User:JSheppard/sandbox: Difference between revisions
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a profound series of perceptions about the American national temperament, | a profound series of perceptions about the American national temperament, | ||
particularly that of blacks. In ''King of the Hill''(1971) and more strikingly | particularly that of blacks. In ''King of the Hill''(1971) and more strikingly | ||
in ''The Fight''(1975) | in ''The Fight''(1975)the deals nominally with a specific championship | ||
bout, but goes beyond journalism to find certain normative precepts in the | bout, but goes beyond journalism to find certain normative precepts in the | ||
sport. But there is another level on which boxing informs and conditions | sport. But there is another level on which boxing informs and conditions | ||
Mailer’s vision: In his fiction, most notably ''An American Dream''(1965)and | Mailer’s vision: In his fiction, most notably ''An American Dream''(1965)and | ||
''Tough Guys Don’t Dance''(1984),boxing experiences help define the protagonists. | ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance''(1984), boxing experiences help define the protagonists. | ||
Stephen Richards Rojack and Tim Madden respectively find “the | Stephen Richards Rojack and Tim Madden respectively find “the | ||
reward of the ring” (''Dream 16'')applicable to their existential quests for self. | reward of the ring” (''Dream 16'')applicable to their existential quests for self. | ||
Ultimately,Mailer’s views on boxing are far from simplistic. From the powerful | Ultimately, Mailer’s views on boxing are far from simplistic. From the powerful | ||
account of Benny Paret’s death in the ring at the hands of Emile Griffith | account of Benny Paret’s death in the ring at the hands of Emile Griffith | ||
to his statements to me about the ill-fated conclusion to Muhammad | to his statements to me about the ill-fated conclusion to Muhammad | ||
| Line 19: | Line 19: | ||
about the human condition. In fact, in his 1993 essay in ''Esquire'', | about the human condition. In fact, in his 1993 essay in ''Esquire'', | ||
“The Best Move Lies Next to the Worst” ~reprinted in ''The Time of Our | “The Best Move Lies Next to the Worst” ~reprinted in ''The Time of Our | ||
Time''!, he deals with his own boxing experiences at the Gramercy | Time''!, he deals with his own boxing experiences at the Gramercy Gym with | ||
José Torres, Ryan O’Neal and others. The title of the piece comes from the | José Torres, Ryan O’Neal, and others. The title of the piece comes from the | ||
comparison of boxing to chess ''Time'' (1045–1052). | comparison of boxing to chess ''Time'' (1045–1052). | ||
I believe it’s best to confront the central issue here at the outset.Mailer | I believe it’s best to confront the central issue here at the outset. Mailer | ||
has, indeed, perceived gladiatorial confrontation and violence as a central | has, indeed, perceived gladiatorial confrontation and violence as a central | ||
metaphor for his own artistic and personal struggles for growth, fulfillment, | metaphor for his own artistic and personal struggles for growth, fulfillment, | ||
salvation.As | salvation.As he muses retrospectively upon a turning point in his career during | ||
his | his crises of the early 1960s, | ||
| Line 45: | Line 45: | ||
Mailer’s significant writing about boxing begins with ''The Presidential | Mailer’s significant writing about boxing begins with ''The Presidential | ||
Papers'' in the long and riveting essay entitled “Death,” originally titled “Ten | Papers'' in the long and riveting essay entitled “Death,” originally titled “Ten | ||
thousand words a Minute,” one of his “Big Bite” columns for Esquire. Not | |||
only does this piece prefigure and announce the | only does this piece prefigure and announce the new mode of Mailer’s nonfiction | ||
writing in the late 1960s and 1970s, notably ''The Armies of the Night'', | writing in the late 1960s and 1970s, notably ''The Armies of the Night'', | ||
it is the key to his fascination with boxing. | it is the key to his fascination with boxing. | ||
The first Patterson/Liston fight | The first Patterson/Liston fight provides mailer an opportunity to embark | ||
on a series of sophisticated statements on boxing and the national disposition. | on a series of sophisticated statements on boxing and the national disposition. | ||
