa is shaped like a pistol, say the people here, and Zaire is the trigger.” He also writes most of the book in a masculine point of view, sometimes a little too much that might make a reader uncomfortable.
At the beginning of the book, he does state that he is going to do this, so it is not unexpected. This will also allow the reader, should he or she wish to continue, to get a different perspective. One part that I did enjoy was when Norman (how he referred to himself throughout the book) went jogging with Ali when the boxer was doing road work. While the pace was slower and he didn’t last the entire length of the run, it was nonetheless something that is not typically found in other books on this fight.
The best aspect of the book are chapters 13 through 15, the fight itself. Here, the “masculinity” of Norman’s writing shines best, as the reader will feel like he or she is ringside. Not just from the punches or reading about Ali’s famous strategy by leaning on the ropes early, but also from what is said by each fighter and their corners. There are similar segments earlier in the book when Mailer visits each fighter’s training and workouts. Knowing how the fight ends before starting the book, it was amazing to see that some of the popular myths about that fight, such as that Foreman was not prepared, are simply that – myths, not actual events.
Some of the early portions of the book seem to drag, but this is an overall quick read and very entertaining. As long as the reader keeps in mind the biases and the time period in which this is written, it should be able to be enjoyed by many readers.
https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...
November 6, 2023
A very good account of the author’s time in Zaire where he writes a vivid account of the 1974 world heavyweight boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. This fight received worldwide attention at the time.
The author meets the two fighters prior to the fight and provides details of the training and mindsets of each fighter. He goes for a one mile run with Muhammad Ali. Reports on his conversations with Muhammad Ali. Norman Mailer writes about himself in the third person. He mixes with the hangers-on, listening out for the latest word from both camps. He writes about the promoter, Don King.
On arriving in Kinshasa and meeting the two fighters, the author sees Foreman as a formidable threat to Muhammad Ali, believing Muhammad could be seriously injured. He sees Muhammad training and becomes convinced that Muhammad is not at his best and unlikely to win the fight.
Mailer’s description of the fight is excellent, the highlight of this very good book.
Sports journalism at it’s best.
This book was first published in 1975.
The author meets the two fighters prior to the fight and provides details of the training and mindsets of each fighter. He goes for a one mile run with Muhammad Ali. Reports on his conversations with Muhammad Ali. Norman Mailer writes about himself in the third person. He mixes with the hangers-on, listening out for the latest word from both camps. He writes about the promoter, Don King.
On arriving in Kinshasa and meeting the two fighters, the author sees Foreman as a formidable threat to Muhammad Ali, believing Muhammad could be seriously injured. He sees Muhammad training and becomes convinced that Muhammad is not at his best and unlikely to win the fight.
Mailer’s description of the fight is excellent, the highlight of this very good book.
Sports journalism at it’s best.
This book was first published in 1975.
February 4, 2024
‘People—find it hard to take a fighter seriously. They don’t know that I’m using boxing for the sake of getting over certain points you couldn’t get over without it. Being a fighter enables me to attain certain ends. I’m not doing this—for the glory of fighting, but to change a lot of things.’
Not for me. Too much Mailer; not much of Ali (what I meant is that even when the writing is of/about ‘Ali’, it all stank too much of ‘Mailer’). And I came for Ali, not for Mailer, so this was in every way very disappointing for me. Also, Mailer keeps comparing the athletes (mostly Ali, but also the rest of them) to ‘animals’. It’s one thing for Ali to go about that ‘famous’ line : ‘Float like a butterfly; sting like a bee’, and a whole different matter when Mailer does it (and the way he’s done it anyway, I feel). Mostly unimpressed; and a little grossed out. To keep it civil, I’ll just say that in my opinion, Mailer was only able to be the ‘writer’ he was because of his ‘circumstances’.
‘To be trapped in the middle of three seats in Economy on the nineteen-hour flight from Kinshasa to New York with stops at Lagos, Accra, Monrovia and Dakar had to be one of the intimate clues life offered of suffering after death. It was one of the longest flights left in the world, and sometimes one of the worst. Still, Norman liked it. A share of the action of Africa, legal and illegal, seemed to get on and off the plane: hunters and smugglers, engineers and tribal chiefs, Black babies, and a mysterious white man in a black suit, white shirt, black tie who travelled First Class with a black leather satchel in the empty seat next to him.’
Also, if I’m not reading it too carelessly (I don’t think I am), Mailer does at various points in the book refer to himself in third person? To me, it was (generally just) very jarring. I know Mailer’s ‘known to be’ an egotistical shitfuck (to put it simply, albeit bluntly), but I thought there was still something to appreciate. Evidently, I thought wrong (or at least it’s just not working for me at all). I just don’t think Mailer adds anything particularly ‘important’ or especially pleasurable to the world/ ‘literature’. Definitely a writer one can do without, in my opinion. But some other readers might even ‘like’ his work. I’m just not one of them. I prefer Eduardo Galeano when it comes to ‘sports’ writing. He’s probably the best if not one the best. On top of that, I’ve just started reading Granta 45, and I am actually enjoying that (so much more).
‘Old competitive Archie, never an athlete to overlook an advantage, brought his special paddle to the fray, and it was as thick in foam rubber as the rear seat of a Cadillac. The sauciest tongue in London could not have given more English to the ball. A professional game hunter once remarked that the most dangerous animal he ever faced in Africa was a charging leopard.’
I also didn’t find Mailer’s ‘jokes’ funny. I don’t know if it’s because it’s all so very ‘dated’. Or I just don’t vibe with his sort of humour. I don’t think it’s (stereotypical) ‘American’ humour precisely (but honestly what do I know), but just the way Mailer forcefully draws on English stereotypes that may have been more popular/known at the time/period this was written? In any case — whatever he constructed in his book didn’t work on me at all. Found it all quite tedious and cringe in a bad way (and not in a cute/endearing way, which of course is the only acceptable form of ‘cringe’, no?).
‘Like an overheated animal, Ali was lying on the steps of his villa, cooling his body against the stone—He shook his head in a blank sort of self-pity as if some joy that once resided in his juices had been expended forever.’
‘Every fighter had a part of the body you remembered. With Joe Frazier, it was the legs. They were not even like tree trunks, more like truncated gorillas pushing forward, working uphill, pushing forward.’
Ultimately it’s my fault for being carelessly curious, or more accurately — for choosing a ‘lesser’, and not-particularly-good curiosity to satiate. Should have ditched this much earlier on and/to read some James Baldwin instead (who by the way have written an entire article about how Mailer ‘hypersexualised’ black men (and gets away with it all the time), for starters). In any case I’m glad this was short, and I now know I will probably never want to pick up another book with his name on it.
‘On the night José Torres beat Willie Pastrano for the Light-Heavyweight Championship, he had been afraid to cheer for fear bad luck would fall upon his friend José. He loved Torres more after the fight because he had been able to win despite the luxury of a friend who was such bad luck as Norman Mailer. That is a frightful idea for a man to have of himself. It is inverse vanity more poisonous than vanity itself. The agent of bad luck. He even doubted whether he had had the right to run with Ali. So a victory for Muhammad on this night would be like a sign of liberation for himself, an indication that he might be rid of the curse of carrying treacherous luck.’
January 31, 2013
3 1/2 stars. The thing about Norman Mailer, in my opinion, is that he sometimes thinks that he is to writing as what Muhammad Ali is to boxing and that he can do no wrong. By being the greatest writer of all time he makes reading a simple thing like a book about a very famous boxing match a more difficult read than it needs to be.
