On Boxing

Like a previous reviewer, I was amazed at Joyce's understanding of the fight game. She graphically describes the naked loneliness that a fighter feels as they take off their robe in the ring, the feeling that in spite of recent losses, they will still emerge triumphant as they take on the younger lions in the division. Oates discusses both the abhorrent features of two fighters trying to destroy each other and the almost homoerotic like way the fighters hold on to each other in the clinches and embrace fondly at the end of the match. Not sure if I ever thought of boxing as homoerotic art, but Oates makes it sound plausible. Oates also discusses the rise of Mike Tyson, and his desire to punch Jesse Ferguson's nose into his brain. She also underscores how terrible judging can mar an otherwise compelling boxing match (Holmes-Spinks II as an example). The author feels that Muhammad Ali in his prime was one of if not the greatest fighter of all time. She pulls not punches, though, in describing Ali's early racist, segregationist comments. There is also a chapter about the great Jack Johnson and how he taunted opponents in the ring, dated (and married) white women, and lived the way he wanted to live, and was revered and reviled by many. The book is a bit dated, and there are occasional misspellings of fighters' names (Pernell Whitaker, not Pernell Whittaker), but the insight into the game is timeless and priceless.

Oates takes a step away from her normal family drama fare to step into the ring with a slim series of essays that reflects her long-time love for the sweet science. Passed down from her father, her obsession is sincere and her understanding and compassion for the fighters she writes about is palpable. Including an essay on the young Mike Tyson, who comes off not as the subhuman monster he's portrayed as these days, but instead as a thoughtful man who just happens to have the power to crush men's skulls, this book was engrossing, rich prose from beginning to end. Coincidentally, I just read a new thriller that focuses on a talented young boxer who gets in over his head like Tyson, called The Castro Gene by Todd Buchholz, famous mostly for his non-fiction. Like Oates, he stretches in a new direction and succeeds.

I boxed a bit as a young person although nothing really serious. I did however know something about the 'game' as it was a real part of my childhood world. Our upstairs neighbor Ike Newman was a boxing manager. A friend of my father who he used to visit in his shack down by the Hudson River was a man who once had been a very good featherweight, Joe Bedell. I too in those years saw many fights especially on the Gillette Cavalcade of sports. The greatest of another era were there, the Sugar Ray- Lamotta fights, the sad spectacle of Joe Louis being stopped by a decent Rocky Marciano , the great pleasure of seeing lightweight Jewish Algerian boxer Alphone Halimi take the title in a dancing victory over a now nameless- for-me- opponent. For me in those days 'boxing' was about 'toughness' and 'proving oneself a man'. There was also identity- politics and ethnic struggle with I naturally rooting for the Jewish fighters in those days. I also of course rooted for the underdog 'Negro' fighters when they were not fighting someone Jewish. All this is perhaps irrelevant to a review or Oates thoughtful, insightful and as usual beautifully written essay on Boxing. She sees it not as a 'sport' but rather sees each boxing match as a ' story, a highly condensed dramatic story' She says 'when nothing much happens' failure is the story. She speaks about boxing as a masculine world involving highly complex and refined skill 'especially in the lighter divisions'. She distinguishes boxing from fighting. " Fighting seems to belong to something predating civilization , the instinct not merely to defend oneself - for when has the masculine ego ever been assuaged by so minimal a gesture? - but to attack another and to force him into absolute submission. Hence the electifying effect upon a typical fight crowd when fighting suddenly emerges out of boxing - the excitement when a boxer's face begins to bleed." She speaks about boxers being angry and about anger being a fundamental emotion of boxing. She speaks of it too , and its 'obsessive appeal' as a kind of art form an'emotional experience impossible to convey in words' She also does not shy away from something many see its 'brutality' She discusses the humanitarian interest in doing away with the sport but defends it . She raises many questions which I had not really thought about it. I will only add that I have not really had any interest in boxing for many many years. One reason is that I am one of those weak- hearted people who just cannot bring himself to take pleasure from seeing someone beaten and bloody. My own mixed feelings about the sport I guess have shifted with the years. In youth I had more enthusiasm for it . In age while still understanding the excitement it can give I am more repelled by it. This is a book well- worth reading for anyone who truly wishes to think again about the 'sport'.

Where the most eloquent writers display their best prose is through passion. And the seeds of passion thrive in sex, exploitation, and violence. The human condition, written about by every writer but only successfully by a minority, is dissected and shaved away and exposed layer by layer until one gets to the core of what the soul is, of what separates us from our basest instincts. To that end, boxing is the true display of the human condition and the greatest writers have recognized this and have poured forth their own souls to capture the brutality that occurs inside the squared circle. Joyce Carol Oates at first seems like an odd choice as an expert on the sport. A frail academic known for her moving stories of family interaction, she wouldn't at first strike you as a devotee to a sport that most academics abhor. But she is a lifelong fan. Her father was a fan and it seems that it runs in the blood. She's been going to matches and watching them on film since she was a young girl, and due to her thoughtful approach and extraordinary access she manages to coax the true spirit of the athletes from a myriad of interviews. Many spectacular authors have written about the sport. Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, and A.J. Liebling are a few that come to mind. None of those giants bring to the sport a cautious sensitivity that Oates does. Her prose are so rich that when reading this book, I had to frequently set it down and digest what I'd read. Like a rich chocolate, too much at one time would overload my senses, dulling me and causing me to miss nuance and ramble through the poetry. Her book is a treat, slowly and steadily read. It's a beautiful, sad, witty communique from someone who recognizes that we need the outlet, the raw power and relentless destruction that representatives of all of us can administer. Trained to the height of physical perfection, but unrestrained by conscience, boxers show us what we are all capable of doing, what we are all capable of enduring. Her prose? Check this out: "No sport is more physical, more direct, than boxing. No sport appears more powerfully homoerotic: the confrontation in the ring--the disrobing--the sweaty heated combat that is part dance, courtship, coupling--the frequent urgent pursuit by one boxer of the other in the fight's natural and violent movement toward the "knockout": surely boxing derives much of its appeal from this mimicry of a species of erotic love in which one man overcomes the other in an exhibition of superior strength and will. The heralded celibacy of the fighter-in-training is very much a part of boxing lore: instead of focusing his energies and fantasies upon a woman the boxer focuses them upon an opponent. Where Woman has been, Opponent must be." This book, to me, is an inspirational, a prayer book, a series of thoughts meant to get me through life more positive and more in tune with my soul. Livingstone Brambles, of whom I have acquaintance and o

I am still stunned that a person who has never been in the ring could have gained insights into boxing as powerful as the ones Oates pulled together in this book. And I'm grateful (and stunned) that a woman could be as sympathetic, not just to fighters, but to men and manhood, as Oates has managed to be in this book. I am a serious amateur fighter and a sparring partner to the professional fighters I train with. I do gym work or road work five days a week with a former-professional trainer who was also a two-time NY Golden Gloves champion and junior Olympian. I spar Glovers and pros and I love it. I understand boxing and the love for boxing. The gist of my review here is this: After I read this book I realized I didn't understand my love for boxing -- where it comes from and what it all means and what it is I'm doing exactly -- as well as Joyce Carol Oates does. This woman is amazing to me. I've never read her fiction, but I will.The first section of this book, the one in which Oates seemingly tries to take on boxing and what it means from every imaginable angle, is best. This is one of those very, very few books that made me fold down corners so that I can easily return to specific passages. I don't know if non-fighters will really understand this book, or if many fighters will ever bother to read it. But I'm damned glad I did and damned glad Ms. Oates is out there writing.