But the center of the piece, as the title suggests, is the brutal killing of | But the center of the piece, as the title suggests, is the brutal killing of | ||
Benny Paret in the ring by Emile Griffith. Let us deal with the most hideous | Benny Paret in the ring by Emile Griffith. Let us deal with the most hideous | ||
aspects of boxing first.Unlike most bouts, this one was fueled by an intense | aspects of boxing first. Unlike most bouts, this one was fueled by an intense | ||
hatred between the fighters. Here is Mailer’s description of the climax: | hatred between the fighters. Here is Mailer’s description of the climax: | ||
In the twelfth, Griffith caught him. Paret got | In the twelfth, Griffith caught him. Paret got trapped in a corner. | ||
Trying to duck away, his left arm and his head became tangled | Trying to duck away, his left arm and his head became tangled on the wrong side of the top rope. Griffith was in like a cat ready to rip the life out of a huge boxed rat. He hit him eighteen right hands in a row, an act which took perhaps three or four seconds, Griffith making a pent-up whimpering sound all the while he attacked, the right hand whipping like a piston rod which has broken through the crankcase, or like a baseball bat demolishing a pumpkin... I had never seen one man hit another so hard and so many times. Over the referee’s face came a look of woe as if some spasm had passed its way through him, | ||
and then he leaped on Griffith to pull him away. It was the act of a brave man. Griffith was uncontrollable. His trainer leaped into | |||
and then he leaped on Griffith to pull him away. It was the act of a brave man. Griffith was | |||
the ring, his manager, his cut man, there were four people holding | the ring, his manager, his cut man, there were four people holding | ||
Griffith, but he was off on an orgy, he had left the Garden, he | Griffith, but he was off on an orgy, he had left the Garden, he was back on a hoodlum’s street. If he had been able to break | ||
loose from his handlers and the referee, he would have jumped | loose from his handlers and the referee, he would have jumped | ||
Paret to the floor and whaled on him there. | Paret to the floor and whaled on him there. | ||
And Paret? Paret died on his feet. As he took those eighteen | And Paret? Paret died on his feet. As he took those eighteen | ||
punches something happened to everyone who was in psychic | punches something happened to everyone who was in the psychic | ||
range of the event. Some | range of the event. Some parts of his death reached out to us. One | ||
felt it hover in the air.He was still standing in the ropes, trapped | felt it hover in the air. He was still standing in the ropes, trapped | ||
as he had been before, he gave some little half-smile of regret, as | as he had been before, he gave some little half-smile of regret, as | ||
if he were saying, ‘I didn’t know I was going to die just yet,’ and | if he were saying, ‘I didn’t know I was going to die just yet,’ and | ||
| Line 82: | Line 73: | ||
breathe about him. (“Death” 244–245) | breathe about him. (“Death” 244–245) | ||
This event was not, of course, taken lightly by the public: “There was shock | This event was not, of course, taken lightly by the public: “There was shock | ||
in the land | in the land... There were editorials, gloomy forecasts that the Game was | ||
dead. The managers and the prizefighters got together. Gently, in thick, | dead. The managers and the prizefighters got together. Gently, in thick, | ||
depressed hypocrisies, they tried to defend their sport” ~245!. | depressed hypocrisies, they tried to defend their sport” ~245!. | ||
Mailer goes on to delve into that species of blood religion to which fight | Mailer goes on to delve into that species of blood religion to which fight | ||
people adhere and the kind of mystery it has lent to the works of such writers | people adhere and the kind of mystery it has lent to the works of such writers | ||
as D. H. Lawrence and Ernest Hemingway. And what of Mailer’s | as D. H. Lawrence and Ernest Hemingway. And what of Mailer’s response? | ||
response? | Something in boxing was spoiled... I loved it with freedom no longer. It was more like somebody in your family was fighting now. The feeling one had for a big fight was no longer clear of terror in its excitement. There was awe in the suspense. (247–248) | ||
Something in boxing was spoiled | Professional boxing, then, presents difficult moral problems trailer as well | ||
Professional boxing, then, presents | |||
