Read Jimmy Cannon's "LETHAL LIGHTNING" in our text. Describe how the story reflects the defining characteristics or techniques of literary journalism. Your response should be as detailed as you can make it within a single blog post. It is due by 4:45 p.m., Monday, May 14.
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I observed multiple elements within Cannon's "Lethal Lightning" that reflected the defining characteristics of literary journalism. The first of which was his acute attention to imagery. In almost every paragraph, Cannon used at least one metaphor or simile as a reference for the reader to understand what he witnessed. For example, within the very first paragraph he states, "The night climbed through the window into my room like a second-story worker." Then, a few lines later he uses an excellent metaphor: “It gradually lost the identity of a man, blowing apart the way smoke does on a windy day." Analogies like these to describe the atmosphere or environment of a particular scene would not be noted in typical mainstream sports journalism. Cannon is able to capture moments and reiterate them to the reader as though they were actually there themselves. It also makes it smooth and almost romantic to read.
Cannon's choice of strong verbs also stood out as a technique of literary journalism. The whole time he described the fight it was as though a predator was teasing his prey before the hunt actually began. For example, on pg. 463, he states, "As the second round started, Conn lunged out of his scampering retreat.." Conn is fighting an inevitable loss, but this would not come across so clearly if Conn didn't use words such as lunged or scampering retreat. Another example to further explain this point is on pg. 464 when Conn took a punch to his left eye and blood dribbled down his cheek. Cannon says, "Louis pawed at it." Pawed as a verb here again shows how Conn is inferior to Louis. These subtle comparisons would not be included in a non-literary journalistic article.
Another aspect I took note of was the lack of dialogue in the story. It mainly relied on observations solely from Cannon and his own internal dialogue and thoughts. There was one line of dialogue from Conn on pg. 463, but none again until the last section of the story. A normal journalist covering this event would take notes and observations of his/her own like Cannon did, but would stay objective and not include their own interpretations so fluidly throughout the story like Cannon does. Every observation includes his own thought process or judgment. The way he briefly mentions who is sitting in the audience is similar to Thompson with his judgments, but vague enough to compare to Crane in "When Man Falls, a Crowd Gathers." He states how old men sat among thieves, good people, truly talented and the Broadway trash, black market peerage and Hollywood people all gathered to one place for a common interest. Other reporters may have commented on the reactions of these audience members, but Cannon goes one step further to show you what kind of people they are as well. Cannon also makes assumptions that could never be considered fact, so they wouldn't be included in any other reporter's coverage of the event. On pg. 462 Cannon writes, "Conn’s white green-bordered satin rob gleamed under the lights where a lonely moth flew in circles as though indicating to Conn what he should do." Obviously the moth wasn't actually telling Conn what to do, but images and internal input like that provide a more eery feel to the story and make it more compelling.
A technique common among many of the literary journalists we read in class was their use of commas as a stream of consciousness. Each clause that is separated by a comma has its own observation and idea, and with each comma, the observations flow in sequential order as if the author just literally jotted down what he/she was thinking at that very moment. A clear example of this is seen at the end of the fight. "Conn’s beaten body moved in his special night, the senses groping for the light and he was rising, boneless and helpless, when the number ten was reached. This may be considered a lengthy and wordy sentence in a typical news story, but it works for this style. The reader can slow down and imagine the actions of Conn step by step. Professor Good pointed out these moments in the other readings we had over the semester so this is a popular characteristic.
All of these examples of techniques of literary journalism may seem to directly correlate with a creative writing story. So what makes it journalistic? The fact that this was a true event is part of it. But Cannon does not forget he also needs to be a reporter. He provides the reader with specific details that a creative writer would not pay attention to. For instance, the exact number of people attending the event, 45,266, or the amount of money spent, $1,925,564 are all vital details that would need to be discovered by a reporter. Also, the way Cannon covers every element of the event, not just the fighters. He takes note of the audience, the official, the actual action, and the post-fighting events and comments. He got everyone's names and stuck them in. There were not many details or parts of the story that remained unanswered or vague. Overall, Cannon covered the story in a journalistic manner like he was required to, but did it in his own style to make it compelling and interesting to a wide audience.
**I went over the maximum requirement of characters, so I put my answer into two sections. The max amount was something like 4,093.
I think Bill Conlin, a sportswriter who grew up in New York who talks about Jimmy Cannon in the preface of the story, summed up perfectly why "Lethal Lightning" is a work of literary non-fiction. Conlin writes: "to read him was to touch a live wire with a wet hand. His prose crackled with terse imagery...Cannon could outrage you one day and have tears rolling down your cheeks the next." To me, this is exactly what literary journalism is about.
