Wednesday, January 14, 2009

The sweet science ...

... `Beauty Triumphing Over Skill'.

"The essay is the literary form I value most," Patrick says. It's my second favorite. Poetry is the first, but both poetry and the personal essay are about as hard to write. Unlike Patrick, I am something of a boxing fan and have even experienced what it means to be "hit on the button." I learned this on the occasion when my chin collided with someone's fist. The result was that my "lights went out." I can remember the moment of collision and the moment I opened my eyes to discover I was prone. The transition from standing position to prone position, however, I never noticed at all.
Seymour Adelman, a sweet man and a great bookman, was also a boxing fan. I spent an afternoon once with him in the Bryn Mawr College library holding in my hand letters from Keats, and Housman's notebooks. It was a day when, for a time, time disappeared - though much pleasantly than when my chin had that collision with a fist.
Albert Camus was also a boxing aficionado. Here he is describing a bout between a guy from Oran and other from Algiers:
... the tough Oranese, backed by a thousand yelling voices, is defending again Perez a way of life and the pride of a province. Truth forces me to admit that Amar is not conducting his discussion well. His argument has a flaw: he lacks reach. The slugger from Algiers, on the contrary, has the required reach in his argument. It lands persuasively between his contradictor's eyes. The Oranese bleeds magnificently ...

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