At times this book gets confusing, like around chapter 2 or 3 where Norman starts to question his love of Black people and that maybe he might be a racist after all. What are you trying to say Norman? That you are racist when it comes to African American black men, their pimp ideology, their jive attitude (this was written in the 70's and I'm not playing race cards here), but the African black man is a more spiritual, more intelligent, more introspective type of person? Or are you just angry that you flew all the way to Africa with a stomach virus only to find out that when you arrived the fight had been postponed due to George Foreman's cut eye and felt like taking it out on a race of people?
Also, Norman, why are you constantly referring to yourself in the third person? Why did you feel the need to get drunk and go balcony hopping at the Intercontinental Hotel? Did you really think your "act of drunken bravery" would help Ali regain his title? Why did you feel like telling us in the first place, to demonstrate your manliness? Did you really like Don King all that much or was I just interpreting your words incorrectly. Why did you feel the need to name drop Hunter S. Thompson into your book, only to use him for two pages? What were you trying to convey by quoting Thompson's "Bad Genet" when referring to Don King? I'm not that smart Norman and I need an explanation!
In all fairness, this book was by far and away one of the best boxing books I have ever read, even with all the tangents and the sometimes indecipherable prose and confusing story line. It is the best description and recreation of the rope-a-dope I have ever read in a book. Mailer does a great job of building suspense (even though the outcome was already decided when the book came out) by conveying the nervousness of the Ali camp (many thought he would be killed in the ring by Foreman, including the author himself) and the cockiness of the Foreman camp (not very many of George's opponents got to see round numbers in the double digits when George was in his prime). Its just that there were moments in the reading of the book where I wondered what a particular tangent was supposed to convey; it felt like he was padding the story a bit too much in order to make it more of a book and not a really long magazine article. So 3 1/2 stars is about as best as I can do.
On a side note, I know the Rumble in the Jungle is not the greatest boxing match in history, that title belongs to Ali vs. Joe (Smokin' Joe!!!!) Frazier and the Thrilla in Manilla or the classic good vs. evil battles between Joe Lewis and Max Schmeling (fighting for democracy against Hitler's Germany [even though Schmeling wasn't a Nazi and hated(?) what the Nazi party stood for and Joe Lewis was considered a second class citizen even though he fought for his country and represented America with class for the most part]). It is no longer the greatest upset in boxing history (debatable) and it was never really the greatest upset sports history in general, but when I was preparing this review (which I've had a lot of fun making) I was surprised to come across a few websites that didn't even list the "Rumble in the Jungle" in their top 15 or their top 50 or that it was so low on this list (#152) that they thought this guys fifteen seconds (#120)and this technological revolution (#52, 52? really) were more important sports moments.
I guess that's why I still wish the Mayans were right
Sorry for any bad links, I'm still learning.
At times this book gets confusing, like around chapter 2 or 3 where Norman starts to question his love of Black people and that maybe he might be a racist after all. What are you trying to say Norman? That you are racist when it comes to African American black men, their pimp ideology, their jive attitude (this was written in the 70's and I'm not playing race cards here), but the African black man is a more spiritual, more intelligent, more introspective type of person? Or are you just angry that you flew all the way to Africa with a stomach virus only to find out that when you arrived the fight had been postponed due to George Foreman's cut eye and felt like taking it out on a race of people?
Also, Norman, why are you constantly referring to yourself in the third person? Why did you feel the need to get drunk and go balcony hopping at the Intercontinental Hotel? Did you really think your "act of drunken bravery" would help Ali regain his title? Why did you feel like telling us in the first place, to demonstrate your manliness? Did you really like Don King all that much or was I just interpreting your words incorrectly. Why did you feel the need to name drop Hunter S. Thompson into your book, only to use him for two pages? What were you trying to convey by quoting Thompson's "Bad Genet" when referring to Don King? I'm not that smart Norman and I need an explanation!
In all fairness, this book was by far and away one of the best boxing books I have ever read, even with all the tangents and the sometimes indecipherable prose and confusing story line. It is the best description and recreation of the rope-a-dope I have ever read in a book. Mailer does a great job of building suspense (even though the outcome was already decided when the book came out) by conveying the nervousness of the Ali camp (many thought he would be killed in the ring by Foreman, including the author himself) and the cockiness of the Foreman camp (not very many of George's opponents got to see round numbers in the double digits when George was in his prime). Its just that there were moments in the reading of the book where I wondered what a particular tangent was supposed to convey; it felt like he was padding the story a bit too much in order to make it more of a book and not a really long magazine article. So 3 1/2 stars is about as best as I can do.
On a side note, I know the Rumble in the Jungle is not the greatest boxing match in history, that title belongs to Ali vs. Joe (Smokin' Joe!!!!) Frazier and the Thrilla in Manilla or the classic good vs. evil battles between Joe Lewis and Max Schmeling (fighting for democracy against Hitler's Germany [even though Schmeling wasn't a Nazi and hated(?) what the Nazi party stood for and Joe Lewis was considered a second class citizen even though he fought for his country and represented America with class for the most part]). It is no longer the greatest upset in boxing history (debatable) and it was never really the greatest upset sports history in general, but when I was preparing this review (which I've had a lot of fun making) I was surprised to come across a few websites that didn't even list the "Rumble in the Jungle" in their top 15 or their top 50 or that it was so low on this list (#152) that they thought this guys fifteen seconds (#120)and this technological revolution (#52, 52? really) were more important sports moments.
I guess that's why I still wish the Mayans were right
Sorry for any bad links, I'm still learning.
April 3, 2014
Today it seems unlikely, but in 1974 two sporting greats travelled from the United States to Africa, to battle it out in Kinshasa (then in Zaire, but today in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.) Challenger Muhammad Ali was to fight George Foreman, an unbeaten fighter, and apparently unbeatable. Before it even happened, the Rumble in the Jungle was hyped as the biggest fight of the decade. It might now be the greatest sporting event of the twentieth century.
The fighters travelled to Zaire at the start of the summer of 1974. They needed to acclimatise to the African heat. The fight was set for September but Foreman was cut near his eye during training, so the fight was moved to October 30 of that year. The expectation of this fight was so great, the world’s press descended on Kinshasa. There was David Frost, the TV reporter. George Plimpton, a journalist of great standing. Hunter S. Thompson too. And there was Norman Mailer, who reported on the fight and its build-up, and who published some of his reports in Playboy, then collected the pieces, and more besides, and published his account of those months in Zaire as The Fight in 1975.
In the forty years since that slice of boxing history happened, the world has changed. It is difficult now to imagine such a sporting spectacle. Along with the fighters and the press, there were musicians performing a concert – James Brown, B.B. King, and Bill Withers, to name just a few. The fight became a moment of cultural significance, and remains in the public consciousness even today. The atmosphere of carnival set against the threat of violence on the Zaire streets is a potent mix, and Mailer, in his book of those days, The Fight, rhapsodies beautifully. In his distinctive prose, Mailer punches as hard as Ali, and this account has sequences that cause even boxing’s sternest critics to applaud.
Of course Mailer does not just describe the events of 1974. He sets this classic battle within the wider context of contemporary black culture, quoting from such figures as Amos Tutuola and Louis Farrakham. President Mobutu of Zaire has allowed the fight to be held in his country as a showcase of "Black honour", and a victory for "Mobutuism". Politics continually threaten to co-opt this fight, but the two men at its heart – Ali and Foreman – keep the focus on them, on their battle, and have the Zaireans cheering for them, rather than Mobutu.
To me the weakest part of Mailer’s brilliant work is the description of the fight. Words fail to describe the physicality of the match. It cannot give true measure to the weight of the punch, the blow of gloved fist against flesh, the smell of sweat. Boxing is a physical dance, and Mailer can give only an impressionist portrait of how it all went down. That said, he still gives probably the best description of the fight from any writer, and it in no way compromises his narrative.
