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vdarcangelo's review against another edition
3.0
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2007/jul/27/fighter-not-quite-a-knockout/
This review originally appeared in the ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
'Fighter' not quite a knockout
Vince Darcangelo, Special to The Rocky
Published July 27, 2007 at midnight
Plot in a nutshell: Davidson's debut is at once a class study, a gritty two-fisted slobber-knocker, and a lowbrow exploration of the world of illegal boxing. In its finer moments, it delivers its dark social commentary like a right hook to the jaw. At other times, particularly when describing human interactions outside the ring, Davidson telegraphs his punches.
The Fighter's plot unfolds through the mirrored lives of two characters: Paul Harris, the privileged son of a wealthy winery owner, and Rob Tully, a working-class teenage boxing prodigy. Paul is pampered and apathetic; in his late 20s, he still lives with his parents and works for his father. Then one night, he is savagely beaten in a bar fight, causing him to take up boxing.
Meanwhile, Rob is the product of a close-knit and loving family. Rob isn't passionate about boxing, but doesn't have any other career options. Their stories intersect in a rural farmhouse that hosts brutal, underground boxing matches.
Like Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, The Fighter features a protagonist, Paul, who disdains the "softness" of the 21st century male and wants to get back in touch with his primal roots. Humanity has gained much through social evolution, but, the book seems to ask: In shedding its most basic survival skills, is humanity evolving into extinction?
Sample of prose: "Didn't every organism seek the easiest pathway to survival? Then what of the organism reared in an environment without predators or obstacles, its every need provided? Paul pictured a flabby boneless creature, shapeless, as soft and raw as the spot under a picked scab."
Pros: Like a great pugilist, Davidson's fight scenes contain no wasted motion. They are swift and smooth, graceful yet vicious. Few stomachs are stronger than mine, and even I was grimacing at the brutality.
Cons: Davidson excels at describing society's underbelly, but struggles to illustrate the upper-crust existence of Paul Harris. These scenes (which make up a good portion of the book) are slow, the characters and plot turns contrived.
Final word: Fans of Palahniuk and Irvine Welsh will relish the graphic fight sequences and gritty social commentary. Davidson has penned a disturbing treatise on the cost of human evolution.
This review originally appeared in the ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
'Fighter' not quite a knockout
Vince Darcangelo, Special to The Rocky
Published July 27, 2007 at midnight
Plot in a nutshell: Davidson's debut is at once a class study, a gritty two-fisted slobber-knocker, and a lowbrow exploration of the world of illegal boxing. In its finer moments, it delivers its dark social commentary like a right hook to the jaw. At other times, particularly when describing human interactions outside the ring, Davidson telegraphs his punches.
The Fighter's plot unfolds through the mirrored lives of two characters: Paul Harris, the privileged son of a wealthy winery owner, and Rob Tully, a working-class teenage boxing prodigy. Paul is pampered and apathetic; in his late 20s, he still lives with his parents and works for his father. Then one night, he is savagely beaten in a bar fight, causing him to take up boxing.
Meanwhile, Rob is the product of a close-knit and loving family. Rob isn't passionate about boxing, but doesn't have any other career options. Their stories intersect in a rural farmhouse that hosts brutal, underground boxing matches.
Like Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, The Fighter features a protagonist, Paul, who disdains the "softness" of the 21st century male and wants to get back in touch with his primal roots. Humanity has gained much through social evolution, but, the book seems to ask: In shedding its most basic survival skills, is humanity evolving into extinction?
Sample of prose: "Didn't every organism seek the easiest pathway to survival? Then what of the organism reared in an environment without predators or obstacles, its every need provided? Paul pictured a flabby boneless creature, shapeless, as soft and raw as the spot under a picked scab."
Pros: Like a great pugilist, Davidson's fight scenes contain no wasted motion. They are swift and smooth, graceful yet vicious. Few stomachs are stronger than mine, and even I was grimacing at the brutality.
Cons: Davidson excels at describing society's underbelly, but struggles to illustrate the upper-crust existence of Paul Harris. These scenes (which make up a good portion of the book) are slow, the characters and plot turns contrived.
