Katherine Dunn on Boxing

Katherine Dunn: I’m not one for suburban angst or psychological ennui—just not my cup of tea. So I like it when things happen. And there’s always something happening in boxing, just on a moment-to-moment basis. From the moment the bell rings and two people come together, it is a ritualized crisis. And the individuals have to respond to crisis. Just as every news pundit will say, when the flood came or when the earthquake happened, you saw people operating in a crisis and they were terrific, or they fled and bit each other in the back like cowards, or whatever. What that does is strip away the veneer of social courtesies and social requirements. If it’s a good enough fight, all posturing and all pretenses are stripped away, because you’re pushed past the point where that’s functional. You have to go down into the place where whatever you truly, truly are is all that’s left, and all you can rely on.

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