Right, that was a rather long heading, I know. But then The Fight is that sort of book.
You know, when you think of boxing, somehow you don't think of class. You think of two big, muscular men, each trying to beat the other to the canvas, cheered by hundreds of people, baying for blood.
Boxing evokes images that are gladiatorial. Brutal. But not elegant. Not classy.
But then it is not often that someone like Norman Mailer writes about the sport. The man considered by many to be one of the literary greats of the last century, was one of the dozens of writers who flocked to Zaire in 1974 to see what many had hailed as the fight of the century - Muhammad Ali vs George Foreman.
Ali had lost the world heavyweight title a few years ago. Foreman had won it off the man who defeated Ali. Ali was supposed to be old and past it. Foreman a monster who destroyed rather than defeated opponents.
And they were fighting not in Las Vegas or Madison Square Garden, but in the middle of Africa. In Kinshasa, Zaire.
It was a battle not just of two people, but two styles, two religions (Ali insisted on making it a Holy War) and indeed two cultures.
NOW imagine one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century writing about it.
You know, when you think of boxing, somehow you don't think of class. You think of two big, muscular men, each trying to beat the other to the canvas, cheered by hundreds of people, baying for blood.
Boxing evokes images that are gladiatorial. Brutal. But not elegant. Not classy.
But then it is not often that someone like Norman Mailer writes about the sport. The man considered by many to be one of the literary greats of the last century, was one of the dozens of writers who flocked to Zaire in 1974 to see what many had hailed as the fight of the century - Muhammad Ali vs George Foreman.
Ali had lost the world heavyweight title a few years ago. Foreman had won it off the man who defeated Ali. Ali was supposed to be old and past it. Foreman a monster who destroyed rather than defeated opponents.
And they were fighting not in Las Vegas or Madison Square Garden, but in the middle of Africa. In Kinshasa, Zaire.
It was a battle not just of two people, but two styles, two religions (Ali insisted on making it a Holy War) and indeed two cultures.
NOW imagine one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century writing about it.
