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ericwelch's review
4.0
David Remnick is perhaps best known for his award-winning work on Russia since the collapse of Communism (Lenin's Tomb and Resurrection: The Struggle for a New Russia). His most recent book deals with Cassius Clay and his transformation into Mohammed Ali. "Boxing in America was born of slavery." Southern plantation owners would often pit their strongest slaves against each other, sometimes to near death. Frederick Douglass objected to the sport because he believed it "muffled the spirit of insurrection. Mohammad Ali had mixed feelings about the sport that made him a public figure, too. Two black men beating up on each other was too intense a reminder of other times. Few who lived through the turbulent sixties have lukewarm feelings about Ali. He became a symbol of rebellion against the oppression of a white society that was reluctant to change. He invented not just a new style of boxing, but spoke loudly to his black brothers when he embraced Elijah Muhammad's black separatist nation. His message to the white community was powerful: "I don't have to be what you want me to be" — a message many in the white community still haven't grasped yet.
The Vietnam War provided the justification for both sides of the issue to love or hate Ali after he refused the draft on religious grounds, thereby sacrificing millions of dollars in defense of the championship he had won. His decision was made when virtually no other celebrity was taking a similar stance, yet he was willing to stand up and represent his black brothers who were giving their lives in Vietnam in disproportionate numbers.
The boxing world contamination of the fifties and sixties was spread beyond the boxers and their managers. The mob had always enjoyed a monopoly on boxing because they, like the boxers themselves, were outsiders. Only a fool or a desperate man would make his living getting hit in the head. Boxers were easy targets. It was not uncommon for sportswriters to receive envelopes filled with cash in order to receive more favorable treatment. Boxing was not unique. Baseball columnists were wined and dined and supplied with all sorts of perquisites to influence their stories. The writers themselves were not investigated during the Kefauver investigations into the boxing world of crime because the senator knew how important it was to keep journalists on his side. As it was the newspaper world took a dim view of the investigations, perhaps because they threatened to derail their gravy train.
In 1960, as Cassius Clay, he became famous as the U.S. Olympic boxing champ. He was so proud he wore the medal to bed. He returned to Louisville a hero and to a parade. When he tried to get a sandwich at a local Woolworth's, however, he was refused service. (Even in 1978 at the height of his fame, renaming a street after him only just barely passed the city council by one vote.) A group of prominent white businessmen put together a promotional package. Most of them knew nothing about boxing, but thought it would be fun. The poetic doggerel that became synonymous with Ali was part of the "great American tradition of narcissistic self-promotion, a descendant of Davy Crockett and Buffalo Bill by way of the dozens. " Ali was fully aware of what he was doing. A meeting with Gorgeous George, a forty-six-year-old wrestler who engaged in vitriol against his opponents, had impressed him. Ali was astute enough to see how it filled the arenas with people. "I saw fifteen thousand people coming to see this man get beat. And his talking did it. I said, this is a good idea!" He said later, "Where do you think "I’d be next week if I didn't know how to shout and holler and make the public take notice? I'd be poor and I'd probably be down in my hometown, washing windows or running an elevator and saying 'yassuh' and 'nawsuh' and knowing my place."
Perhaps Ali's greatest achievement was his disavowal of the white world's expectations. Remnick contrasts Patterson and Liston with Ali. Floyd Patterson was the great conciliator, the white black man, if you will. Sonny Liston was the stereotypic bad black man. Importantly, both showed deference to white society and were expected to remain aloof from the racial upheaval going on around them. The principled stand on Vietnam had profound implications. During his exile he lost his speed. He learned that he could take punches, though, and he absorbed many in the fights that followed. He won a lot but took incredible punishment. Soon his kidneys were affected and his brain was damaged, leading eventually to Parkinson's Disease. Today he is but a mere shadow of his former ebullient self. It says a great deal for America's need to mythologize and to eulogize its athletic heroes that Ali is now mostly regarded with "misty affection." Perhaps that's sad, for it trivializes the accomplishments of an authentic American hero.
The Vietnam War provided the justification for both sides of the issue to love or hate Ali after he refused the draft on religious grounds, thereby sacrificing millions of dollars in defense of the championship he had won. His decision was made when virtually no other celebrity was taking a similar stance, yet he was willing to stand up and represent his black brothers who were giving their lives in Vietnam in disproportionate numbers.
The boxing world contamination of the fifties and sixties was spread beyond the boxers and their managers. The mob had always enjoyed a monopoly on boxing because they, like the boxers themselves, were outsiders. Only a fool or a desperate man would make his living getting hit in the head. Boxers were easy targets. It was not uncommon for sportswriters to receive envelopes filled with cash in order to receive more favorable treatment. Boxing was not unique. Baseball columnists were wined and dined and supplied with all sorts of perquisites to influence their stories. The writers themselves were not investigated during the Kefauver investigations into the boxing world of crime because the senator knew how important it was to keep journalists on his side. As it was the newspaper world took a dim view of the investigations, perhaps because they threatened to derail their gravy train.
