内容简介
"Entertaining... Mailer continues his familiar shadow-boxingwith the ineffable." -- Time
In 1975 in Kinshasa, Zaire, at the virtualcenter of Africa, two African American boxers were paid fivemillion dollars apiece to fight each other until one was declaredwinner. One was Muhammad Ali, the aging but irrepressible"professor of boxing" who vowed to reclaim the championship he hadlost. The other was George Foreman, who was as taciturn as Ali wasvoluble and who kept his hands in his pockets "the way a hunterlays his rifle back into its velvet case." Observing them wasNorman Mailer, whose grasp of the titanic battle's feints andstratagems -- and whose sensitivity to their deeper symbolism --make this book a masterpiece of the literature of sport.
Whether he is analyzing the fighters'moves, interpreting their characters, or weighing their competingclaims on the African and American souls, Mailer is a commentatorof unparalleled energy, acumen, and audacity -- and surely one ofthe few intrepid enough to accompany Ali on a late-night runthrough the bush. In The Fight he restores our tarnished notions ofheroism to a blinding gleam -- and establishes himself as achampion in his own right.
In 1975 in Kinshasa, Zaire, at the virtualcenter of Africa, two African American boxers were paid fivemillion dollars apiece to fight each other until one was declaredwinner. One was Muhammad Ali, the aging but irrepressible"professor of boxing" who vowed to reclaim the championship he hadlost. The other was George Foreman, who was as taciturn as Ali wasvoluble and who kept his hands in his pockets "the way a hunterlays his rifle back into its velvet case." Observing them wasNorman Mailer, whose grasp of the titanic battle's feints andstratagems -- and whose sensitivity to their deeper symbolism --make this book a masterpiece of the literature of sport.
Whether he is analyzing the fighters'moves, interpreting their characters, or weighing their competingclaims on the African and American souls, Mailer is a commentatorof unparalleled energy, acumen, and audacity -- and surely one ofthe few intrepid enough to accompany Ali on a late-night runthrough the bush. In The Fight he restores our tarnished notions ofheroism to a blinding gleam -- and establishes himself as achampion in his own right.