The Fight is a great historical document now. Mailer has come closer than anyone in turning sport writing into art; but then this is more than mere sport writing. This is cultural writing, an insight into a changing world, and essential reading for anybody wanting to understand the American mind in the latter half of the twentieth century.
The fighters travelled to Zaire at the start of the summer of 1974. They needed to acclimatise to the African heat. The fight was set for September but Foreman was cut near his eye during training, so the fight was moved to October 30 of that year. The expectation of this fight was so great, the world’s press descended on Kinshasa. There was David Frost, the TV reporter. George Plimpton, a journalist of great standing. Hunter S. Thompson too. And there was Norman Mailer, who reported on the fight and its build-up, and who published some of his reports in Playboy, then collected the pieces, and more besides, and published his account of those months in Zaire as The Fight in 1975.
In the forty years since that slice of boxing history happened, the world has changed. It is difficult now to imagine such a sporting spectacle. Along with the fighters and the press, there were musicians performing a concert – James Brown, B.B. King, and Bill Withers, to name just a few. The fight became a moment of cultural significance, and remains in the public consciousness even today. The atmosphere of carnival set against the threat of violence on the Zaire streets is a potent mix, and Mailer, in his book of those days, The Fight, rhapsodies beautifully. In his distinctive prose, Mailer punches as hard as Ali, and this account has sequences that cause even boxing’s sternest critics to applaud.
Of course Mailer does not just describe the events of 1974. He sets this classic battle within the wider context of contemporary black culture, quoting from such figures as Amos Tutuola and Louis Farrakham. President Mobutu of Zaire has allowed the fight to be held in his country as a showcase of "Black honour", and a victory for "Mobutuism". Politics continually threaten to co-opt this fight, but the two men at its heart – Ali and Foreman – keep the focus on them, on their battle, and have the Zaireans cheering for them, rather than Mobutu.
To me the weakest part of Mailer’s brilliant work is the description of the fight. Words fail to describe the physicality of the match. It cannot give true measure to the weight of the punch, the blow of gloved fist against flesh, the smell of sweat. Boxing is a physical dance, and Mailer can give only an impressionist portrait of how it all went down. That said, he still gives probably the best description of the fight from any writer, and it in no way compromises his narrative.
The Fight is a great historical document now. Mailer has come closer than anyone in turning sport writing into art; but then this is more than mere sport writing. This is cultural writing, an insight into a changing world, and essential reading for anybody wanting to understand the American mind in the latter half of the twentieth century.
April 24, 2024
This was a real disappointment for me.
I've never read Mailer before but knew of him as the author of two highly regarded books (The Naked and the Dead and The Executioner's Song), an outsized personality, a celebrity intellectual and a forerunner of the kind of journalism that puts the writer front and center with the subject matter.
I was shocked by how little excitement this book generated for me, given that it it hit so many of my sweet spots: Africa, the 70's and Muhammad Ali. I was hoping for a unique perspective on these, but Norman Mailer was always in the way. And the discourse on Bantu Philosophy was absurd -- as if an entire continent of hundreds (thousands?) of languages, civilisations and eras could be summed up as a single doctrine by a single Belgian missionary! And the absurd cataloguing of every man's shade of blackness! And the potted history of Zaire!
I did enjoy the description of the actual fight, but given my disagreement with the way everything before it was laid out, I hardly know whether to believe it.
After I got over my initial disappointment I kept finding sentences that called out for argument, but I don't care to write the review. It's just not worth it.
I've never read Mailer before but knew of him as the author of two highly regarded books (The Naked and the Dead and The Executioner's Song), an outsized personality, a celebrity intellectual and a forerunner of the kind of journalism that puts the writer front and center with the subject matter.
I was shocked by how little excitement this book generated for me, given that it it hit so many of my sweet spots: Africa, the 70's and Muhammad Ali. I was hoping for a unique perspective on these, but Norman Mailer was always in the way. And the discourse on Bantu Philosophy was absurd -- as if an entire continent of hundreds (thousands?) of languages, civilisations and eras could be summed up as a single doctrine by a single Belgian missionary! And the absurd cataloguing of every man's shade of blackness! And the potted history of Zaire!
I did enjoy the description of the actual fight, but given my disagreement with the way everything before it was laid out, I hardly know whether to believe it.
After I got over my initial disappointment I kept finding sentences that called out for argument, but I don't care to write the review. It's just not worth it.
April 25, 2020
Deeply disappointed by this book. Mailer squanders a great opportunity to provide insight into one of the most interesting episodes in the life of one of the most compelling figures of the 20th Century. Chooses instead to offer self-aggrandizing vignettes and over-wrought prose. Read Remnick's masterful King of the World (about the Liston-era Ali), watch When We Were Kings (about the Ali-Foreman fight) and leave this one on the shelf.
April 20, 2018
20. yüzyılın en önemli spor olaylarından birinin öncesini ve sonrasını bütün edebi yeteneği ile çok güzel anlatmış Norman Mailer. Röportajın, spor karşılaşmalarını anlatmanın saf edebiyat olabileceğinin çok güzel bir örneği.
September 11, 2020
De afgelopen jaren werd mij door verschillende mensen op verschillende momenten hetzelfde boek aangeraden, nu vond ik eindelijk tijd om het te lezen: Norman Mailers Het gevecht, zijn non-fictieverslag van de Rumble in de Jungle, het fameuze boksgevecht dat in 1974 plaatsvond tussen Muhammad Ali en George Foreman. Hoewel ik niets van boksen weet en de sport me weinig interesseert, waren een paar pagina’s genoeg om te beseffen waarom mensen het me hadden aangeraden. Heel soepel roept Mailer dat gevecht tot leven, inclusief de intensieve, deels psychologische voorbereiding. (Die extra lang was omdat het gevecht in Kinshasa, Zaïre werd gestreden en de boksers zich moesten aanpassen aan de omstandigheden ter plaatse.)
Oorspronkelijk werd Het gevecht (vertaling Willem Visser en Frans Reusink) geschreven als een journalistieke reportage, maar dan duidelijk wel het soort waarbij de auteur vrij spel krijgt – en juist dat maakt dit boek zo de moeite waard. Mailer neemt de tijd om uit te wijden, soms over bijzaken, soms over boksen zelf. Nooit vertelt hij simpel na wat er gebeurt, hij zoomt regelmatig uitgebreid in op allerlei details, en door de heldere structuur (dagenlange voorbereiding en training, ten slotte het gevecht) behoudt het boek zelfs daarbij toch een dwingende kracht.
We weten immers steeds dat dat grote gevecht eraan zit te komen – en zelfs als je weet hoe het afloopt, of als je zoals ik de prachtdocumentaire When We Were Kings (1996) over ditzelfde gevecht hebt gezien, zijn die gevechtsscènes heel sterk geschreven. Tientallen bladzijden lang gaat Mailer in op het geknok, hij beschrijft elke vuistslag, ieder samentrekking van Foremans of Ali’s spieren, en vooral beschrijft hij hoezeer boksen ook een mentale sport is. Ali die zowel de underdog als branieschoppende uitdager is; Foreman de grote, schijnbaar onverslaanbare favoriet. En hun onderlinge rolverdeling en hiërarchie, die zelfs tijdens het gevecht steeds verspringt.
Mailer neemt de tijd voor zijn verhaal, volgens sommigen misschien te veel, het boek bestaat voor zeker honderdvijftig pagina’s uit voorbereiding. Maar juist daardoor krijgt de climax extra gewicht. Ook fijn: Mailer duidt niet, hij laat zien. Zijn proza is ritmisch en doordacht, of hij nu ingaat op de politieke context van Zaïre, of Ali terloops karakteriseert terwijl die staat te trainen.