In 1960, as Cassius Clay, he became famous as the U.S. Olympic boxing champ. He was so proud he wore the medal to bed. He returned to Louisville a hero and to a parade. When he tried to get a sandwich at a local Woolworth's, however, he was refused service. (Even in 1978 at the height of his fame, renaming a street after him only just barely passed the city council by one vote.) A group of prominent white businessmen put together a promotional package. Most of them knew nothing about boxing, but thought it would be fun. The poetic doggerel that became synonymous with Ali was part of the "great American tradition of narcissistic self-promotion, a descendant of Davy Crockett and Buffalo Bill by way of the dozens. " Ali was fully aware of what he was doing. A meeting with Gorgeous George, a forty-six-year-old wrestler who engaged in vitriol against his opponents, had impressed him. Ali was astute enough to see how it filled the arenas with people. "I saw fifteen thousand people coming to see this man get beat. And his talking did it. I said, this is a good idea!" He said later, "Where do you think "I’d be next week if I didn't know how to shout and holler and make the public take notice? I'd be poor and I'd probably be down in my hometown, washing windows or running an elevator and saying 'yassuh' and 'nawsuh' and knowing my place."
Perhaps Ali's greatest achievement was his disavowal of the white world's expectations. Remnick contrasts Patterson and Liston with Ali. Floyd Patterson was the great conciliator, the white black man, if you will. Sonny Liston was the stereotypic bad black man. Importantly, both showed deference to white society and were expected to remain aloof from the racial upheaval going on around them. The principled stand on Vietnam had profound implications. During his exile he lost his speed. He learned that he could take punches, though, and he absorbed many in the fights that followed. He won a lot but took incredible punishment. Soon his kidneys were affected and his brain was damaged, leading eventually to Parkinson's Disease. Today he is but a mere shadow of his former ebullient self. It says a great deal for America's need to mythologize and to eulogize its athletic heroes that Ali is now mostly regarded with "misty affection." Perhaps that's sad, for it trivializes the accomplishments of an authentic American hero.
darwin8u's review
4.0
"It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up."
-- Muhammad Ali
Pre-Review Smack Talk:
I will review this sucker tomorrow. David Remnick better quake. I'm coming for this book. I read it from cover to cover. I know the words better than Remnick could hope to ever know it. Of course he wrote it, because the words ran from him. I know Remick's words better than his mamma knows him.
Tomorrow. Yes. I'll give this book till tomorrow. And then I'm coming. I'm coming with a pen. I'm coming with poetry. I'm coming with the majesty of Muhammad Ali. The G.O.A.T.. The Greatest. The man who fought a nation. The man who fought for a people. A pretty man. So pretty. He was a butterfly that Nabokov couldn't catch or pin. Tomorrow I will take on this book and take my piece in three rounds. But the Man and the book will have to wait for tomorrow. Tonight I've got a bed to contend with. And I'm the greatest sleeper of all time.
Weight in:
I read the hardback version of Remnick's book, which was 306 pages (326 with acknowledgement, sources, and index). My edition was a 4th printing, 1st Edition from 1998. I also had the Audible/audio version which I debated about listening to because it was abridged and I really hate abridged books (in any format). No. Hate is far too simple a word. I despise abridgments. I abhor them. I abase and disdain them. It is a lazy and cheap way to do an audio-recording and all you end up with is an ugly, deformed homunculus of the original. Go all the way or go home David.
I mean for GOD's sake Remnick. Why would you let people abridge the audio version? Your audio choice was just stupid. It was a 6-hour abridgment which usually translates into cutting 1/3 to 1/2 of this book. So, I ended up listening while I did work around the house and at points where it jumped, I'd rn over to the book and read the gaps. Seriously. I had to read the gaps because you couldn't pay for Dick Hill to read the whole thing or Brilliance Audio thought it was only going to sell if you cut it from 12 hours to 6? Stupid. Reckless. Chump. IT wasn't like this was some William T. Vollmann 3000+ word book on Violence. This was a 300 page book on Muhammad Ali. The Greatest. Do you not respect yourself or do you not resect Ali? Or did you just let the producers talk you down?
And yes Remnick, I know you are the editor of the New Yorker, but really man. Besides a nice bio of Obama and your Russia books, what have you done for me lately? Get out there and write something more. Or hell, don't write. Just stop cutting. Stop leaving the bloody body of your own work on the audio floor.
Round 1: Poem by Ali
Clay comes out to meet Liston
And Liston starts to retreat
If Liston goes back an inch farther
He'll end up in a ringside seat.