as to any humane person. This does not, I submit, obviate its significance in | as to any humane person. This does not, I submit, obviate its significance in | ||
B A R R Y H. L E E D S { 387 | B A R R Y H. L E E D S { 387 | ||
| Line 101: | Line 88: | ||
Another case in point is King of the Hill, a modest little book originally | Another case in point is King of the Hill, a modest little book originally | ||
published as a long article in Life magazine ~with photographs by Frank | published as a long article in Life magazine ~with photographs by Frank | ||
Sinatra!, dealing | Sinatra!, dealing with Muhammad Ali’s hard-fought defeat at the hands of | ||
Joe Frazier after his three year enforced layoff from boxing. As in “Death,” | Joe Frazier after his three year enforced layoff from boxing. As in “Death,” | ||
the opponents assume symbolic, | the opponents assume symbolic, almost mythic proportions. Central to this | ||
is Mailer’s pervasive Manichean vision of the cosmos, even down to Ali’s | is Mailer’s pervasive Manichean vision of the cosmos, even down to Ali’s | ||
twin poodles named “Angel” and “Demon.” But the conclusion is most significant | twin poodles named “Angel” and “Demon.” But the conclusion is most significant | ||
| Line 113: | Line 100: | ||
exercise of the will, some iron fundament of the ego not to be | exercise of the will, some iron fundament of the ego not to be | ||
knocked out, and it was then as if the spirit of Harlem finally | knocked out, and it was then as if the spirit of Harlem finally | ||
spoke and came to rescue and the ghosts of the dead | spoke and came to rescue and the ghosts of the dead in Vietnam, | ||
something held him up before arm-weary triumphant near crazy | something held him up before arm-weary triumphant near crazy | ||
Frazier who had just hit him the hardest punch ever | Frazier who had just hit him the hardest punch ever | ||
thrown in his life and they went down to the last few seconds of | thrown in his life and they went down to the last few seconds of | ||
a great fight, Ali still standing and Frazier had won. | a great fight, Ali still standing and Frazier had won. | ||
The world was talking instantly of a rematch. For Ali had | The world was talking instantly of a rematch. For Ali had shown America what we all had hoped was secretly true. He was a man. He could bear moral and physical torture and he could stand. If he could beat Frazier in the rematch we would have at last a national hero who was a hero of the world as well. (''King'' 92–92) | ||
Ali was a national hero, for his moral and physical courage.His | Ali was a national hero, for his moral and physical courage. His heroism had | ||
fascinated Mailer for years. In a short piece, “An Appreciation of Cassius | fascinated Mailer for years. In a short piece, “An Appreciation of Cassius | ||
Clay,” he wrote: “[I] don’t want to get started writing | Clay,” he wrote: “[I] don’t want to get started writing about Muhammad Ali, | ||
because I could go on for a book” (''Errands'' 264). He went on to condemn | because I could go on for a book” (''Errands'' 264). He went on to condemn | ||
Ali’s exclusion from boxing because of his conscientious objection to the | Ali’s exclusion from boxing because of his conscientious objection to the | ||
| Line 132: | Line 115: | ||
spectacle which was taking place in public—the forging of a professional artist | spectacle which was taking place in public—the forging of a professional artist | ||
of extraordinary dimensions...he was bringing a revolution to the theory | of extraordinary dimensions...he was bringing a revolution to the theory | ||
of boxing....” (264). | of boxing....” (264). When I asked him,“... now that it’s pretty well documented that Ali has been damaged by boxing, do you love the sport as | ||
much as you did?”Mailer responded, “Well, I don’t think I love it as much as I used to. One reason is because he’s out of it” (Leeds 1). | much as you did?”Mailer responded, “Well, I don’t think I love it as much as I used to. One reason is because he’s out of it” (Leeds 1). | ||
All of this of course points directly to Mailer’s most significant work on boxing, ''The Fight''. Suffice it to say that Mailer’s obsessive preoccupation with | {{in5|n}}All of this of course points directly to Mailer’s most significant work on boxing, ''The Fight''. Suffice it to say that Mailer’s obsessive preoccupation with | ||
existentialism and Manichean polarities, his newly found fascination with | existentialism and Manichean polarities, his newly found fascination with | ||