‘Soms leek Ali sprekend op een blanke acteur die te weinig schmink ophad voor zijn rol […] en niet helemaal overtuigde – een van de achthonderd kleinere tegenstrijdigheden van Ali. […] Foreman kon door de lobby lopen als de potente verpersoonlijking van een levende dode, alert op alles en in zijn stilte immuun voor de achteloze verontreiniging van het handenschudden van Jan en allemaal. Foremans handen waren van hem gescheiden […] Ze waren zijn instrument, en hij hield ze in zijn zakken zoals een jager zijn geweer in een fluwelen kist bewaart.’
Dat zijn twee figuren die tot leven komen, en die me – dat weet ik nu al – door Mailers schrijven zullen bijblijven. Het gevecht is een boek waarin een historische gebeurtenis inclusief context krachtig wordt opgeroepen, en ook het soort boek dat nu niet meer snel geschreven zou worden: niet alleen omdat er geen tijdschrift meer plaats biedt aan zo’n enorme reportage, ook omdat Mailer schrijft met een zelfvoldaanheid die tegenwoordig snel zou worden afgeserveerd.
Behalve interessant en vlot is Het gevecht een onmiskenbaar ijdel boek. Voortdurend voert Mailer (1923-2007) – hij won de National Book Award en tweemaal de Pulitzerprijs, las ik op de achterflap – zichzelf op, en niet zomaar in een beschouwende rol, maar als belangrijk personage: in de derde persoon enkelvoud omschrijft hij hoe hij ergens binnenkomt, hoe masculien, stoer en vanzelfsprekend belangrijk hij is, hoe veel complimenten hij van Ali krijgt. Fragmenten in die laatste categorie zijn af en toe vrij lachwekkend, meermaals vroeg ik me af of eigenlijk ooit iemand tegen Mailer zei dat hij gerust een passage kon schrappen, of zichzelf wellicht iets minder belangrijk kon maken. Toch kwam ook bij de vraag op: als Mailer zich werkelijk had ingehouden, was Het gevecht dan net zo’n boeiend boek geworden als het nu is?
Oorspronkelijk werd Het gevecht (vertaling Willem Visser en Frans Reusink) geschreven als een journalistieke reportage, maar dan duidelijk wel het soort waarbij de auteur vrij spel krijgt – en juist dat maakt dit boek zo de moeite waard. Mailer neemt de tijd om uit te wijden, soms over bijzaken, soms over boksen zelf. Nooit vertelt hij simpel na wat er gebeurt, hij zoomt regelmatig uitgebreid in op allerlei details, en door de heldere structuur (dagenlange voorbereiding en training, ten slotte het gevecht) behoudt het boek zelfs daarbij toch een dwingende kracht.
We weten immers steeds dat dat grote gevecht eraan zit te komen – en zelfs als je weet hoe het afloopt, of als je zoals ik de prachtdocumentaire When We Were Kings (1996) over ditzelfde gevecht hebt gezien, zijn die gevechtsscènes heel sterk geschreven. Tientallen bladzijden lang gaat Mailer in op het geknok, hij beschrijft elke vuistslag, ieder samentrekking van Foremans of Ali’s spieren, en vooral beschrijft hij hoezeer boksen ook een mentale sport is. Ali die zowel de underdog als branieschoppende uitdager is; Foreman de grote, schijnbaar onverslaanbare favoriet. En hun onderlinge rolverdeling en hiërarchie, die zelfs tijdens het gevecht steeds verspringt.
Mailer neemt de tijd voor zijn verhaal, volgens sommigen misschien te veel, het boek bestaat voor zeker honderdvijftig pagina’s uit voorbereiding. Maar juist daardoor krijgt de climax extra gewicht. Ook fijn: Mailer duidt niet, hij laat zien. Zijn proza is ritmisch en doordacht, of hij nu ingaat op de politieke context van Zaïre, of Ali terloops karakteriseert terwijl die staat te trainen.
‘Soms leek Ali sprekend op een blanke acteur die te weinig schmink ophad voor zijn rol […] en niet helemaal overtuigde – een van de achthonderd kleinere tegenstrijdigheden van Ali. […] Foreman kon door de lobby lopen als de potente verpersoonlijking van een levende dode, alert op alles en in zijn stilte immuun voor de achteloze verontreiniging van het handenschudden van Jan en allemaal. Foremans handen waren van hem gescheiden […] Ze waren zijn instrument, en hij hield ze in zijn zakken zoals een jager zijn geweer in een fluwelen kist bewaart.’
Dat zijn twee figuren die tot leven komen, en die me – dat weet ik nu al – door Mailers schrijven zullen bijblijven. Het gevecht is een boek waarin een historische gebeurtenis inclusief context krachtig wordt opgeroepen, en ook het soort boek dat nu niet meer snel geschreven zou worden: niet alleen omdat er geen tijdschrift meer plaats biedt aan zo’n enorme reportage, ook omdat Mailer schrijft met een zelfvoldaanheid die tegenwoordig snel zou worden afgeserveerd.
Behalve interessant en vlot is Het gevecht een onmiskenbaar ijdel boek. Voortdurend voert Mailer (1923-2007) – hij won de National Book Award en tweemaal de Pulitzerprijs, las ik op de achterflap – zichzelf op, en niet zomaar in een beschouwende rol, maar als belangrijk personage: in de derde persoon enkelvoud omschrijft hij hoe hij ergens binnenkomt, hoe masculien, stoer en vanzelfsprekend belangrijk hij is, hoe veel complimenten hij van Ali krijgt. Fragmenten in die laatste categorie zijn af en toe vrij lachwekkend, meermaals vroeg ik me af of eigenlijk ooit iemand tegen Mailer zei dat hij gerust een passage kon schrappen, of zichzelf wellicht iets minder belangrijk kon maken. Toch kwam ook bij de vraag op: als Mailer zich werkelijk had ingehouden, was Het gevecht dan net zo’n boeiend boek geworden als het nu is?
Read
February 10, 2023*I started my YouTube channel back up, where I'm posting reviews of books, comics, movies, shows, games, and whatever else I feel like talking about on there. Go find it here. Don't worry, I won't stop writing reviews on here.*
Norman Mailer takes what is ostensibly a couple of news reports about the iconic 'Rumble in The Jungle' fight and manages to turn it into a compelling narrative. Mailer goes right alongside guys like Hunter S. Thompson in finding a narrative art in journalism that I wasn't aware even existed in the first place. It's not even a report anymore, it's a novel that just happens to be factual.
The prose is clean and laconic, at once it makes you think of Hemingway and then Conrad's Heart of Darkness, considering its setting. Mailer isn't very subtle about his influences since he mentions both Conrad's masterpiece and Hemingway in the book, and he shares Hemingway's love for machismo. The book moves along nicely because of Mailer's storytelling gift, and his ability to immerse you into the atmosphere of Zaire.
But this isn't merely a sports book, I was quite surprised by Mailer's political commentary and astute observations about the state of Zaire. One might say that this book feels like a companion piece to Conrad's original novel about the heart of darkness, and there is a sense that nothing has changed since the days of King Leopold II and the trauma that came with that. It almost seems as if the Zairians traded one dictator for another, except one that doesn't maim them for his own enrichment.
