The prose is clean and laconic, at once it makes you think of Hemingway and then Conrad's Heart of Darkness, considering its setting. Mailer isn't very subtle about his influences since he mentions both Conrad's masterpiece and Hemingway in the book, and he shares Hemingway's love for machismo. The book moves along nicely because of Mailer's storytelling gift, and his ability to immerse you into the atmosphere of Zaire. Sì, forse l'Alì pubblico era uno spaccone, ma quella era la sua missione: ergersi a simbolo invincibile per dare forza e speranza alla sua gente. There are two kinds of reader I can imagine loving The Fight as much as I do: those who have an interest in boxing, and everybody else. Mailer’s account of the 1974 Heavyweight Championship fight in Zaire between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman has all the dramatic tension of a novel even though we know how it’s going to end. Mailer is no disembodied observer: “Now, our man of wisdom had a vice. He wrote about himself. Not only would he describe the events he saw, but his own small effect on events.” In 1955 Norman Mailer co-founded the Village Voice, and he was the editor of Dissent from 1952 until 1963. For his part in demonstrations against the war in Vietnam he was gaoled in 1967. He was President of PEN (US chapter) from 1984 to 1986 and was winner of the National Book Award for Arts and Letters in 1969 and of the Pulitzer Prize twice, once in 1969 and again in 1980.

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (July 14, 1975). "Mailer on Ali and Foreman" (PDF). The New York Times . Retrieved March 4, 2015. The closer a heavyweight comes to the championship, the more natural it is for him to be a little bit insane, secretly insane, for the heavyweight champion of the world is either the toughest man in the world or he is not, but there is a real possibility he is. It is like being the big toe of God. You have nothing to measure yourself by. But this isn't merely a sports book, I was quite surprised by Mailer's political commentary and astute observations about the state of Zaire. One might say that this book feels like a companion piece to Conrad's original novel about the heart of darkness, and there is a sense that nothing has changed since the days of King Leopold II and the trauma that came with that. It almost seems as if the Zairians traded one dictator for another, except one that doesn't maim them for his own enrichment.No fighter, no American athlete, would ever be so connected with a writer as Ali would be with Mailer. But the champ no one wanted, Sonny Liston, had a special place in Mailer’s esteem, too. Mailer recalled to me that on the night he disrupted Liston’s press conference, “Sonny himself wasn’t as offended as the newspapermen. I told him I didn’t like it that he called me a bum. He laughed and said, ‘Hey, you can call me a bum. Hell, I’m a bigger bum than you because I’m bigger than you,’” he told me.

On two other fighters, "As boxers, Ellis and Liston had such different moves one could not pass a bowl of soup to the other without spilling it." Worse, an unnamed American-turned-local-expert fills Mailer in on the massacres, the cronyism, the egomania (when pictured in the state media with large numbers of politicians, dignitaries and advisors, only Mobutu is ever identified by name) the tribal frictions and the way Mobutu's plunder is viewed locally: "he's the chieftain of the country and a King should wear his robes... be resplendent. They would respect him less if his expenses were not larger than life." In the ring, under Kinshasha's darkly clouded, early morning skies, Mailer's account of the fight is staggeringly detailed, lyrical, fanciful, insightful and brilliant. Early in the first round he explains clearly for the non-afficionado just how important it is that Ali was landing lead rights and, as a result Foreman's "face was developing a murderous appetite. He had not been treated so disrespectfully in years... He was going to dismember Ali." Once Foreman starts to land his heavy thwomping shots later in the round "the whites of Ali's eyes showed the glaze of a combat soldier who has just seen a dismembered arm go flying across the sky after an explosion. What kind of monster was he encountering?" Rip Torn, who died Tuesday at the age of 88, will be remembered for his powerhouse roles in comedies like The Larry Sanders Show and Dodgeball. His hulking presence on screen was utilized by comedians for decades, providing a bellowing, albeit over-confident foil to neurotic comedy archetypes like the titular Sanders character in Garry Shandling's beloved HBO show. But before Torn became a comedy super-weapon, he found his place in the '70s American film movement as a strapping leading man in movies like The Man Who Fell to Earth, Payday, and the experimental Norman Mailer project, Maidstone. Soms leek Ali sprekend op een blanke acteur die te weinig schmink ophad voor zijn rol […] en niet helemaal overtuigde – een van de achthonderd kleinere tegenstrijdigheden van Ali. […] Foreman kon door de lobby lopen als de potente verpersoonlijking van een levende dode, alert op alles en in zijn stilte immuun voor de achteloze verontreiniging van het handenschudden van Jan en allemaal. Foremans handen waren van hem gescheiden […] Ze waren zijn instrument, en hij hield ze in zijn zakken zoals een jager zijn geweer in een fluwelen kist bewaart.’Michael Wood (July 27, 1975). "Muhammad Ali versus George Foreman via Norman Mailer". The New York Times . Retrieved March 4, 2015. Oorspronkelijk werd Het gevecht (vertaling Willem Visser en Frans Reusink) geschreven als een journalistieke reportage, maar dan duidelijk wel het soort waarbij de auteur vrij spel krijgt – en juist dat maakt dit boek zo de moeite waard. Mailer neemt de tijd om uit te wijden, soms over bijzaken, soms over boksen zelf. Nooit vertelt hij simpel na wat er gebeurt, hij zoomt regelmatig uitgebreid in op allerlei details, en door de heldere structuur (dagenlange voorbereiding en training, ten slotte het gevecht) behoudt het boek zelfs daarbij toch een dwingende kracht.

Mailer said Liston offered him his hand to shake; he asked, “Okay, bum?” and asked Mailer to get him a drink. “I’m not your flunkie,” Mailer told Liston. Liston looked around the room and said in a voice everyone could hear, “I like this guy.” Zaire in 1974, a nation filled with excitement and anticipation as it prepares to host the historic fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, is vividly described in Norman Mailer’s “The Fight” opening. Mailer introduces the story by emphasizing the cultural significance and widespread media coverage this battle attracted. On the other hand, Mailer's aggressive, deeply masculine prose causes problems when describing just about anything else. The build-up to and aftermath of the fight are narcissistic, self-serving, condescending, and more than a little racist. His research is lazy. He's clearly in awe of Ali. He makes no effort to explore his own biases about race, boxing, Africa, or anything else. I can't for the life of me figure out what the point is. Several journalists hooted him down, but Liston, a brute of a man who had spent much of his life behind bars, raised his hands and told them to be quiet. He smiled and said, “Leave the bum talk.”

I can say confidently that one need not be versed in the pugilistic arts to enjoy this book. I know next to nothing about boxing, and on the rare occasion when I have viewed a bout, usually end up falling asleep by the end of the first round. Yet Mailer's description of the match is so gripping that even though you know the outcome of the fight, the scene is rife with tension.