Review: The Fight
Editorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsNorman Mailer, rechristened No'min, takes on the heart of Blackness in darkest Africa as he plunges into the vital spirits of Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in their recent Heavyweight title clash in Zaire (once the huge protectorate of the Congo), and comes up a winner. What No'min wins may not be definable outside an Occult Prose seminar, but it has something to do with Bantu mysticism as exemplified in Ali the Lip's supreme professorship of the art of pugilism and Foreman's gigantic serenity of lionesque rage. Truly, No'min's hypnoprose works wonders at engaging our interest and transubstantiating it into an awe commensurate with the bash's press coverage, a five-million-dollar gate, and worldwide TV attention. Indeed, the book at its weird best has something of the inner control of Conrad steaming upriver through fogs of Black emotion, Black psychology and Black love--though all is admittedly ""a quintessentially comic quest. Boxers were liars. Champions were great liars."" Nor is that great boxing expert in the Beyond and author of Green Hills of 33 Africa ever far from No'min's bag of conjuries. By fight time the reader has been artfully hoodooed into expecting more from the match than anyone but Mailer saw in it--and amazingly delivers. Mailer's mask as narcissistic clown is cut down to a caper or two; instead he divides our hearts between Ali and Foreman. Surely Papa is at last sending down his personal vibration to No'min: ""Well and truly done, my son. Go in peace to the bar.
Review: The Fight
User Review - Eddy Allen - GoodreadsThere are sporting events that transcend the world of sports, and the 1974 heavyweight title fight in which Muhammad Ali regained his crown by improbably kayoing George Foreman in the middle of the ... Read full review
Review: The Fight
User Review - JC - Goodreads3 1/2 stars. The thing about Norman Mailer, in my opinion, is that he sometimes thinks that he is to writing as what Muhammad Ali is to boxing and that he can do no wrong. By being the greatest writer ... Read full review
Review: The Fight
User Review - Steve Rosenstein - GoodreadsNorman Mailer could do just about anything with prose, and what he usually wanted to do with it was celebrate Norman Mailer. So, what we have here is the story of two fights - Ali vs. Foreman, and ... Read full review
Review: The Fight
User Review - James - GoodreadsFor a while I wasn't sure whether Mailer's prose was brilliant or (appallingly) awful, but when the phrase “unromantic as turds” is used to describe “floating clumps of hyacinth”, that decision became ... Read full review
Review: The Fight
User Review - James16 - GoodreadsWell I got say this book "The Fight" by Norman Mailer was very interested. I like the fact it tells about the characters life from the beginning to the end. I also like the fact that this story is ... Read full review
Review: The Fight
User Review - Emma - GoodreadsMailer's style takes a bit of getting used to (and is a bit too pretentious for my taste) but for sheer drama and human emotion, the story of "Rumble in the Jungle" is hard to beat, and Norman Mailer ... Read full review
Review: The Fight
User Review - Harlan Wolff - GoodreadsNorman Mailer's masterpiece. Muhammad Ali's most entertaining fight is brought to life by Mailer's pen. This is the Rumble in the Jungle from a journalist's perspective. I'm not a boxing aficionado ... Read full review
Review: The Fight
User Review - Charles M. - GoodreadsWhast is it about boxing stories? This account tells the true story of how Mohammed Ali used his rope-a-dope tactic in 1975 bout with George Froeman to reclaim the world Hvywt. title. Gripping story, punch by punch! Read full review
Review: The Fight
User Review - Richard Mulligan - GoodreadsFabulous. Mailer brings a world of his own to a world that's already pretty exciting - Zaire, Ali, Foreman, politics, death, magic, bad weather!! Just an amazing project. I love this book! Read full review