Cannon weaves a string-of-consciousness, complete with unbelievably vivid imagery, with the actual fight between Joe Louis and Billy Conn. The way he abandons the traditional form of sports reporting and leans more toward a literary journalism approach is evident when he discusses "that last night at Yankee Stadium" in the second graf of the story. Not only does Cannon have each sentence drip with imagery ("aching blackness all to himself," "dark privacy of the night he alone possessed"), but he even calls out his traditional journalist counterparts who are sitting in the press row waiting for, as he calls, "controlled violence licensed and sanctioned by the laws of the state."
The entire piece is littered with dark, pointed imagery and analytical metaphors/similes that you simply are unable to find in any work that isn't literary journalism. (One favorite line of mine was on page 463: "It was a first round of comedy, but there was no humor in it.") Every detail is examined in excruciating detail - even the red-edged blue robe Louis wears as he comes into the ring. Each sentence strings the reader along, diving them deeper and deeper into an incredibly vivid picture of what is occurring.
As someone who has covered sports for years, I was truly inspired by Cannon's ability to pack so much punch [ha! get it?] and meaning into every detail of the fight and surrounding characters attending the event. Also, on a side note, the exchange between the reporters and Conn after the fight at the very end put a perfect cap on the story.
I think in Cannon's piece he describes a lot about literary journalism in one sentence: "But the filthy night stayed in my mind and I lived in it alone." Literary journalism is more than just technique of writing, which is of course displayed in Cannon's loaded verbs and adjectives, but it's also the experience. Especially as we learned in the Kentucky Derby is Depraved and Decadent. Thompson's story was about how he got that story, and it ended up photographing a moment in time. If what you could see from a video could be transcribed into words it would be the way Cannon writes.
Cannon doesn’t use short phrases or sentences like other writers do. But he does write multiple phrases in a sentence which are packed with an action verb. You learn something new and intriguing with every new comma. Such is the line on 462 that reads, “Stand up and look back out of the press row and there they were, all the big people waiting for this controlled violence, licensed and sanctioned by the laws of the state.” I noticed all the commas and conjunctions and the verb use. Almost every sentence can stand up to this test.
Cannon isn’t using difficult language to describe the fight, but he is gifted in using the right language and arranging it poetically. The readers are fully treated to what happened in the fight, punch for punch, but they are given a front row seat to what it feels like to be in the audience. He inputs factual details amidst the poetics ones. That helps to make it as strong as a literary journalistic piece as possible.
This semester has opened my eyes to wide variety of literary journalism, yet they all seem to encapsulate many of the same characteristics. Literary journalists have a special talent of being able to capture the moment they are reporting about in a way that makes the reader feel as if they are truly there. Jimmy Cannon is able to do this in “Lethal Lightning” by using strong imagery and descriptions. When describing Johnny Ray, the manager, Cannon describes his appearance by the following: “the name of his fighter in green-blocked letters on the black half-sleeved jersey…” (462). However, sometimes it wasn't just merely descriptive words, but the way in which they were said. As Cannon explains the progressing fight he uses the phrase “a polite dance of caution” and I, as the reader, could instantly picture both fighters skipping around each other, glaring into each other’s eyes. His vivid words and sharp descriptions make it real and make it literary journalism.
Cannon also brought the action onto the paper, which is something that is truly hard to do. Towards the end of the story, when describing the motion of the fight he writes, “The right, the right again, and then the left, against the jaw of the falling man.” Not only are the words enough to feel the action, but also the way the sentence was constructed makes it real. The staccato clauses help to show the act of the punches. Cannon also incorporates metaphors and similes to his writing such as “not even having Louis catch his jabs like snowballs thrown by a child could shut off his humor” (465).
Literary journalism shows readers a side of the story that is often covered up by AP style and formatting. We get to sympathize with the characters involved. In this story, the reader was able to see a deeper side of Conn, than if this was a typical news story. The dialogue at the end of page 465 adds the emotion and personality of the story and the characters. He covers all aspects of the event, including the managers and the crowd, which allow us, as previously mentioned, to view the reality of that day.
I think there is also something to be said about the writers, about the literary journalists themselves. Cannon, dropped out of school at the age fifteen to pursue a career in writing was undeniably successful. These writers are not afraid to take risks, as we have seen in other stories we’ve read. I believe that is an essential quality to tackle this type of writing.
From what I learned throughout the semester, I feel that literary journalism is taking an experience and infusing it with powerful descriptions and imagery to create a story as a means of reporting. Both regular journalism and literary journalism use true facts, but literary journalism uses descriptions that make the reader feel as though they are right next to the writer in the scene, whereas with regular journalism, the reader is almost looking at the scene from the outside. Jimmy Cannon’s “Lethal Lightning” is a good example of what literary journalism is.
