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Title: Serenity: A Boxing Memoir by Ralph Wiley ISBN: 0-8032-9816-1 Publisher: Bison Bks Corp Pub. Date: June, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Pain Business
Comment: Intellectuals have long had a fascination with boxing, an athletic contest reduced to its very essence-two semi-naked men trying to kill each other for the enjoyment of a crowd. That's about as stark as it gets. A long and varied list of literary heavyweights have fallen under boxing's spell-Hemingway, Mailer, Oates, Earley, etc., etc., etc. Ralph Wiley belongs up there with the best of them. The ideas he expresses in "Serenity" are meaty and delivered in a style that is both clear and artistic. Mr. Wiley can flat-out write and my goodness does he have an eye for detail and an ear for dialogue. His descriptions of knockout blows are downright poetic; one fighter "... went out like a broken light bulb"; another was struck so hard that the blow "... sent his eyes into the top of his head like snapped windowshades". The sights and sounds and smells of the gym all ring true in "Serenity", from the lowliest trainer ("...with a trainwreck of a yellowing smile") to the beatific Ali.
Mr. Wiley defines serenity as "...the inner peace which comes from doing something well enough to understand it". Boxers, per Wiley, can only acheive pugilistic serenity after they understand that pain, and maybe death, are part of the equation. Pain can not be avoided, no matter how skilled the fighter. So why do so many of them continue on, or return for more once they retire, even (or, perhaps, especially) the successful ones? Larry Holmes, one of the best, (whose latest comeback, at age 50, was against a 300 pound sideshow attraction named "Butterbean") is quoted that a fighter has "... gotta enjoy the ones you take just like the ones you give". Sugar Ray Leonard, like Holmes a wealthy man, made more comebacks than Marley's ghost and risked permanent blindness in the process. Bobby Chacon, another champion, "...smiles at the sight of his own blood". The title of a Gerald Earley essay-"I Only Like It Better When The Pain Comes"-is a direct quote from an early '80's crowd-pleasing Philadelphia middleweight Frank "The Animal" Fletcher. (Aside-Frank "The Animal" once fought James "Hard Rock" Green in a brutal, blood-gushing bout, a great nickname bout, where Mr. Fletcher's mother spurred her son on by leading the crowd in chants of "AN-I-MAL, AN-I-MAL, AN-I-MAL".) Do these otherwise intelligent men actually enjoy getting hit? Hardly. Mr. Wiley has delved deeply into the psyches of men who fight for pay searching for motive, for purpose, and he has succeeded. This is good stuff. "Serenity", like Evander Holyfield, is the Real Deal.
Rating: 5
Summary: SERENITY A HARD HITTING NARRATIVE OF BOXING
Comment: Serenity, as Ralph Wiley tells it, is a state of mind that all fighters try to find. It's not easy, but then, writing a book about the most personal side of boxing - the fighters - isn't easy, either. Especially a good one. But Wiley has done that here. He includes himself a bit, which works, and uses a sharp, witty style that brings the fighters he writes about to life. Best are the chapters on Larry Holmes, and also a letter he writes to his son, Cole. Wiley is enormously gifted, and he will definitely be a writer to watch in the future.
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Title: Cut Time : An Education at the Fights by Carlo Rotella ISBN: 0618145338 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 05 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: The Hardest Game : McIlvanney on Boxing by Hugh McIlvanney ISBN: 0658021540 Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books Pub. Date: 21 November, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Gloves: A Boxing Chronicle by Robert Anasi ISBN: 0865475997 Publisher: North Point Press Pub. Date: 14 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Rope Burns : Stories From the Corner by F. X. Toole ISBN: 0060938382 Publisher: Ecco Pub. Date: 18 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Professional by W. C. Heinz, Elmore Leonard ISBN: 0306810581 Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: 04 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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