African mysticism and the concept of ''N’golo'' (or force), his vision of | African mysticism and the concept of ''N’golo'' (or force), his vision of | ||
Muhammad Ali as artist and hero, | Muhammad Ali as an artist and hero, finds their serendipitous confluence here. | ||
As in virtually all of his work after 1968,Mailer treats a factual situation, | {{in5|n}}As in virtually all of his work after 1968, Mailer treats a factual situation, | ||
and the people involved, in terms of highly subjective and fascinating digressions. | and the people involved, in terms of highly subjective and fascinating digressions. | ||
Thus, in addition to an in-depth account of the fight and the circumstances | Thus, in addition to an in-depth account of the fight and the circumstances | ||
| Line 146: | Line 129: | ||
and George Plimpton, and further candid insights into Mailer himself: the | and George Plimpton, and further candid insights into Mailer himself: the | ||
status of his projected big novel, his compulsion to walk parapets, his hatred | status of his projected big novel, his compulsion to walk parapets, his hatred | ||
of jogging.Most amusing, however, is the self-deprecating anecdote in which | of jogging. Most amusing, however, is the self-deprecating anecdote in which | ||
Mailer, returning late at night along a jungle path on which he had been | Mailer, returning late at night along a jungle path on which he had been | ||
doing road work with Ali, hears a lion roar.He proceeds through a series of | doing road work with Ali, hears a lion roar. He proceeds through a series of | ||
seriocomic reactions, culminating in the fantasy that he is about to be eaten | |||
by “Hemingway’s | by “Hemingway’s lion” waiting all these years for a fit substitute, and the | ||
final recognition that the lion he hears is probably caged in the city’s zoo ~91– | final recognition that the lion he hears is probably caged in the city’s zoo ~91– | ||
92!. This announces, I believe, an attractive new modesty in Mailer. | 92!. This announces, I believe, an attractive new modesty in Mailer. | ||
Such modesty pervades “The Best Move Lies Close to the Worst,” in | {{in5|n}}Such modesty pervades “The Best Move Lies Close to the Worst,” in | ||
which mailer recounts his adventures and misadventures in boxing in a consistently | |||
self-deprecating manner. Boxing with José Torres is described thus | self-deprecating manner. Boxing with José Torres is described thus | ||
(''Time 1048''): | (''Time 1048''): | ||
He was impossible to hit and that was an. interesting experience you | He was impossible to hit and that was an. interesting experience you felt as if you were sharing the ring with a puma... Over ten years of boxing with José Torres I was able to catch him with a | ||
good right-hand lead twice, and the first occasion was an event. | |||
He ran around the ring with his arms high in triumph, crying out, “He hit me with a right—he hit me with a right!” unconscionably proud that day of his pupil. | |||
good right hand lead twice, and the first | |||
He ran around the ring with his arms high in triumph, crying | |||
The story, in a mildly oversimplified form, has circulated for years that | The story, in a mildly oversimplified form, has circulated for years that | ||
| Line 170: | Line 149: | ||
B A R R Y H. L E E D S { 389 | B A R R Y H. L E E D S { 389 | ||
Mailer first began to learn boxing under the tutelage of the father of Adele | Mailer first began to learn boxing under the tutelage of the father of Adele | ||
Morales, his second wife. In the “Sixth Advertisement for Myself, | Morales, his second wife. In the “Sixth Advertisement for Myself,” Mailer | ||
states: | states: | ||
I was doing some boxing now.My father-in-law had been a professional; | I was doing some boxing now. My father-in-law had been a professional; | ||
he was always putting on the gloves with me | he was always putting on the gloves with me... I was in nice shape, and my senses were alert. (''Advertisements'' 331) | ||
Most interesting in the later collaboration are the parallels that Torres and | Most interesting in the later collaboration are the parallels that Torres and | ||
Mailer found between the two occupations.When asked if there is a difference | Mailer found between the two occupations. When asked if there is a difference | ||