Clay swings with his left,
Clay swings with his right,
Look at young Cassius
Carry the fight.
Liston keeps backing
But there's not enough room
It's a matter of time
Till Clay lowers the boom.
Now Clay lands with a right,
What a beautiful swing,
And the punch raises the Bear
Clean out of the ring.
Liston is still rising
And the ref wears a frown,
For he can't start counting,
Till Sonny goes down.
Now Liston is disappearing from view.
The crowd is going frantic,
But radar stations have picked him up
Somewhere over the Atlantic.
Who would have thought
When they came to the fight?
That they'd witness the launching
Of a human satellite.
Yes the crowd did not dream
When they put up the money
That they would see
A total eclipse of the Sonny!
I am the greatest!
Round 2: The Greatest!
The book does a nice job of painting a broad picture of Muhammad Ali (and young Cassius Clay) while focusing primarily on the Liston - Clay fight that made him famous. It touches on a lot of the major points of Clay's life: Growing up in Kentucky, Finding Boxing, High School, the Olympics, The Louisville Syndicate, First Fights, the Liston Fight #1 (FL), the Liston Fight #2 (ME), the Nation of Islam, the Women of Ali (or the Pelvic Missionary) Malcolm X, the Vietnam War, Floyd Patterson, Later Years, Parkinson's Disease.
Some of these were new things, but many were just told well and told with details that were both surprising and intimate. I loved the whole early relationship between Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. It is hard to walk away from this type of book without loving the subject a bit more, no matter where you started from.
Round 3: The Knock-out
The end of the book was sad and beautiful. Remnick talking with an Ali that is saddled with age and disease. The Man, however, is also at peace. Remnick does a good job of exploring not just the limits of boxing, but the largeness of man:
There is a beauty in it--there is terrible beauty in battle, too, particulary for the noncombatant--but if you meet enough former boxers, if you try to decipher their punch-drunk talk, you begin to wonder. What beauty is worth this?
Ali is an American myth who has come to mean many things to many people: a symbol of faith, a symbol of conviction and defiance, a symbol of beauty and skill and courage, a symbol of racial pride, of wit and love. Ali's physical condition is shocking not least because it is an accelerated form of what we all fear, the progression of aging , the unpredictability and danger of life. In Ali we see the frailty even of a man whose job it was to be the most fearsome figure on the globe.
Coda: RIP!
Asked how he would like to be remembered Muhammad Ali once remarked:
"I'll tell you how I'd like to be remembered: as a black man who won the heavyweight title and who was humorous and who treated everyone right. As a man who never looked down on those who looked up at him and who helped as many of his people as he could--financial and also in their fight for freedom, justice, and equality. As a man who wouldn't embarrass them. As a man who tried to unite his people through the faith of Islam that he found when he listened to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And if all that's asking too much, then I'd guess I'd settle for being remembered only as a great boxing champion who became a preacher and a champion of his people. And I wouldn't even mind if folks forgot how pretty I was."
-- Muhammad Ali
Pre-Review Smack Talk:
I will review this sucker tomorrow. David Remnick better quake. I'm coming for this book. I read it from cover to cover. I know the words better than Remnick could hope to ever know it. Of course he wrote it, because the words ran from him. I know Remick's words better than his mamma knows him.
Tomorrow. Yes. I'll give this book till tomorrow. And then I'm coming. I'm coming with a pen. I'm coming with poetry. I'm coming with the majesty of Muhammad Ali. The G.O.A.T.. The Greatest. The man who fought a nation. The man who fought for a people. A pretty man. So pretty. He was a butterfly that Nabokov couldn't catch or pin. Tomorrow I will take on this book and take my piece in three rounds. But the Man and the book will have to wait for tomorrow. Tonight I've got a bed to contend with. And I'm the greatest sleeper of all time.
Weight in:
I read the hardback version of Remnick's book, which was 306 pages (326 with acknowledgement, sources, and index). My edition was a 4th printing, 1st Edition from 1998. I also had the Audible/audio version which I debated about listening to because it was abridged and I really hate abridged books (in any format). No. Hate is far too simple a word. I despise abridgments. I abhor them. I abase and disdain them. It is a lazy and cheap way to do an audio-recording and all you end up with is an ugly, deformed homunculus of the original. Go all the way or go home David.
I mean for GOD's sake Remnick. Why would you let people abridge the audio version? Your audio choice was just stupid. It was a 6-hour abridgment which usually translates into cutting 1/3 to 1/2 of this book. So, I ended up listening while I did work around the house and at points where it jumped, I'd rn over to the book and read the gaps. Seriously. I had to read the gaps because you couldn't pay for Dick Hill to read the whole thing or Brilliance Audio thought it was only going to sell if you cut it from 12 hours to 6? Stupid. Reckless. Chump. IT wasn't like this was some William T. Vollmann 3000+ word book on Violence. This was a 300 page book on Muhammad Ali. The Greatest. Do you not respect yourself or do you not resect Ali? Or did you just let the producers talk you down?
