The Review of Contemporary Fiction

More Than a Champion: The Style of Muhammad Ali by Jan Philipp Reemtsma
Rott Krispen

Jan Philipp Reemtsma. More Than a Champion: The Style of Muhammad Ali. Trans. John E. Woods. Knopf, 1998. 172 pp. $21.00.

Let’s use the cheese tester’s method for what goes on in commercial publishing, and here is the piece of cheese: Jan Philipp Reemtsma’s More Than a Champion: The Style of Muhammad Ali, translated from the German by John E. Woods. The jacket says that Reemtsma is “one of Europe’s most prominent intellectuals” (usually when such claims are made, there is at least a hint as to what this is based on, e.g., the names of a few books the person has written: no such information about the author here). Well, let’s see. The book’s 172 pages are primarily given over to accounts of Ali’s fights, written in a prose that resembles the worst of sports writing (Grantland Rice and Alfred E. Knopf must both be turning in their graves). Example: here is the opening line to the Ali-Frazier fight in Manila: “A renewed hail of blows to Frazier’s head. But Frazier won’t let himself be driven to the ropes.” But from this distinguished intellectual (excuse me, “one of Europe’s most prominent”), we also wax philosophical: “We do not grow from defeat. We are destroyed by defeat . . . .” Fortunately, these sophomoric remarks are rather limited, but perfectly fit with the book’s awful sports writing á la Bob Costas (that is, sports is not just a game, but is the game of life). The bad writing itself is surpassed perhaps only by the incredible strategy of using the “Rocky” films (and, yes, we get very detailed accounts of the movies) to explicate Ali. And all of this from some unknown German! Perhaps most incredible about this as a sports book is that it is all old, old, old news. Who at Knopf read the manuscript and accepted it for an American market? The Kirkus review accurately puts it this way: “Very little of this is new, and one wonder[s] exactly why a distinguished European intellectual is so preoccupied with telling us a great deal that any ordinary boxing fan already knows.” Why indeed. But the bigger question is who at Knopf decided this was a good book and should be published?
But there is also a disturbing thesis at work in the book (i.e., its “intellectual” side) which champions the isolated, heroic individual as opposed to the masses. Always a dangerous bent from any German. Are we perhaps talking about the “super man”? I suppose that we are to be reassured by Reemtsma’s sympathetic portrayal of the black man in America (once again, he tells us nothing that isn’t known, but manages to do so in a very condescending way). So here we have a German who understands black men in America? And Knopf thought this, when all rolled together, added up to a book it should publish? Herr Reemtsma should be strongly encouraged to limit himself to writing about Germans and Jews, and perhaps there he might have some knowledge worth sharing. Once again Kirkus: “What’s good here isn’t original, and what’s original isn’t good.” And so why did Knopf publish this? [Rott Krispen]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction More Than a Champion: The Style of Muhammad Ali by Jan Philipp Reemtsma Rott Krispen Jan Philipp Reemtsma. More Than a Champion: The Style of Muhammad Ali. Trans. John E. Woods. Knopf, 1998. 172 pp. $21.00. Let’s use the cheese tester’s method for what goes on in commercial publishing, and here is the piece of cheese: Jan Philipp Reemtsma’s More Than a Champion: The Style of Muhammad Ali, translated from the German by John E. Woods. The jacket says that Reemtsma is “one of Europe’s most prominent intellectuals” (usually when such claims are made, there is at least a hint as to what this is based on, e.g., the names of a few books the person has written: no such information about the author here). Well, let’s see. The book’s 172 pages are primarily given over to accounts of Ali’s fights, written in a prose that resembles the worst of sports writing (Grantland Rice and Alfred E. Knopf must both be turning in their graves). Example: here is the opening line to the Ali-Frazier fight in Manila: “A renewed hail of blows to Frazier’s head. But Frazier won’t let himself be driven to the ropes.” But from this distinguished intellectual (excuse me, “one of Europe’s most prominent”), we also wax philosophical: “We do not grow from defeat. We are destroyed by defeat . . . .” Fortunately, these sophomoric remarks are rather limited, but perfectly fit with the book’s awful sports writing á la Bob Costas (that is, sports is not just a game, but is the game of life). The bad writing itself is surpassed perhaps only by the incredible strategy of using the “Rocky” films (and, yes, we get very detailed accounts of the movies) to explicate Ali. And all of this from some unknown German! Perhaps most incredible about this as a sports book is that it is all old, old, old news. Who at Knopf read the manuscript and accepted it for an American market? The Kirkus review accurately puts it this way: “Very little of this is new, and one wonder[s] exactly why a distinguished European intellectual is so preoccupied with telling us a great deal that any ordinary boxing fan already knows.” Why indeed. But the bigger question is who at Knopf decided this was a good book and should be published? But there is also a disturbing thesis at work in the book (i.e., its “intellectual” side) which champions the isolated, heroic individual as opposed to the masses. Always a dangerous bent from any German. Are we perhaps talking about the “super man”? I suppose that we are to be reassured by Reemtsma’s sympathetic portrayal of the black man in America (once again, he tells us nothing that isn’t known, but manages to do so in a very condescending way). So here we have a German who understands black men in America? And Knopf thought this, when all rolled together, added up to a book it should publish? Herr Reemtsma should be strongly encouraged to limit himself to writing about Germans and Jews, and perhaps there he might have some knowledge worth sharing. Once again Kirkus: “What’s good here isn’t original, and what’s original isn’t good.” And so why did Knopf publish this? [Rott Krispen]

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