in the discipline required for writing and boxing ~in an interview with | in the discipline required for writing and boxing ~in an interview with | ||
Jessica Blue and LegsMcNeil for Details!, Torres responded,“No fucking difference” | Jessica Blue and LegsMcNeil for Details!, Torres responded, “No fucking difference” | ||
(''Details'', nd., 86). But earlier in the same interview, he tells of how | (''Details'', nd., 86). But earlier in the same interview, he tells of how | ||
Mailer “told me that writing was about truth | Mailer “told me that writing was about truth... He knew that boxing was | ||
the opposite. It’s about cheating and deceiving and lying, and he said that it’s | the opposite. It’s about cheating and deceiving and lying, and he said that it’s | ||
a very hard transition | a very hard transition... You’re cheating the other guy by feinting with a left | ||
and cheating with a jab” (''Details'' 85). | and cheating with a jab” (''Details'' 85). | ||
{{in5|n}}Another regular at the Gramercy Gym in the 1980s was Sal Cetrano, who | |||
is mentioned ~though not by name! in “The Best Move.” In a hitherto | is mentioned ~though not by name! in “The Best Move.” In a hitherto | ||
unpublished interview with J. Michael Lennon (dated May 24, 2007), | unpublished interview with J. Michael Lennon (dated May 24, 2007), | ||
Cetrano disarmingly recounts a series of anecdotes regarding his experiences | Cetrano disarmingly recounts a series of anecdotes regarding his experiences | ||
with Mailer, Torres, and Ryan O’Neal. | with Mailer, Torres, and Ryan O’Neal. | ||
Cetrano first met Mailer by accident on Broadway in 1980, and the first | {{in5|n}}Cetrano first met Mailer by accident on Broadway in 1980, and the first | ||
thing they talked about was the Paret/Griffith fight. Subsequently, Cetrano | thing they talked about was the Paret/Griffith fight. Subsequently, Cetrano | ||
wrote Mailer a letter which was reciprocated by a postcard that simply said, | |||
“Be at the Gramercy Gymat 10: | “Be at the Gramercy Gymat 10:30 AM Saturday.” Sal had been in the Golden | ||
Gloves as a kid, but he“weighed about 145 pounds and everyone seemed bigger.” | Gloves as a kid, but he“weighed about 145 pounds and everyone seemed bigger.” | ||
His solution to this problem, since “I had been a distance runner as a | His solution to this problem, since “I had been a distance runner as a | ||
| Line 200: | Line 179: | ||
Mailer and Torres, he describes it as one of “power to power: Norman was a | Mailer and Torres, he describes it as one of “power to power: Norman was a | ||
king of literature; Jose a king of boxing.” | king of literature; Jose a king of boxing.” | ||
When asked | {{in5|n}}When asked by Michael Lennon of the parallels between Mailer as a boxer | ||
and as writer, Cetrano responds ~with deprecating laughter as risking a cliché! | and as writer, Cetrano responds ~with deprecating laughter as risking a cliché! | ||
that he’s “existential” in both:“He does things to their fullest.” Although | that he’s “existential” in both: “He does things to their fullest.” Although | ||
Norman had a “wonderful teacher in Jose,” he’s not a fast boxer.“He wades | Norman had a “wonderful teacher in Jose,” he’s not a fast boxer.“He wades | ||
in and clubs you to death.” This suggestion of Mailer’s legendary fearlessness will echo for anyone who knows his life and work, in every act or stunt | in and clubs you to death.” This suggestion of Mailer’s legendary fearlessness will echo for anyone who knows his life and work, in every act or stunt | ||
as well as every piece of prose. | as well as every piece of prose. | ||
{{in5|n}}Since Mailer’s death on November 10, 2007, there has (not surprisingly) | |||
been an outpouring of retrospective summaries and evaluations of his life | |||
and career in magazines, newspapers, radio, and television, virtually all mass | |||
media. Equally unsurprising is the fact that Mailer has been almost universally | |||
portrayed as a fighter for everything he believed in, and more precisely, | |||
in many cases as a boxer. For example, in an article in ''The New York Observer''(Nov. 19, 2007, 8) Leon Neyfakh tells the story of how Mailer acquired the | |||
original David Levine illustration of Mailer “as a boxer, his ... body in a | |||
crouch and his gloves at his face.”Mailer had just published “Some Children | |||
of the Goddess” in ''Esquire'' (July 1963, rpt. ''Cannibals and Christians'', | |||
1966) in which he took on his major novelistic contemporaries and rivals and | |||
