The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer's The Fight: Hemingway, Bullfighting, and the Lovely Metaphysics of Boxing: Difference between revisions

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 Lillian Ross reports Hemingway re-telling the story in 1950, about a quarter-century later: “‘One time I asked Jack, speaking of a fight with Benny Leonard,’“How did you handle Benny so easy, Jack?” “Ernie,” he said,“Benny{{pg|124|125}}is an awfully smart boxer. All the time he’s boxing, he’s thinking. All the time he was thinking, I was hitting him.” Hemingway gave a hoarse laugh, as though he had heard the story for the first time...He laughed again. ‘All the time he was thinking, I was hitting him’”.{{sfn|Ross|1961|p=64}}Ross implies surprise that this stale anecdote is so alive for Hemingway, standing in for the readers who may not have appreciated its importance. In his obnoxious essay “The Art of the Short Story,” written in 1959 and unpublished in his lifetime, Hemingway recollects of “Fifty Grand”: “This story originally started like this: “‘How did you handle Benny so easy, Jack?’ Soldier asked him. ‘Benny’s an awful smart boxer,’ Jack said. ‘All the time he’s in there, he’s thinking. All the time he’s thinking, I was hitting him'".{{sfn|Ross|1961|p=88}}These examples demonstrate that his acquiescence to Fitzgerald’s editorial judgment in 1927 haunted him for three-and-a-half decades, literally until his death.{{efn|Elsewhere, Hemingway remarks on the intelligence of fighters just as he evaluates their physical skill: in 1922, Hemingway describes Battling Siki, the challenger to Georges Carpentier, “siki tough slowthinker but mauling style may puzzle carp”.{{sfn|Reynolds|1989|p=73}}In his early journalism, Hemingway reports that, “Jack Dempsey has an imposing list of knockouts over bums and tramps, who were nothing but big slow-moving, slow-thinking set ups for him”.{{sfn|Reynolds|1998|p=192}}Indeed, the payoff of “Fifty Grand”—when Jack Brennan double crosses the double crossers—comes when Jack says, “It’s funny how fast you can think when it means that much money”.{{sfn|Hemingway|2003|p=249}}}}
-Fitzgerald’s objection to Hemingway opening the short story with the boxing anecdote was like his misgivings about the original beginning of ''The Sun Also Rises'', what he perceived to be Hemingway’s “tendency to envelope or...to ''embalm'' in mere wordiness an anecdote or joke”.{{sfn|Fitzgerald|p=142|1995}}As Susan Beegel notes in her discussion of Hemingway’s impulse to include the anecdote, “Thinking takes time, and boxing is a sport in which speed is of the essence”.{{sfn|Beegel|1988|p=15}}Beegel’s point must be extended: life, at times, is a sport in which speed is of the essence, particularly if it is to be lived to its fullest. As we see in Mailer—think of ''The Naked and the Dead'' and certainly ''The Fight''—Hemingway placed all his characters in situations in which a quick, strategic, pragmatic response is more appropriate than contemplation and conceptualization, despite the characters’ natural inclinations to indulge their memories, imaginative speculation, and ruminations. Muhammad Ali, after all, is no mindless slugger; he is portrayed as a genius, a scientist, an artist, or a “brain fighter,” in the champ’s own words. More than a boxer, Mailer considers Ali “the first psychologist of the body”,{{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=23}}suggesting that his power is in his mind, as opposed to the brute force, the rage, and the animalistic approach of Foreman and Joe Frazier.
+Fitzgerald’s objection to Hemingway opening the short story with the boxing anecdote was like his misgivings about the original beginning of ''The Sun Also Rises'', what he perceived to be Hemingway’s “tendency to envelope or...to ''embalm'' in mere wordiness an anecdote or joke”.{{sfn|Fitzgerald|1995|p=142}}As Susan Beegel notes in her discussion of Hemingway’s impulse to include the anecdote, “Thinking takes time, and boxing is a sport in which speed is of the essence”.{{sfn|Beegel|1988|p=15}}Beegel’s point must be extended: life, at times, is a sport in which speed is of the essence, particularly if it is to be lived to its fullest. As we see in Mailer—think of ''The Naked and the Dead'' and certainly ''The Fight''—Hemingway placed all his characters in situations in which a quick, strategic, pragmatic response is more appropriate than contemplation and conceptualization, despite the characters’ natural inclinations to indulge their memories, imaginative speculation, and ruminations. Muhammad Ali, after all, is no mindless slugger; he is portrayed as a genius, a scientist, an artist, or a “brain fighter,” in the champ’s own words. More than a boxer, Mailer considers Ali “the first psychologist of the body”,{{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=23}}suggesting that his power is in his mind, as opposed to the brute force, the rage, and the animalistic approach of Foreman and Joe Frazier.
 But why did Hemingway’s remorse over deferring to Fitzgerald’s suggestions for “Fifty Grand” fester for the rest of his life? After all, what does one paragraph matter? In “The Art of the Short Story,” Hemingway recounts his version of the circumstances behind the editorial change, and his regret over excising “that lovely revelation of the metaphysics of boxing”.{{sfn|Hemingway|1981a|p=89}}{{pg|125|126}}