“There is always shock in seeing him again. Not live as in television, but standing before you, looking his best. Then the World’s Greatest Athlete is in danger of being our most beautiful man, and the vocabulary of Camp is doomed to appear. Women draw an audible breath. Men look down.”
And so begins, “The Fight” by Norman Mailer. I cannot remember the last time I really wanted to love a book as much as I wanted to love “The Fight”. Having just watched “What’s My Name” (2019) the recent excellent Muhammad Ali documentary from Antoine Fuqua, I was on a deep Muhammad Ali binge during this quarantine, and “The Fight” seemed like the perfect follow up, a primary source telling of the drama and build up to the now legendary Rumble in the Jungle. Even the aesthetic of the book is beautiful. The Penguin UK edition that I possess has a gorgeous minimalist title and author set over a magnificent photo of Ali in the midst of a vicious attack on Foreman. The rear cover of the book reveals the second half of the photo, with Foreman wincing from the blow he just received, sweat flying, and an ominous quote in large block letters:
‘TO FOREMAN, ALI NOW SAID, “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!’”
I’m going to disappoint you now, with the fact that this was the best part of the book. Norman Mailer was not made for the 21st century. Born in 1923, he attended Harvard at 16, founded The Village Voice in 1955, was a major Vietnam War dissenter, and won the Pulitzer prize in 1969 and 1980. He’s kind of a big deal.
Also a racist.
I’m not sure he considered himself a racist, but as you slowly digest “The Fight”, his distaste for African Americans bleeds into every page. Let’s forget the fact that this is 1975 and the Civil Rights movement is still relatively young, but it’s not that young. The only time Mailer describes a person’s race throughout the book is when he refers to people as Blacks with a capital B. Rarely does he distinguish between the people of Zaire or the African-Americans. To him, they are all Blacks. There are some sentences where his distaste comes through rather clearly, for example, here, speaking of the Zaioris officials:
“Since some of these officials even spoke English (with accents more tortured than the Japanese – words catapulting from their gut as they popped their eyes)”. (21)
A sentence filled with disdain as he is forced to listen to English spoken by someone in a different country, with god forbid, an accent. Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) had a multitude of languages spoken within it. All of these people Mailer is referring to are at least bilingual and probably multilingual, and he holds disdain for their accent, from his unilingual perch of white arrogance. Our narrator, who for some reason tells the entire story in third person, is most definitely an asshole.
Later in the opening chapters, he reveals his true feelings for the “Black” people:
“But his (Norman Mailer) love affair with the Black soul, a sentimental orgy at its worst, had been given a drubbing through the seasons of Black Power. He no longer knew whether he loved Blacks or secretly disliked them, which had to be the dirtiest secret in his American life.” (35)
Wait a minute! I know the best way to keep a secret! Let’s publish it in our novel! Norman presents us here with the classic, “I’m not racist, but I only like minorities when they are quiet, polite and they listen”. Heaven help Norman, because he has had to witness a Black power movement and it has really shook him to his core. White fragility has rarely been so succinctly admitted too.
Are you disappointed thus far? Good. I hope you feel my pain. My copy of “The Fight” is filled with dozens of post-it notes marking off similar statements of ignorance, but I think the above really summarize the vibe of Mailer’s novel. It gave me the heebie-jeebies, and made the book difficult to digest. When he actually does arrive at the fight, from page 164-210, Mailer does do an eloquent job describing the combatants. It is some of the best sportswriting I have ever read.
“Foreman had begun to show the clumsiness of a street fighter at the end of a long rumble. He was reverting. It happened to all but the most cultivated fighters toward the exhausted end of a long and terrible fight. Slowly they descended from the elegance of their best style down to the knee in the groin and the overhead punch (with a rock in the fist) of forgotten street fights.” (204)
Credit where credit is due. Mailer is a talented writer. And his prose describing the fight still holds up today. Alas for me, it was not enough to wash away the stains of prejudice that coloured the book from cover to cover, and soured my entire experience.
Read at your own risk. There are far more worthy depictions of this epic battle.