was photographed posed in the corner of a boxing ring. Neyfakh goes on to | |||
recount how Mailer took the cardboard-mounted illustration to show Jose | |||
Torres, who teasedMailer’s vanity by idly bending it almost to the breaking | |||
point. Apparently, by remaining silent (if not unperturbed) Mailer passed the | |||
Torres modesty requirement. | |||
{{in5|n}}It is, in fact, almost impossible to enumerate the many retrospectives | |||
appearing immediately after Mailer’s death which either pictured him in a | |||
boxing contest: with gloves on or actually in a ring. Many others referred | |||
pointedly to his predilection for fisticuffs both in and out of the ring. Thus, | |||
it is clear that boxing has always been and will always be associated with the | |||
Mailer legend. ''Sports Illustrated'' titled Kostya Kennedy’s tribute, “The Pugilist | |||
at Rest.” | |||
'''Violence in Personal Confrontation Outside the Ring''' | |||
What I further consider significant here is Mailer’s fictive vision of fighting. | |||
Violence in personal confrontations outside the ring, both in heterosexual | |||
relationships and between male adversaries, is central toMailer’s fiction. | |||
ChristianMessenger, in a related article, makes some interesting points, but | |||
I think it’s a critical commonplace to trot out Mailer’s 1959 story, “The Time | |||
of Her Time,” as the beginning of all this. As early as ''A Transit to Narcissus'' | |||
(1978),Mailer was already concerned with the smoldering violence between | |||
sexual partners, alluding to “the most terrible themes of my own life: the | |||
nearness of violence to creation, and the whiff of murder just beyond every | |||
embrace of love” (Introduction x). | |||
{{in5|n}}And the darkest side of this vision is disturbingly revealed in ''The Armies | |||
of the Night'' (1968), when Mailer writes with horror of federal Marshall and | |||
American soldiers brutally beating young women during the night after the | |||
1967 march on the Pentagon: Such men, he suggests, “may never have | |||
another opportunity like this—to beat a woman without having to make | |||
love to her” (304). | |||
{{in5|n}}It’s true that in “The Time of Her Time,” Sergius O’Shaugnessy, just back | |||
fromMexico after the end of ''The Deer Park'' (1955), does throw Denise Gondelman | |||
“a fuck the equivalent of a fifteen round fight” (“Time” in ''Advertisements | |||
''501). Sergius has been a boxer in the Air Force, and in bed he and | |||
Denise are “like two club fighters” ~490!. But it is shewho gets in the last literal | |||
punch: “I might have known she would have a natural punch. My jaw | |||
felt it for half an hour after she was gone...” (494–495).And in the story’s last | |||
line, he muses that “[L]ike a real killer, she did not look back, and was out the | |||
door before I could rise to tell her that she was a hero fit for me” (503). This | |||
is, therefore, a battle of equals, which prefigures embryonically the growth | |||
toward the graceful, loving equality of the central Rojack/Cherry passage in | |||
''An American Dream. | |||
'' | |||
The extended fighting metaphor reaches its peak in An American Dream. | |||
Stephen Rojack is an amateur boxer, and clearly the central bout of the novel | |||
is the vitriolic and deadly scene in the opening chapter when, in a surprisingly | |||
even match, he fights and kills his powerful, witch-like wife,Deborah. | |||
But I must point out yet again that Rojack does not, as KateMillet suggests, | |||
“get away with murder” ~Sexual Politics 15!. Instead, this scene, with its pervasive | |||
parallel imagery of combat and sex is part of a cohesive and symmetrical | |||
pattern of symbolism which unifies the novel tonally, structurally and | |||
thematically. After a series of mutual insults and the escalating fury of an | |||
intense physical struggle, Rojack strangles Deborah: | |||
[S]pasms began to open in me, and my mind cried out then, | |||
“Hold back! you’re going too far, hold back!” I could feel a series | |||
of orders whiplike tracers of light from my head to my arm, I was | |||
ready to obey. I was trying to stop, but pulse packed behind pulse | |||
in a pressure up to thunderhead; some blackbiled lust, some | |||
desire to go ahead not unlike the instant one comes in a woman | |||
against her cry that she is without protection came bursting with | |||
rage from out of me. (35–36) | |||
{{in5|n}}This inflammatory scene introduces a more significant bout: that of | |||
