Ransom Center Magazine

"Literature and Sport"

In the galleries: Norman Mailer’s handwritten draft of “The Fight”

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Norman Mailer once wrote, “[Boxing] arouses two of the deepest anxieties we contain. There is not only the fear of getting hurt, which is profound in more men than will admit to it, but there is the opposite panic, equally unadmitted, of hurting others.”

Mailer used boxing to explore many of the violent debates of modern American life, debates about sex, gender, race, and even literary style. The Fight, Mailer’s book-length account of the 1974 heavyweight championship bout between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, touches on many of these subjects while capturing one of the most famous and memorable boxing matches in history. Mailer’s love of the sport shines through as he describes the precision, skill, and art of two of the greatest fighters who ever lived. Mailer’s unabashed egoism and racism are equally evident. Since its publication in 1975, the book has been both widely celebrated and deeply criticized, much like Mailer himself.

In this draft page of The Fight, Mailer offers a description of the charismatic and often outrageous boxer Muhammad Ali. Mailer writes, “Is it possible that Muhammad Ali is the only American in the 20th century one does not need to describe?… when he is looking his best (and Ali has his days) then not only is the greatest athlete who ever lived standing before you but a fellow who is in danger of being the most beautiful man.”  Though few could rival Mailer’s oversized ego, in Ali, Mailer may have met his match.

The opening page of Norman Mailer’s handwritten draft of The Fight is on display through August 4 in the Ransom Center’s current exhibition, Literature and Sport. Megan Barnard, Associate Director for Acquisitions and Administration, will lead a curator’s tour of the exhibition on July 31 at 7 p.m.

Mailer’s archive is held at the Ransom Center.

In the galleries: David Foster Wallace’s copy of John McPhee’s “Levels of the Game”

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Considered one of the best books on tennis ever written, John McPhee’s 1969 publication Levels of the Game chronicles Arthur Ashe’s win over Clark Graebner in their 1968 U.S. Open semifinal match. The book offers a nearly stroke-by-stroke account of the match, opening with the first serve and concluding with the winning shot. McPhee interweaves his reporting with in-depth profiles of the two competitors, exploring their disparate upbringings and the racial and sociopolitical undercurrents surrounding their match. In McPhee’s book, Ashe and Graebner become archetypes: Graebner a privileged, white conservative and Ashe a liberal, against-all-odds African American who comes to dominate a traditionally white sport.

In the book, Graebner compares his style with Ashe’s in a description laced with the racial and political undercurrents of the time. He says:

“I’ve never been a flashy stylist, like Arthur. I’m a fundamentalist. Arthur is a bachelor. I am married and conservative. I’m interested in business, in the market, in children’s clothes. It affects the way you play the game. He’s not a steady player. He’s a wristy slapper. Sometimes he doesn’t even know where the ball is going. He’s carefree, lackadaisical, forgetful.… Negroes are getting more confidence. They are asking for more and more, and they are getting more and more. They are looser. They’re liberal. In a way, ‘liberal’ is a synonym for ‘loose.’ And that’s exactly the way Arthur plays.”

In contrast, Ashe describes his opponent:

“There is not much variety in Clark’s game. It is steady, accurate, and conservative. He makes few errors. He plays still, compact, Republican tennis. He’s a damned smart player, a good thinker, but not a limber and flexible thinker. His game is predictable, but he has a sounder volley than I have, and a better forehand—more touch, more power. His forehand is a hell of a weapon. His moves are mediocre. His backhand is underspin, which means he can’t hit it hard. He just can’t hit a heavily top-spun backhand. He hasn’t much flair or finesse, except in the lob. He has the best lob of any of the Americans. He’s solid and consistent. He tries to let you beat yourself.”

David Foster Wallace’s annotated copy of Levels of the Game can be seen in the current exhibition Literature and Sport, on display through August 4. Megan Barnard, Associate Director for Acquisitions and Administration, will lead a curator’s tour of the exhibition on July 31 at 7 p.m.

David Foster Wallace’s archive is held at the Ransom Center.

In the galleries: A page from the first draft of Don DeLillo’s "Underworld"

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Don DeLillo once noted in an interview, “The significance of baseball, more than other sports, lies in the very nature of the game—slow and spread out and rambling. It’s a game of history and memory, a kind of living archive.”

DeLillo explored those aspects of the sport in his 1997 novel Underworld. Pictured here is a page from the first draft of that work, drawn from DeLillo’s archive at the Ransom Center. In this passage, he captures the magic of baseball: its ability to unite disparate individuals. The concluding lines in this draft differ from the published version, which reads, “The game doesn’t change the way you sleep or wash your face or chew your food. It changes nothing but your life.”

Widely regarded as one of the greatest pieces of baseball fiction ever written, the prologue of Underworld was originally published as the novella “Pafko at the Wall” in the October 1992 issue of Harper’s Magazine. The text centers on the October 3, 1951 playoff game between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers that ended with the “shot heard ’round the world,” Bobby Thomson’s homerun that clinched the National League pennant for the Giants. DeLillo pairs his telling of this historic baseball game with another major event of the day: the U.S. government’s announcement that the Soviet Union had successfully tested an atomic bomb. In an interview, DeLillo noted, “The two events seemed oddly matched, at least to me, two kinds of conflict, local and global rivalries.”

This draft page can be seen in the current exhibition Literature and Sport, on display through August 4. Visitors can also view the notebook containing DeLillo’s notes for the novel and the author’s handwritten transcript of Russ Hodges’s broadcast of the conclusion of the playoff game between the Giants and the Dodgers.

In conjunction with the exhibition, DeLillo will read from his work at a Harry Ransom Lecture on Thursday, July 25, at 7 p.m. in Jessen Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Materials from the novel are highlighted in the exhibition Literature and Sport, on view through August 4.

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