Easily the best aspects of this book are the fight sequences, which Mailer writes with gusto and with such energy and ferocity that it feels like sparks are coming from the pages. It gets you to the point where you're shadowboxing along with the fight, and are wrapped up within the event itself. For Mailer, this isn't merely a sports match: it is a battle between two warriors who are some of the best at what they do. In one fell swoop, Mailer captures what made Ali so dynamic as a fighter: his speed, his adaptability, and his range that he could use to outmaneuver his opponents. Mailer certainly shows his awe of Ali's abilities without much reservation, but he keeps it to where others can appreciate why Ali was indeed the greatest.
Admittedly, there are aspects of this book that haven't aged well. One might decry this book as racist, and I wouldn't really blame them. Mailer certainly has views that would probably make people wince in discomfort today. His depiction of Africans as 'Blacks' certainly had me wincing every once in a while. Luckily, he plays it in a way that's smart enough where it doesn't get in the way of the story that the book feels like it's being distracted by the strange, slightly racist, diatribes (cough cough Lovecraft.)
Sadly, I haven't read a lot of books about boxing, despite my enjoyment of the sport. But after reading this, I am unsure if I will read another book about the sport that reaches this level of engagement and entertainment.
November 3, 2023
Muito ego, pouco da luta de fato.
October 8, 2023
Le combat du siècle ou The Rumble in the Jungle est le combat, organisé par Don King, qui eut lieu en 1974 à Kinshasa (au Zaïre, devenu depuis la RDC) et qui opposa les deux plus grands boxeurs de l’époque, le puncheur Georges Foreman et le technicien Mohamed Ali pour la conquête du titre de champion du monde de boxe anglaise. Et ce n’est pas tout, le combat n’est pas raconté par n’importe quel journaliste, mais par l’écrivain Norman Mailer plusieurs fois lauréat du prix Pulitzer. Vous en voulez encore ? Mailer a inscrit son récit dans la mouvance du nouveau journalisme. Le récit est très novateur – même aujourd’hui prés de 50 ans après sa publication – puisqu’il sort du cadre du reportage pour s’inclure dans le récit – il parle d’ailleurs de lui à la troisième personne, en utilisant son prénom, Norman – comme le fait aujourd’hui Emmanuel Carrère et comme l’on fait avant lui Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote, Joan Didion ou encore le roi du Gonzo Hunter S. Thomson – ce dernier est d’ailleurs présent dans le récit puisqu’il se trouvait sur place pour suivre l’évènement. Il profite de cette position d’observateur pour dire son étonnement de découvrir ce pays immense au coeur de l’Afrique dirigé par le dictateur Mobutu.
Mais n’ayez crainte après la longue attente avant le combat – Foreman s’était blessé à l’entrainement –, il endossera parfaitement le costume de journaliste sportif pour nous faire vivre l’évènement comme si nous étions assis au 2ème rang du stade de Kinshasa. J’ai visionné la vidéo du combat après avoir lu le livre et je peux vous assurer que la description qu’il en fait est non seulement fidèle, mais constitue un véritable tour de force.
Également publié sur mon blog.
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[1] Les premiers colons portugais avaient retranscrit ce qu’ils avaient entendu lorsqu’ils avaient demandé aux habitants le nom de leur pays, alors que le mot d’origine Nzere signifiait simplement grand fleuve. Cette anecdote est relatée en détail dans Congo.
Résultat, ils annoncent que le Congo s’appelle Zaïre, maintenant. Et puis ils se rendent compte que ce n’est pas un mot d’origine africaine. Ça vient du portugais ancien[1], en réalité. Mais n’attendez pas un instant qu’il [Mobutu] admette l’erreur: se serait s’exposer au ridicule
Mais n’ayez crainte après la longue attente avant le combat – Foreman s’était blessé à l’entrainement –, il endossera parfaitement le costume de journaliste sportif pour nous faire vivre l’évènement comme si nous étions assis au 2ème rang du stade de Kinshasa. J’ai visionné la vidéo du combat après avoir lu le livre et je peux vous assurer que la description qu’il en fait est non seulement fidèle, mais constitue un véritable tour de force.
Également publié sur mon blog.
---
[1] Les premiers colons portugais avaient retranscrit ce qu’ils avaient entendu lorsqu’ils avaient demandé aux habitants le nom de leur pays, alors que le mot d’origine Nzere signifiait simplement grand fleuve. Cette anecdote est relatée en détail dans Congo.
January 18, 2010
This was definitely something. This was my first time reading Mailer, and I'd never really read something written with that kind of self-important style before, and I didn't even know what to expect going in. But I enjoyed the book quite a bit for what it was and what it wasn't.
The description of the fight was tremendous and Mailer's take on both fighters was so distinct and fantastic that you really felt as though you were there. There's something to be said for being able to persuade the reader toward the view of Foreman being the heavy favorite so long after the events have already been written in history.
Mailer writing himself in the third person seemed perfectly fine to fit in with the African religious themes he describes, and it just gives a flavor to the book that I didn't expect going in. Definitely recommended if you have an interest in classic American authors, combat sports, or feature-length in-person journalistic accounts.
The description of the fight was tremendous and Mailer's take on both fighters was so distinct and fantastic that you really felt as though you were there. There's something to be said for being able to persuade the reader toward the view of Foreman being the heavy favorite so long after the events have already been written in history.
Mailer writing himself in the third person seemed perfectly fine to fit in with the African religious themes he describes, and it just gives a flavor to the book that I didn't expect going in. Definitely recommended if you have an interest in classic American authors, combat sports, or feature-length in-person journalistic accounts.
February 25, 2023
This is the book that Hemingway should have written about bullfighting. An absolutely wonderful read that is enhanced by the enigmatic Ubuntu philosophy that animates it. In this work we watch Mailer work out his own attitudes and prejudices as he falls down the rabbit hole of the black art of boxing. As readers we too become infected with Conrad’s amour de l’afrique... what a great love letter to Africa this book is.
January 30, 2019
Mailer's writing here takes my breath away, the audacity of it, the scene building, the way in this book it mirrors the fight it describes--a few wild swings of sentences, sure, but so many magnificent punches landed. Wonderful.
June 28, 2017
Norman Mailer's frustratingly flawed but sometimes brilliant account, widely regarded as a classic, of the iconic Rumble in the Jungle is the story of three men; former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, unstoppable new champ George Foreman and, of course, being such a narcissist he makes sure to both shove himself into the story as much as possible, refer to himself in the third person and tell us how critics mistakenly think he's a great big narcissist, Norman Mailer.
Already years past his best, even if the trauma of the Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick fights were some way off, the Ali of 1974 looked primed for absolute butchery at the mighty fists of Foreman (40-0 with 38 KO/TKOs including two round demolitions of Joe Frazier and Ken Norton) and, as Mailer details, the contrast between champion and challenger is stark.
While Foreman (still many years away from being the cuddly, grandfatherly grill shill of popular imagination) quietly went about his training and media work, a hard, repetitive, punishment of heavy bags and quietly thoughtful press conferences, Ali treated his own obligations as one and the same thing, yelling and lecturing and haranguing the media and occasionally indulging in some gentle sparring in the ring.
Out on the road in the middle of the night, Ali exhausted himself on a two-and-a-half mile run so pedestrian that Mailer, 51 on a full belly and a couple of cocktails up, stayed with him until the final mile, leading him to conclude "it was no way for a man fighting for the Heavyweight title to do roadwork. Norman did not see how Ali could win."
While he's physically absent from the story, Zaire's mad President Mobutu is everywhere. From the roadside slogans to the grim, bloodsoaked past of Kinshasa's Memling hotel to the Israeli-armed security guards 'protecting' Foreman's villa, the Zaire Mailer describes is a vivid glimpse of Mobutu's oppressively paranoid kleptocracy.