Rojack with himself, in the heroic struggle to purge his own moral weakness | |||
and set out on that terrifying journey into the labyrinthine recesses of | |||
the self, on the existential quest for the true identity that lies at his core. This | |||
quest is punctuated by successively more frightening confrontations: first the | |||
scene of hellish fornication with the “Nazi” maid, Ruta, which establishes the | |||
allegorical nature of Rojack’s pilgrimage to salvation in an infernal world of | |||
Manichaean choices; then with Ike “Romeo” Romalozzo, a brutal and corrupt | |||
ex-boxer; and with police Lieutenant Roberts, who is described after | |||
Rojack outwits him as a crooked wrestler who hadn’t known it was his night to lose. | |||
{{in5|n}}Penultimately, he faces ShagoMartin, who in a scene of intimate violence | |||
redolent of sexual connection ~“I got a whiff of his odor ... a smell of full | |||
nearness, as if we’d been in bed for an hour.” @Dream 182#! teaches Rojack | |||
something about nobility and forgiveness and passes on to him the phallic | |||
power ~as epitomized in Shago’s totemic umbrella! necessary for his climactic | |||
confrontation with Barney Oswald Kelly. | |||
{{in5|n}}Insofar as each of these characters has allegorical as well as literal value in | |||
the novel, Rojack’s struggles with them may be seen as confrontations with | |||
the worst aspects of himself, which hemust overcome and purge. On a larger | |||
scale, his progress is a peculiarly American one, a repudiation of the false | |||
American dream of meretricious corruption and an embracing of a new, | |||
true American Dreamof authenticity of self. Rojack comes to represent what | |||
was best in the American character after WWII, what was shamelessly corrupted, | |||
and what Mailer suggests may be redeemed by courage, discipline, | |||
and a commitment to selfless heterosexual love. And he does this with the | |||
aid of representatives of marginalized groups: Shago and Cherry. | |||
''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' is a lesser novel: a pale reflection, a distant echo | |||
of the masterful An American Dream. But a few points are worth touching | |||
on. Again, Tim Madden has been an amateur boxer in his youth. He does | |||
fight and defeat Spider Nissen and Stoodie, the badness twins, with the aid | |||
of “Stunts,” his dog, who dies with Spider’s knife in his heart. But despite initial, | |||
ambiguous appearances, Tim does not hurt, does not kill women, or kill | |||
anyone for that matter. But Patty Lareine, his wife, does kill Jessica Pond. In | |||
fact, two women are murderers: Madeleine Falco also shoots her husband, | |||
the corrupt Chief of Police Alvin Regency. Significantly, TimMadden refuses | |||
the tempting suggestion of Patty Lareine that he kill her then husband,MeeksWardley Hilby III, and by the novel’s end is capable of compassionate | |||
tenderness toward the suicidal, homosexualWardley. Further, Tim establishes | |||
an almost friendly relationship with Patty’s hostile, dangerous black | |||
lover, Bolo Green ~a.k.a. “Mr. Black”!. Most important, like Rojack at the | |||
conclusion of An American Dream, Timis shown to fight his true battlewith | |||
himself and his own fears and weaknesses. | |||
Thus, in this novel as in virtually all of Mailer’s work as well as his personal | |||
and public life, combat with adversaries is most pivotal as an external | |||
manifestation of the true central struggle within oneself against the ignoble, | |||
ignominious emotions of cowardice and moral sloth. Courage, personal | |||
discipline, stoicism, the leap of faith essential to love, the definition and celebration | |||
of the existential self: these values are not outmoded. They never | |||
will be. | |||
And what of theman who wrote of these all his life? He is gone now from | |||
this sphere, from our limited purview. But his work will be with us forever, | |||
and we will remember: He was a fighter. | |||
==Works Cited== | ==Works Cited== | ||
* {{cite book |last=Leeds|first= Barry|date=2008 |title=He was a Fighter: Boxing in Norman Mailer's Life and Work|url= |location= |publisher= |pages=385-394 |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }} | * {{cite book |last=Leeds|first= Barry|date=2008 |title=He was a Fighter: Boxing in Norman Mailer's Life and Work|url= |location= |publisher= |pages=385-394 |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }} | ||