King of the World Muhammad Ali by David Remnick Review
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A special characteristic brought to you by
A compelling look at a compelling man
'King of the World:
Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero'
by David Remnick
Random House
Review by By Hal Hinson
www.salonmagazine.com
Spider web posted on: Friday, November xiii, 1998 4:27:44 PM EST
(SALON) -- In the preface to his collection "The Devil Problem and Other True Stories," David Remnick writes: "Reporters are interested above all ... in stories." If so, then Remnick has lived a overjoyed life. In terms of sheer drama and significance, no story in our collective lifetime compares to the plummet of the Soviet Union, which Remnick covered for the Washington Mail service and used as the basis of his Pulitzer Prize-winning volume, "Lenin's Tomb." With his latest volume, "King of the Globe," the author'due south subject is not merely the most heroic sports figure of the 20th century, just as well, equally Remnick puts it, "one of the most compelling and electrical American figures of the age."
The result is a book that's strong in its grasp of social forces but also sensitive in attending to human detail. What drew Remnick -- who was recently named editor of the New Yorker -- to his subject is not difficult to sympathize. "I wanted to write about the way (Ali had) created himself in the early sixties," the author writes, "the manner a gangly kid from Louisville managed to go ... a molder of his age and a reflection of it."
"King of the World" is a book about a boxer, not a book about boxing. Remnick is most interested in what happens outside the ring. When Remnick begins his story, Muhammad Ali is still Cassius Clay, and must share the phase with two of his most fearsome opponents, Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson. Patterson, Remnick writes, was the Expert Negro, "an approachable and strangely fearful man, a deferential champion of civil rights, integration, and Christian decency," while Liston, "a veteran of the penitentiary system before he came to the ring," reluctantly took on the part of the Bad Negro. Each represented a stereotype Ali would ultimately transcend. "I had to prove you could be a new kind of black man," Ali tells the author. "I had to show that to the world."
Remnick's deft staging and insight make familiar events seem fresh in the retelling. Less well-traveled territory -- Ali'southward relationship with the Nation of Islam, his friendship with (and ultimate repudiation of) Malcolm X and the transition from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali -- is also handled well. Remnick only follows Ali's story through the champion'south 1967 refusal to enter the armed forces. ("Human," he famously said, "I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong.") He saves his about impassioned writing for the fight Ali wages against the American armed forces. As a result of his stand, Ali was sentenced to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. However, the real toll for his refusal was something similar $10 million in purses and endorsements. What was worse, Remnick writes, it as well cost him his title. "His championship, which he had coveted from the time he was twelve."
Visiting the 54-yr-old Ali on his Michigan farm, Remnick finds that the three-fourth dimension heavyweight champion of the world thinks near death "all the time now." Suffering severely from Parkinson'southward, Ali has been robbed of his nigh powerful weapon -- his voice. And withal he has not been silenced. Of the few remaining icons of the '60s, Remnick observes, Ali is by far the most adored. "He hit people for a living, and, nonetheless, by centre age he would be a symbol non only of backbone, just of love, of decency, fifty-fifty a kind of wisdom." With "King of the World," David Remnick has written a great book about Muhammad Ali -- a book that is worthy of its subject.
Hal Hinson lives in Washington, D.C., and was formerly a motion picture critic for the Washington Post.
News, Views, Issues, Interviews. It's all here. Get your fix with Salon Magazine's Newsreal.
Related stories:
- Review: Writer establishes a sense of warmth - November xi, 1998
- Salon review: Uniting narratives and numbers - November 12, 1998
Source: http://www.cnn.com/books/reviews/9811/13/ali.salon/index.html
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