Worse, an unnamed American-turned-local-expert fills Mailer in on the massacres, the cronyism, the egomania (when pictured in the state media with large numbers of politicians, dignitaries and advisors, only Mobutu is ever identified by name) the tribal frictions and the way Mobutu's plunder is viewed locally: "he's the chieftain of the country and a King should wear his robes... be resplendent. They would respect him less if his expenses were not larger than life."
Mailer is, quite understandably, appalled by the dictator but, in a most Mailer-ish way, uses this to set off on a rambling discourse about what may or may not be his own prejudices and fears towards "the Blacks." In some ways bravely confessional, in others confusingly laid out, ugly and inelegantly expressed, what he wrote about race in 1975 would have seen him torn apart on Twitter as a swivel-eyed racist four decades on. But as jarring as his thoughts might seem now, to forget when they written (the '70s) and by whom (a white American born in the early 1920s) would be foolish.
Still, his thoughts, based heavily on a book written by a missionary lead him to write an embarrassing passage in which, after Ali had pantomimed being battered and knocked out in a faux-sparring session that sounds painfully unfunny and pointlessly self-indulgent, the Congolese audience are stricken into a superstitious silence, mortally afraid of the evil spirits and portents that might have been disturbed by such fate-tempting idiocy. It doesn't seem to have occurred to him that they might have simply been confused as to why training time would be wasted in such a way, or they just weren't entertained by it.
Other characters are discussed too. Foreman's trainers are written of in respectful terms, particularly the legendary Archie Moore who Mailer (for good reason) admires enormously. Promoter Don King, then largely unknown is profiled and but he gets far less attention than Ali's pitchman, carnival barker, hanger-on and stooge, Drew 'Bundini' Brown. Really, Brown is focused on far too much but Mailer makes a big thing of his own troubled relationship with Bundini and that, I suppose, 'justifies' so much attention being lavished on him.
Foreman has his own Bundini too, a lanky sparring partner named Elmo Henderson who charges about the place appropriating the 'Ali Boma Ye' ('Ali, kill him') chant as 'Foreman Boma Ye'. NFL legend Jim Brown "if not for Ali, the most important black athlete in America" shows up just before the fight, all menace and certainty that Foreman is going to win. And there's the other writers covering the fight. Hunter S. Thompson, sweating mightily and hating Kinshasa and Mailer's friend George Plimpton.
Oddly enough, Plimpton's own book 'Paper Lion', his 1966 book about his attempt as an average, non-athlete to make it through an NFL training camp with the Detroit Lions is a fine example of how to insert yourself repeatedly into a non-fiction book on sports without coming across as self-indulgently as Mailer so often does here. At least George got on the field. And he writes more charmingly about his adventures in a book where his centrality to the story is the entire point, than Norman does as he keeps inserting himself into 'the Fight'.
It's not until the night of the three month-delayed fight and the twelfth chapter of the book that 'the Fight' really starts living up to its billing. Mailer's account of Ali's sombre dressing room - Bundini like a sulky child because Ali has rejected his choice of robe, Angelo Dundee scoring the soles of Ali's new boots with scissors to roughen them up and give him more of a grip on the canvas - is fascinating. And (courtesy of Plimpton) there's a glimpse into Foreman's preparations, his usual prayer ritual unchanged only because at least some members of team confess to praying not so much for Foreman winning as Ali leaving the ring still alive.
In the ring, under Kinshasha's darkly clouded, early morning skies, Mailer's account of the fight is staggeringly detailed, lyrical, fanciful, insightful and brilliant. Early in the first round he explains clearly for the non-afficionado just how important it is that Ali was landing lead rights and, as a result Foreman's "face was developing a murderous appetite. He had not been treated so disrespectfully in years... He was going to dismember Ali." Once Foreman starts to land his heavy thwomping shots later in the round "the whites of Ali's eyes showed the glaze of a combat soldier who has just seen a dismembered arm go flying across the sky after an explosion. What kind of monster was he encountering?"
Of Ali's seemingly suicidal tactic of allowing himself to be pushed onto the ropes, and even into a corner, Mailer details how "Ali fought the good rat fight of the corner." True, he digresses into all sorts of speculations about Foreman's mid-fight state of mind - like a scared ten-year-old in a neighbourhood scrap - and consistently falls back onto what must, even in the mid-70s have felt like a cliche, the boxer as bullfighter, his opponent as bull, but aside from that, his round-by-round account is truly compelling. "A jab hurts if you run into it, and Foreman is always coming in. Still, Ali is in the position of a man bowing and ducking in a doorway while another man comes at him with two clubs."
By the sixth round, Mailer describes an exhausted Foreman, sticking to a failing gameplan "a total demonstration of the power of one idea, even when the idea no longer works." He portrays the heavyweight champion, the destroyer of Frazier and Norton as looking "like a drunk, or rather a somnambulist, in a dance marathon."
In the seventh round, George "was becoming reminiscent of the computer Hal in 2001 as his units were removed one by one, malfunctions were showing and spastic lapses... slow as a man walking up a hill of pillows..." By the eighth and (***forty-three year old spoiler alert***) final round, Foreman is more cautious "like a soldier in a siege who counts his bullets" until, completely spent, "he pawed at Ali like an infant six feet tall waving its uncoordinated battle arm."
Immediately after the fight, It's Norman's story again, even though no-one could possibly want to read about anyone other than the heroic Ali, or the confused, battered Foreman. But Mailer, who all along has made clear his favouritism for Ali, once again leaves those insights to his colleagues Plimpton (and Bob Ottum) while simultaneously failing to write much of any significance from Ali's dressing room. Even hours later, on and on and on he bangs... 'Norman this', 'Norman that', it's as if, realising he had no role to play during the fight, Mailer's making up for lost time and inserting himself back into the narrative as much as possible. And more.
Once he gets back to Ali, it's the familiar one - boastful, holding court to the media, hiding his pain from so many Foreman body shots and clown-sparring with a twelve year old boy. It's the Ali everyone - even now - remembers, and wants to remember, even if only from classic footage and accounts like this one. When it's author could restrain himself from crashing the scene at least.
Already years past his best, even if the trauma of the Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick fights were some way off, the Ali of 1974 looked primed for absolute butchery at the mighty fists of Foreman (40-0 with 38 KO/TKOs including two round demolitions of Joe Frazier and Ken Norton) and, as Mailer details, the contrast between champion and challenger is stark.
While Foreman (still many years away from being the cuddly, grandfatherly grill shill of popular imagination) quietly went about his training and media work, a hard, repetitive, punishment of heavy bags and quietly thoughtful press conferences, Ali treated his own obligations as one and the same thing, yelling and lecturing and haranguing the media and occasionally indulging in some gentle sparring in the ring.
Out on the road in the middle of the night, Ali exhausted himself on a two-and-a-half mile run so pedestrian that Mailer, 51 on a full belly and a couple of cocktails up, stayed with him until the final mile, leading him to conclude "it was no way for a man fighting for the Heavyweight title to do roadwork. Norman did not see how Ali could win."
While he's physically absent from the story, Zaire's mad President Mobutu is everywhere. From the roadside slogans to the grim, bloodsoaked past of Kinshasa's Memling hotel to the Israeli-armed security guards 'protecting' Foreman's villa, the Zaire Mailer describes is a vivid glimpse of Mobutu's oppressively paranoid kleptocracy.
Worse, an unnamed American-turned-local-expert fills Mailer in on the massacres, the cronyism, the egomania (when pictured in the state media with large numbers of politicians, dignitaries and advisors, only Mobutu is ever identified by name) the tribal frictions and the way Mobutu's plunder is viewed locally: "he's the chieftain of the country and a King should wear his robes... be resplendent. They would respect him less if his expenses were not larger than life."
