The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer's The Fight: Hemingway, Bullfighting, and the Lovely Metaphysics of Boxing: Difference between revisions
m Added a space between Men Without Women and (1927) |
m Added pp for multiple page citations |
||
| Line 39: | Line 39: | ||
Mailer extends this articulation to propose that Ali has a physiological understanding of receiving violence that is almost hair-trigger in its fineness. “It was a study,” he writes, “to watch Ali take punches”.{{sfn|Mailer|1975|p=5}}Mailer sees Ali “teaching his nervous system to transmit shock faster than other men could”{{sfn|Mailer|1975|p=4}}and possessing the ability to “assimilate punches faster than other fighters,” as Ali “could literally transmit the shock through more parts of his body or direct it to its best path”.{{sfn|Mailer|1975|p=5}}After watching a Foreman training session, Mailer concluded, “it seemed certain that if Ali wished to win, he would have to take more punishment than ever before in his career”.{{sfn|Mailer|1975|p=53}}As Mailer mentions during his commentary in ''When We Were Kings'', “It was as if he wanted to train his body to receive these messages of punishment.” | Mailer extends this articulation to propose that Ali has a physiological understanding of receiving violence that is almost hair-trigger in its fineness. “It was a study,” he writes, “to watch Ali take punches”.{{sfn|Mailer|1975|p=5}}Mailer sees Ali “teaching his nervous system to transmit shock faster than other men could”{{sfn|Mailer|1975|p=4}}and possessing the ability to “assimilate punches faster than other fighters,” as Ali “could literally transmit the shock through more parts of his body or direct it to its best path”.{{sfn|Mailer|1975|p=5}}After watching a Foreman training session, Mailer concluded, “it seemed certain that if Ali wished to win, he would have to take more punishment than ever before in his career”.{{sfn|Mailer|1975|p=53}}As Mailer mentions during his commentary in ''When We Were Kings'', “It was as if he wanted to train his body to receive these messages of punishment.” | ||
Just as Ali is positioned as an artist, a craftsman, and a scientist, Mailer describes him in the same way that Hemingway describes matadors. During the first round of the fight, after Ali has tagged Foreman with a scoring punch, Foreman “charged in rage”,{{sfn|Mailer|1975|p=178}}a raging bull whose strength must be absorbed, reallocated, frustrated, and then eliminated by the more intelligent foe. After another exchange, in fact, “Foreman responded like a bull. He roared forward. A dangerous bull. His gloves were out like horns”.{{sfn|Mailer|1975| | Just as Ali is positioned as an artist, a craftsman, and a scientist, Mailer describes him in the same way that Hemingway describes matadors. During the first round of the fight, after Ali has tagged Foreman with a scoring punch, Foreman “charged in rage”,{{sfn|Mailer|1975|p=178}}a raging bull whose strength must be absorbed, reallocated, frustrated, and then eliminated by the more intelligent foe. After another exchange, in fact, “Foreman responded like a bull. He roared forward. A dangerous bull. His gloves were out like horns”.{{sfn|Mailer|1975|pp=178–79}}Even the collection of declarative sentences, uncluttered by punctuation marks, recalls the way Hemingway captures Romero’s style in the ring. After Ali’s strategy of absorbing punches against the ropes emerges, Mailer writes that Foreman “had the pensive expression of a steer being dogged to the ground by a cowboy”,{{sfn|Mailer|1975|p=184}}continuing the juxtaposition of Ali’s savvy with Foreman’s depiction as an animal, a beast of the same variety that charges mindlessly and dies inevitably in Pamplona. A brilliant depiction of Ali using his facial expression to deceive Foreman furthers the comparison: Ali, against the ropes, is | ||
{{cquote|now banishing Foreman’s head with the turn of a matador sending away a bull after five fine passes were made, and once when he seemed to hesitate just a little too long, something stirred in{{pg|131|132}}George-like that across-the-arena knowledge of a bull when it is ready at last to gore the matador rather than the cloth, and like a member of a cuadrilla, somebody in Ali’s corner screamed, “Careful! Careful! Careful”!{{sfn|Mailer|1975| | {{cquote|now banishing Foreman’s head with the turn of a matador sending away a bull after five fine passes were made, and once when he seemed to hesitate just a little too long, something stirred in{{pg|131|132}}George-like that across-the-arena knowledge of a bull when it is ready at last to gore the matador rather than the cloth, and like a member of a cuadrilla, somebody in Ali’s corner screamed, “Careful! Careful! Careful”!{{sfn|Mailer|1975|pp=196–97}}}} | ||
Is this comparison self-indulgent? How many American readers would find a description of Ali’s defensive strategy in any way clarified by an esoteric gesture towards a bullfight? This link only makes sense in the context of Mailer’s incessant negotiation with the specter of Ernest Hemingway, shadowing him during his journey through Zaire. | Is this comparison self-indulgent? How many American readers would find a description of Ali’s defensive strategy in any way clarified by an esoteric gesture towards a bullfight? This link only makes sense in the context of Mailer’s incessant negotiation with the specter of Ernest Hemingway, shadowing him during his journey through Zaire. | ||
| Line 70: | Line 70: | ||
Towards the end of the seventh round, Mailer uses scenery-chewing similes to control the pace of the narrative, the better to convey Foreman’s mighty fatigue. | Towards the end of the seventh round, Mailer uses scenery-chewing similes to control the pace of the narrative, the better to convey Foreman’s mighty fatigue. | ||
{{cquote|Foreman was fighting as slowly as a worn-out fighter in the Golden Gloves, slow as a man walking up a hill of pillows, slow as he would have looked if their first round had been rerun in slow motion, that was no slower than Foreman was fighting now...he was reminiscent...of a linebacker coiling around a runner with his hands and arms in the slow-motion replay...{{sfn|Mailer|1975| | {{cquote|Foreman was fighting as slowly as a worn-out fighter in the Golden Gloves, slow as a man walking up a hill of pillows, slow as he would have looked if their first round had been rerun in slow motion, that was no slower than Foreman was fighting now...he was reminiscent...of a linebacker coiling around a runner with his hands and arms in the slow-motion replay...{{sfn|Mailer|1975|pp=204–05}}}}{{pg|135|136}} | ||
And no slower than Mailer is narrating now. In this sequence of three similes, the first and third compare a slow fighter to a slow fighter. To say that Foreman, a tired professional fighter, looks as tired as a tired amateur fighter, is patently ridiculous. Furthermore, to state that he is as slow as a slow-motion version of himself, or a slow-motion version of someone else is not a helpful comparison; it is not vivid and inventive writing. The second simile is brilliant, and would be the only one needed, if the first and third did not aid in establishing the pacing of the moment in the fight. | And no slower than Mailer is narrating now. In this sequence of three similes, the first and third compare a slow fighter to a slow fighter. To say that Foreman, a tired professional fighter, looks as tired as a tired amateur fighter, is patently ridiculous. Furthermore, to state that he is as slow as a slow-motion version of himself, or a slow-motion version of someone else is not a helpful comparison; it is not vivid and inventive writing. The second simile is brilliant, and would be the only one needed, if the first and third did not aid in establishing the pacing of the moment in the fight. | ||