And yes Remnick, I know you are the editor of the New Yorker, but really man. Besides a nice bio of Obama and your Russia books, what have you done for me lately? Get out there and write something more. Or hell, don't write. Just stop cutting. Stop leaving the bloody body of your own work on the audio floor.
Round 1: Poem by Ali
Clay comes out to meet Liston
And Liston starts to retreat
If Liston goes back an inch farther
He'll end up in a ringside seat.
Clay swings with his left,
Clay swings with his right,
Look at young Cassius
Carry the fight.
Liston keeps backing
But there's not enough room
It's a matter of time
Till Clay lowers the boom.
Now Clay lands with a right,
What a beautiful swing,
And the punch raises the Bear
Clean out of the ring.
Liston is still rising
And the ref wears a frown,
For he can't start counting,
Till Sonny goes down.
Now Liston is disappearing from view.
The crowd is going frantic,
But radar stations have picked him up
Somewhere over the Atlantic.
Who would have thought
When they came to the fight?
That they'd witness the launching
Of a human satellite.
Yes the crowd did not dream
When they put up the money
That they would see
A total eclipse of the Sonny!
I am the greatest!
Round 2: The Greatest!
The book does a nice job of painting a broad picture of Muhammad Ali (and young Cassius Clay) while focusing primarily on the Liston - Clay fight that made him famous. It touches on a lot of the major points of Clay's life: Growing up in Kentucky, Finding Boxing, High School, the Olympics, The Louisville Syndicate, First Fights, the Liston Fight #1 (FL), the Liston Fight #2 (ME), the Nation of Islam, the Women of Ali (or the Pelvic Missionary) Malcolm X, the Vietnam War, Floyd Patterson, Later Years, Parkinson's Disease.
Some of these were new things, but many were just told well and told with details that were both surprising and intimate. I loved the whole early relationship between Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. It is hard to walk away from this type of book without loving the subject a bit more, no matter where you started from.
Round 3: The Knock-out
The end of the book was sad and beautiful. Remnick talking with an Ali that is saddled with age and disease. The Man, however, is also at peace. Remnick does a good job of exploring not just the limits of boxing, but the largeness of man:
There is a beauty in it--there is terrible beauty in battle, too, particulary for the noncombatant--but if you meet enough former boxers, if you try to decipher their punch-drunk talk, you begin to wonder. What beauty is worth this?
Ali is an American myth who has come to mean many things to many people: a symbol of faith, a symbol of conviction and defiance, a symbol of beauty and skill and courage, a symbol of racial pride, of wit and love. Ali's physical condition is shocking not least because it is an accelerated form of what we all fear, the progression of aging , the unpredictability and danger of life. In Ali we see the frailty even of a man whose job it was to be the most fearsome figure on the globe.
Coda: RIP!
Asked how he would like to be remembered Muhammad Ali once remarked:
"I'll tell you how I'd like to be remembered: as a black man who won the heavyweight title and who was humorous and who treated everyone right. As a man who never looked down on those who looked up at him and who helped as many of his people as he could--financial and also in their fight for freedom, justice, and equality. As a man who wouldn't embarrass them. As a man who tried to unite his people through the faith of Islam that he found when he listened to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And if all that's asking too much, then I'd guess I'd settle for being remembered only as a great boxing champion who became a preacher and a champion of his people. And I wouldn't even mind if folks forgot how pretty I was."
alanfederman's review
4.0
Great biography of Muhammad Ali, focusing on the period of his life when he won the heavyweight title from Sonny Liston and converted to Islam. It's as much the story of race relations in turbulent early 60s as it as about the corrupt nature of professional boxing. The write doesn't let Ali off the hook completely for some of his transgressions, but presents a balanced view of one of the most iconic and famous people of the 20th Century.
ptg333's review
5.0
Simply stunning. A brilliantly written and researched study of the risk of Ali (along with great portraits of Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson, his early boxing rivals), and the impact of the prevailing society and culture on them - and vice versa.
Takes you up to 1967, when he has defeated Liston twice, is very much part of the Nation of Islam and has just refused the draft. The one and only criticism is that I wish it was twice as long and covered his whole career. Remnick is now firmly one of my favourite authors and I plan to fill in all the gaps of his books I haven't read yet
Takes you up to 1967, when he has defeated Liston twice, is very much part of the Nation of Islam and has just refused the draft. The one and only criticism is that I wish it was twice as long and covered his whole career. Remnick is now firmly one of my favourite authors and I plan to fill in all the gaps of his books I haven't read yet
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