Mailer is, quite understandably, appalled by the dictator but, in a most Mailer-ish way, uses this to set off on a rambling discourse about what may or may not be his own prejudices and fears towards "the Blacks." In some ways bravely confessional, in others confusingly laid out, ugly and inelegantly expressed, what he wrote about race in 1975 would have seen him torn apart on Twitter as a swivel-eyed racist four decades on. But as jarring as his thoughts might seem now, to forget when they written (the '70s) and by whom (a white American born in the early 1920s) would be foolish.
Still, his thoughts, based heavily on a book written by a missionary lead him to write an embarrassing passage in which, after Ali had pantomimed being battered and knocked out in a faux-sparring session that sounds painfully unfunny and pointlessly self-indulgent, the Congolese audience are stricken into a superstitious silence, mortally afraid of the evil spirits and portents that might have been disturbed by such fate-tempting idiocy. It doesn't seem to have occurred to him that they might have simply been confused as to why training time would be wasted in such a way, or they just weren't entertained by it.
Other characters are discussed too. Foreman's trainers are written of in respectful terms, particularly the legendary Archie Moore who Mailer (for good reason) admires enormously. Promoter Don King, then largely unknown is profiled and but he gets far less attention than Ali's pitchman, carnival barker, hanger-on and stooge, Drew 'Bundini' Brown. Really, Brown is focused on far too much but Mailer makes a big thing of his own troubled relationship with Bundini and that, I suppose, 'justifies' so much attention being lavished on him.
Foreman has his own Bundini too, a lanky sparring partner named Elmo Henderson who charges about the place appropriating the 'Ali Boma Ye' ('Ali, kill him') chant as 'Foreman Boma Ye'. NFL legend Jim Brown "if not for Ali, the most important black athlete in America" shows up just before the fight, all menace and certainty that Foreman is going to win. And there's the other writers covering the fight. Hunter S. Thompson, sweating mightily and hating Kinshasa and Mailer's friend George Plimpton.
Oddly enough, Plimpton's own book 'Paper Lion', his 1966 book about his attempt as an average, non-athlete to make it through an NFL training camp with the Detroit Lions is a fine example of how to insert yourself repeatedly into a non-fiction book on sports without coming across as self-indulgently as Mailer so often does here. At least George got on the field. And he writes more charmingly about his adventures in a book where his centrality to the story is the entire point, than Norman does as he keeps inserting himself into 'the Fight'.
It's not until the night of the three month-delayed fight and the twelfth chapter of the book that 'the Fight' really starts living up to its billing. Mailer's account of Ali's sombre dressing room - Bundini like a sulky child because Ali has rejected his choice of robe, Angelo Dundee scoring the soles of Ali's new boots with scissors to roughen them up and give him more of a grip on the canvas - is fascinating. And (courtesy of Plimpton) there's a glimpse into Foreman's preparations, his usual prayer ritual unchanged only because at least some members of team confess to praying not so much for Foreman winning as Ali leaving the ring still alive.
In the ring, under Kinshasha's darkly clouded, early morning skies, Mailer's account of the fight is staggeringly detailed, lyrical, fanciful, insightful and brilliant. Early in the first round he explains clearly for the non-afficionado just how important it is that Ali was landing lead rights and, as a result Foreman's "face was developing a murderous appetite. He had not been treated so disrespectfully in years... He was going to dismember Ali." Once Foreman starts to land his heavy thwomping shots later in the round "the whites of Ali's eyes showed the glaze of a combat soldier who has just seen a dismembered arm go flying across the sky after an explosion. What kind of monster was he encountering?"
Of Ali's seemingly suicidal tactic of allowing himself to be pushed onto the ropes, and even into a corner, Mailer details how "Ali fought the good rat fight of the corner." True, he digresses into all sorts of speculations about Foreman's mid-fight state of mind - like a scared ten-year-old in a neighbourhood scrap - and consistently falls back onto what must, even in the mid-70s have felt like a cliche, the boxer as bullfighter, his opponent as bull, but aside from that, his round-by-round account is truly compelling. "A jab hurts if you run into it, and Foreman is always coming in. Still, Ali is in the position of a man bowing and ducking in a doorway while another man comes at him with two clubs."
By the sixth round, Mailer describes an exhausted Foreman, sticking to a failing gameplan "a total demonstration of the power of one idea, even when the idea no longer works." He portrays the heavyweight champion, the destroyer of Frazier and Norton as looking "like a drunk, or rather a somnambulist, in a dance marathon."
In the seventh round, George "was becoming reminiscent of the computer Hal in 2001 as his units were removed one by one, malfunctions were showing and spastic lapses... slow as a man walking up a hill of pillows..." By the eighth and (***forty-three year old spoiler alert***) final round, Foreman is more cautious "like a soldier in a siege who counts his bullets" until, completely spent, "he pawed at Ali like an infant six feet tall waving its uncoordinated battle arm."
Immediately after the fight, It's Norman's story again, even though no-one could possibly want to read about anyone other than the heroic Ali, or the confused, battered Foreman. But Mailer, who all along has made clear his favouritism for Ali, once again leaves those insights to his colleagues Plimpton (and Bob Ottum) while simultaneously failing to write much of any significance from Ali's dressing room. Even hours later, on and on and on he bangs... 'Norman this', 'Norman that', it's as if, realising he had no role to play during the fight, Mailer's making up for lost time and inserting himself back into the narrative as much as possible. And more.
Once he gets back to Ali, it's the familiar one - boastful, holding court to the media, hiding his pain from so many Foreman body shots and clown-sparring with a twelve year old boy. It's the Ali everyone - even now - remembers, and wants to remember, even if only from classic footage and accounts like this one. When it's author could restrain himself from crashing the scene at least.
April 30, 2022
The 1974 heavyweight boxing championship in Zaire between Mohammad Ali and George Foreman was called "The Rumble in the Jungle." Norman Mailer did his usual good job documenting it in The Fight, though he was clearly bored by the long lead-up to the match, which was postponed for weeks after Foreman received a cut above the eye.
But once the actual fight started, Mailer's boredom vanished, and his writing was some of his best ever.
But once the actual fight started, Mailer's boredom vanished, and his writing was some of his best ever.
December 11, 2021
Never read any Norman Mailer until this. He describes the lead-up to the great 1974 "Rumble in the Jungle," the heavyweight championship boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali. Kind of cool to get on that side of the typewriter, hearing what a journalist thinks and does before an iconic event. I found the writing a little drawn-out, perhaps stretching the details a bit thin. I also didn't find the move to speak in the third person as self-effacing or humorous as perhaps it should have been. Maybe it's not the author's fault, but at times the language felt dated. But I did like being behind the scenes, learning about the two fighters and the people around them. Very cool descriptions of the fight itself. At times the man is absolutely poetic, and it really picks up speed from the weigh-in to the flight home.
Overall: Yes, it's the signature story behind one of the greatest sports events of the century, so check it out.
Overall: Yes, it's the signature story behind one of the greatest sports events of the century, so check it out.
December 30, 2022
Norman’s breakdown of Ali’s training and rope-a-dope strategy for the Rumble in the Jungle was entertaining and insightful. His acceptance into the Ali camp, combined with the personality of the Greatest, provide wonderful scenes. Unfortunately his narrative quickly makes Foreman an afterthought.
May 20, 2012
Short review:
The book is as much on the Foreman-Ali fight as it is on race relations, Norman Mailer himself and the press. If you like Muhammad Ali, are interested in his relation with both the press and his entourage, and are keen to read a high paced eye-witness report to Mobutu's Kinshasa, this is the book for you.
