At the beginning of the book, he does state that he is going to do this, so it is not unexpected. This will also allow the reader, should he or she wish to continue, to get a different perspective. One part that I did enjoy was when Norman (how he referred to himself throughout the book) went jogging with Ali when the boxer was doing road work. While the pace was slower and he didn’t last the entire length of the run, it was nonetheless something that is not typically found in other books on this fight. What Mailer is trying to capture is the magic that surrounds a big fight: the rituals, the superstitions, the whole game. We still see it today with the UFC. It’s the story which gets built around the fighters and their entourage and the varied characters which the fight attracts. The question then becomes: why do we need to create a narrative? Why can’t the actual fight speak for itself? Maybe because many times it doesn’t. But this time, as everyone knows, it did. Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for president. One hopes it is the same half.” Adams, Laura, ed. (1974a). Will the Real Norman Mailer Please Stand Up. Port Washington; London: Kennikat Press. ISBN 9780804690669. OCLC 1050855202.

The Fight by Norman Mailer: 9780812986129

Throughout Norman Mailer's foray into sports journalism he focuses on a variety of topics both within and outside of the boxing ring.

Maidstone is the final of three underground [5] films written and directed by Norman Mailer in the late 1960s and was his largest production in terms of capital expenses and physical and emotional expenditures. [6] The film began production in 1968 and was not completed until 1970. Production occurred over five days at various East Hampton estates, and "[t]he actors worked without a script, without a net, and often, without any idea what they were doing." [7] Mailer relied on his own acting as a method of directing while prodding cast members to react on film rather than reading from a script. [8] This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. ( December 2019) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Vidal and Norman Mailer first met at a mutual friend’s Manhattan apartment in 1952. Mailer had made a huge splash with The Naked and the Dead, his bestselling novel of the Pacific war, frustrating Vidal, whose own war novel, Williwaw, had barely registered. The two young writers circled each other warily, and a complicated friendship began that would play out over the next five decades. The two had little in common. “Norman imagined himself by nature a kind of boxer – though he wasn’t, not really,” says Gay Talese, a friend to both men. “In reality, Norman was soft. But he put on this aggressive mask. Vidal had another kind of mask: cool, suave, worldly-wise. It was a good contrast with Norman. They played well together, but it was always a kind of act. They both understood the publicity value of this contest, and they let it play out in different ways.” important essays, 1948–2006, including "Freud" an unpublished essay from the mid-1950s; [34] edited by Phillip Sipiora

The Fight by Norman Mailer | Goodreads

Norman Mailer, “The Executioner’s Song,” The Fight: Norman Mailer, by Norman Mailer, Vintage International, 1997, 216 Justin Bozung points out that Mailer's determination to cast non-actors in Maidstone and other films supports his belief that "we are all actors in our daily lives." [3] Mailer's determination to blur reality and fiction as scenarios unfold could only be achieved by capturing true responses to situations. [3] Many of Mailer's casts were chosen from friends who "reflect facets of his persona." [4] Production [ edit ]letters, 1940 to 2007, selected from the approximately 50,000 Mailer wrote over his lifetime, [35] edited by J. Michael Lennon What's not realized about good novelists is that they're as competitive as good athletes. They study each other - where the other person is good and where the person is less good. Writers are like that but don't admit it.” - Norman Mailer 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. Something Mailer did better than writing novels was to apply the techniques of fiction to a non-fiction subject. The first book to use this strategy was The Armies of the Night (subtitled History as a Novel/The Novel as History), which recorded, through the eyes of the narrator, "Mailer", the 1967 march on the Pentagon to protest against the Vietnam War. He employed the same technique in other books, including Miami and the Siege of Chicago (1968) and Of a Fire on the Moon (1970), an account of space travel in which he styled himself Aquarius.