Final word: Fans of Palahniuk and Irvine Welsh will relish the graphic fight sequences and gritty social commentary. Davidson has penned a disturbing treatise on the cost of human evolution.
sarahconnor89757's review against another edition
4.0
I'm not well-versed in the boxing/combat lexicon, although I do count the WWE as one of my favorite soaps and I've seen a handful of movies with this book's premise, but the book is written in a great way that is recognizable to those in-the-know and relatable to those who aren't.
The character are well written, the relationships cliche. This isn't a book that's going to stick with you but it a great selection for the sub-genre.
The character are well written, the relationships cliche. This isn't a book that's going to stick with you but it a great selection for the sub-genre.
chalicotherex's review
3.0
Kind of a rich boxer vs poor boxer thing, set in St. Catharines, Ontario of all places. Characters and plot weren't very believable, but it was still fun. The fighting was way over the top, but in a good way. There’s one insane chapter about underground fighting in Vietnam where fighters are forced to cover their knuckles with methamphetamine while gamblers flick super hot coins at them. Call it a split decision in favour of the book.
rosseroo's review
2.0
When a debut novel comes bearing blurbs from Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club), Thom Jones (The Pugilist at Rest), and Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting), readers should be primed for a visceral story. On that count, the book definitely delivers -- but that's probably the best thing I can say about it.
I haven't read Fight Club, but I did quite like the film version, and it's hard to get away from that 1996 novel when reading this. The story here revolves around 20-something Paul, the privileged son of a farmer who reinvented himself as a winemaker, and Rob, a teenage boxing prodigy who seems destined to fulfill the dreams of his father and uncle. With that kind of framework, you know their paths are going to cross, and that encounter is likely to be the climax of the book.
Like the unnamed narrator of Fight Club, Paul is drifting through a comfortable but empty life. After being beaten to a pulp outside a bar, he concludes that he needs to reassess what he's doing, and embarks of a course of grueling manual labor, intense gym and boxing training, and not a few steroids. Meanwhile, Rob's uncle earns $15/round as a sparring partner for up-and-comers plus whatever he can make in the underground bare-knuckle circuit, Rob's father works a graveyard shift at a bakery, and Rob bears the weight of being the one who has the talent to escape the dead-end neighborhood.
Paul's over-the-top transformation into a literal masochist is just barely credible, even factoring in the steroids. Rob's arc is a little more plausible for the first two-thirds of the book, and then also comes on too strong. But then again, perhaps greater subtlety and nuance are a bit much to ask from a book whose primary strength is the incredibly vivid descriptions of fights and the resulting disfigurements. These burning flashes aside, it's hard not to come out the other end of the book without feeling like you've just sat through a soap opera of sorts, but for guys.
I haven't read Fight Club, but I did quite like the film version, and it's hard to get away from that 1996 novel when reading this. The story here revolves around 20-something Paul, the privileged son of a farmer who reinvented himself as a winemaker, and Rob, a teenage boxing prodigy who seems destined to fulfill the dreams of his father and uncle. With that kind of framework, you know their paths are going to cross, and that encounter is likely to be the climax of the book.
Like the unnamed narrator of Fight Club, Paul is drifting through a comfortable but empty life. After being beaten to a pulp outside a bar, he concludes that he needs to reassess what he's doing, and embarks of a course of grueling manual labor, intense gym and boxing training, and not a few steroids. Meanwhile, Rob's uncle earns $15/round as a sparring partner for up-and-comers plus whatever he can make in the underground bare-knuckle circuit, Rob's father works a graveyard shift at a bakery, and Rob bears the weight of being the one who has the talent to escape the dead-end neighborhood.
Paul's over-the-top transformation into a literal masochist is just barely credible, even factoring in the steroids. Rob's arc is a little more plausible for the first two-thirds of the book, and then also comes on too strong. But then again, perhaps greater subtlety and nuance are a bit much to ask from a book whose primary strength is the incredibly vivid descriptions of fights and the resulting disfigurements. These burning flashes aside, it's hard not to come out the other end of the book without feeling like you've just sat through a soap opera of sorts, but for guys.
corey's review
3.0
Read this one a looong time ago, don't remember much about it, except for the scene where he's working in the fields with his father's servants, which I remember was pretty well-done. I got excited when I heard about a "The Fighter" movie with Mark Wahlberg, but later found out that it was totally unrelated to the book.
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