The longer, and obviously vainer review.
Although I have never been extremely interested in boxing, I have always been intrigued by the Foreman versus Ali Fight for one sole reason: its location. As I read the book, I very soon realized that the location fascinated Mailer even more, and that it would take a prominent place in his narrative of the Fight: because it did not only take place in Mobutu's Kinshasa, but the Fight itself was a gift of Mobutu to the Zairois people. The Fight was an emblem of Mobutu’s revolution. Moreover, I think the points he tries to get across, is that the Fight he was writing about was not only the one between Foreman and Ali. Apart from this fight, he was writing about three additional fights that were taking place simultaneously, albeit in different states of completion: Mobutu's, Ali’s Fight against ‘the system’, and the way boxing as a sport was perceived and performed. In the next three paragraphs I will elaborate a bit on my perception of the Fight's place in these revolutions.
As said before, I have always wondered why the Fight was set in Kinshasa, but as Mailer points out, 'the posters that advertise the fight say 'Un cadeau de President Mobutu au peuple Zairois'. A token of His Greatness: the greatest revolutionary leader would be able to host the greatest boxing event of the 20th century. In this context, it is also important to realize that the boxing event was flanked by Zaire 74, a music festival with an impressive line-up. Among the attendants, for instance, were James Brown, B.B. King and Celia Cruz. Mobutu's government however, did not sponsor Zaire 74. It did sponsor the fight, or Mobutu himself actually sponsored the fight through his Swiss company Risnailia. After all, it was 'A fight between two Blacks in a Black nation, organized by Blacks and seen by the whole world; that is a victory for Mobutism'. I don’t know who benefitted most from this fight, but I was just incredibly happy that the fight was actually as political as I hoped it would be. I was happy that Mobutism's ideologues were able to word all my hopes for the fight in that one sentence.
Mobutism's slogan also brings me to the second Fight, namely Ali’s position in the post civil right movement. Having grown up in Western Europe, my knowledge of this movement, its struggles, and its protagonists is laughably limited. Mailer however, uses the fight as a backdrop for a kind of state of the art of the post-civil rights movement in the 1970's, and the place Islam was taking in that movement. Ali did not only bring politics to the ring by changing his name, but he also used his performance in the ring to promote his politics outside the ring. Although it is hard to decide when Ali is sincere, Mailer does a great job in recording the way he speaks, the people he speaks to and the subjects he speaks about. It gives an insight in the political scene that would produce one of the most inspiring sportsmen ever to walk this planet.
Then of course there was The Fight. The Fight that would change the face of boxing. Every now and then, late at night, I will flip through some tv channels and end up at Eurosport, where a heavy weight boxing match is aired. Invariably, I pause. Invariably, I pause only for one minute, because that is the time it takes for me to get bored with this violent one-on-one chess match. The first thing I thought when actually watching the Foreman versus Ali Fight on youtube was: wow! The openness of the fight amazed me. Both fighters were leaving so much room to attack. But instead of engaging Foreman directly, Ali decided to exhaust him. Wrestle him. Wear him out. Let him swing and miss with his mighty fists, while simultaneously jabbing him with direct rights. Ali became the professor of boxing by showing the world that the sport is not only about who can hit the hardest (that would be Foreman), but an all round sport that has as much in common with fencing or chess. Perhaps, in the end, boxing became a duller sport. I don’t know. I do know that this book is about the Fight that would define the sport for the years to come.
The book has so much more to offer than just these three Fights. However, these were the subjects that caught my attention and made me underline some of the sentences Norm wrote. It also made me want to write this little essay. I hope some day, someone will read it and think: yeah I need to read that book. I hope so, because I think it truly is one of the most intriguing sports books ever written.
The book is as much on the Foreman-Ali fight as it is on race relations, Norman Mailer himself and the press. If you like Muhammad Ali, are interested in his relation with both the press and his entourage, and are keen to read a high paced eye-witness report to Mobutu's Kinshasa, this is the book for you.
The longer, and obviously vainer review.
Although I have never been extremely interested in boxing, I have always been intrigued by the Foreman versus Ali Fight for one sole reason: its location. As I read the book, I very soon realized that the location fascinated Mailer even more, and that it would take a prominent place in his narrative of the Fight: because it did not only take place in Mobutu's Kinshasa, but the Fight itself was a gift of Mobutu to the Zairois people. The Fight was an emblem of Mobutu’s revolution. Moreover, I think the points he tries to get across, is that the Fight he was writing about was not only the one between Foreman and Ali. Apart from this fight, he was writing about three additional fights that were taking place simultaneously, albeit in different states of completion: Mobutu's, Ali’s Fight against ‘the system’, and the way boxing as a sport was perceived and performed. In the next three paragraphs I will elaborate a bit on my perception of the Fight's place in these revolutions.
As said before, I have always wondered why the Fight was set in Kinshasa, but as Mailer points out, 'the posters that advertise the fight say 'Un cadeau de President Mobutu au peuple Zairois'. A token of His Greatness: the greatest revolutionary leader would be able to host the greatest boxing event of the 20th century. In this context, it is also important to realize that the boxing event was flanked by Zaire 74, a music festival with an impressive line-up. Among the attendants, for instance, were James Brown, B.B. King and Celia Cruz. Mobutu's government however, did not sponsor Zaire 74. It did sponsor the fight, or Mobutu himself actually sponsored the fight through his Swiss company Risnailia. After all, it was 'A fight between two Blacks in a Black nation, organized by Blacks and seen by the whole world; that is a victory for Mobutism'. I don’t know who benefitted most from this fight, but I was just incredibly happy that the fight was actually as political as I hoped it would be. I was happy that Mobutism's ideologues were able to word all my hopes for the fight in that one sentence.
Mobutism's slogan also brings me to the second Fight, namely Ali’s position in the post civil right movement. Having grown up in Western Europe, my knowledge of this movement, its struggles, and its protagonists is laughably limited. Mailer however, uses the fight as a backdrop for a kind of state of the art of the post-civil rights movement in the 1970's, and the place Islam was taking in that movement. Ali did not only bring politics to the ring by changing his name, but he also used his performance in the ring to promote his politics outside the ring. Although it is hard to decide when Ali is sincere, Mailer does a great job in recording the way he speaks, the people he speaks to and the subjects he speaks about. It gives an insight in the political scene that would produce one of the most inspiring sportsmen ever to walk this planet.
Then of course there was The Fight. The Fight that would change the face of boxing. Every now and then, late at night, I will flip through some tv channels and end up at Eurosport, where a heavy weight boxing match is aired. Invariably, I pause. Invariably, I pause only for one minute, because that is the time it takes for me to get bored with this violent one-on-one chess match. The first thing I thought when actually watching the Foreman versus Ali Fight on youtube was: wow! The openness of the fight amazed me. Both fighters were leaving so much room to attack. But instead of engaging Foreman directly, Ali decided to exhaust him. Wrestle him. Wear him out. Let him swing and miss with his mighty fists, while simultaneously jabbing him with direct rights. Ali became the professor of boxing by showing the world that the sport is not only about who can hit the hardest (that would be Foreman), but an all round sport that has as much in common with fencing or chess. Perhaps, in the end, boxing became a duller sport. I don’t know. I do know that this book is about the Fight that would define the sport for the years to come.
The book has so much more to offer than just these three Fights. However, these were the subjects that caught my attention and made me underline some of the sentences Norm wrote. It also made me want to write this little essay. I hope some day, someone will read it and think: yeah I need to read that book. I hope so, because I think it truly is one of the most intriguing sports books ever written.
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