To watch boxing closely, and seriously, is to risk moments of what might be called animal panic-a sense not only that something very ugly is happening but that, by watching it, one is an accomplice. This awareness, or revelation, or weakness, or hairline split in one's cuticle of a self can come at any instant, unanticipated and unbidden; though of course it tends to sweep over the viewer when he is watching a really violent match. I feel it as vertigo-breathlessness-a repugnance beyond language: a sheerly physical loathing. That it is also, or even primarily, self-loathing goes without saying. ... At such times one thinks: What is happening? why are we here? what does this mean? can't this be stopped? ... Yet we don't give up on boxing, it isn't that easy. Perhaps it's like tasting blood. Or, more discreetly put, love commingled with hate is more powerful than love. Or hate.
( Joyce Carol Oates )
[ On Boxing ]
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