One of the first things I noticed with the piece was the use of similes and metaphors. He starts off the piece with a simile in the first sentence and continues to use the similes and metaphors throughout the first paragraph and the rest of the story. When Cannon is first describing the fight on page 462 he writes, “It was like watching a friend of yours being run over by a trolley car, watching it coming and knowing what would happen but looking at it quietly, the curiosity dominating the horror and compelling you to be attentively silent.” I could picture this emotion and from that, I could feel the atmosphere and the emotion running through Yankee Stadium at that moment.
Further down on page 462, Cannon begins to describe the people who are at the stadium. “The old man sat there among the thieves and the good people and the truly talented and the Broadway trash and the black-market peerage, the Cabinet member and the Hollywood people.” He describes the people as how he feels about them and gives the his opinion, being honest with the reader, especially when he writes “Broadway trash.” It might be an offensive way to describe those people, but it is how he feels. Giving a straight up opinion and describing your emotions about how you felt in that situation are characteristics of literary journalism, being able to truly write what you were thinking and feeling. Also in that sentence, Cannon repetitively uses “and” after he writes each type of person, instead of listing them with commas. This gives the impression that there were a lot of people at the stadium.
Cannon uses literary journalism to capture the atmosphere and the fight that day at Yankee Stadium instead of simply reporting what had happened during the fight. He is able to describe the environment around him so that the reader can picture everything and feel like they were actually at Yankee Stadium that day.
Jimmy Cannon's "Lethal Lightning" reflects the defining characteristics of literary Journalism in a way most literary pieces would; by taking news, an event, and giving it the life it had in action on paper. With typical news pieces, a writer tells, because the idea is that people just want their news. But when a person reads a piece like “Lethal Lightning,” they should expect to be driven into the story, by either dialogue, or a lack of it, that puts them directly into the scene.
This story serves as a great literary piece because it shows (verses telling) the fight with concise language. It’s straight from the horse’s mouth, told how Cannon wanted to tell it, but most importantly, every line comes together to form the story.
Cannon seems to have developed a style of how he thought the Joe Louis-Billy Conn fight should be told before he had written it, and it’s not that that is what makes a good literary piece. It’s that he developed his own voice, and his own way of bringing the scene into relation with him.
Cannon shows us the defining characteristics of literary journalism with his prose. He probably would have done some of what a typical journalist would have done that night: make observations, take notes, talk with some people, watch the fight. But I think as a literary writer, your thought process going into the story isn’t that you’re going to produce a typical newsroom article. So your attitude is that of a literary writer. You've learned to see things differently. And all Cannon really needed was his own observations, to have experienced the fight. The 45,266 people mentioned on page 463, on the plains of the playing field and up in the stands, collectively were his source of what the atmosphere was like that night.
Writers of literary journalism have used many different techniques to tell a scene the way they felt it should be told, which for most was how they experienced it. And most found a way in which the stories they were telling had a relation to them. Like for example, Cannon starts off taking about “dreaming with morphine after an operation,” and being consumed with darkens in his mind. This is his transition into what his story is all about: Joe Louis knocking out Billy Conn. That darkness that filled Cannon’s brain as he lay hurt “feeling the brightness of the room,” brought him to Conn’s darkness after being knocked out, under the “spurious day of the ring lights.”
Cannon says on page 462, “I felt that old dream coming from a long way off and finding not me, but Billy Conn.”
One common technique I noticed in his writing is the way he used commas. It's almost like there's no real structure, which ties into the idea that literary journalism is an escape from conventional news, but at the same time there is a structure. The story comes full circle, after taking your mind on a trip with one descriptive word after another. The words, and the technique Cannon, used hit like the punches he was writing about, and to me, that's what makes a good literary piece. His descriptions were consistent, and he didn't stop until the story, not just what he wanted to write, was over.
Jimmy Cannon was able to control and command powerful imagery as if he was a lightning rod in “Lethal Lightning.” In the foreword, a peer would say of Cannon, “To read him was to touch a live wire with a wet hand.” They go on to follow this lightning imagery with describing his writing as crackling with terse imagery. I found it funny to use such language as it’s typical to depict boxing matches, which the piece is about, with flashes of light when one person’s fist makes contact with another’s face. To represent the concept of flashback or being K.O.’d.
Cannon never forgets the rules of journalism; however, I’m not sure if they’re standard. He weaves interesting imagery with hard facts, and that’s what literary journalism is about. These details, like how much a front row seat was or how much people paid in total ($1,925,564), make Cannon genuine to the reader, and personally it shows that he actually attended the event and sort of anchors the story from floating of into uncertainty.
Literary journalism is to remember all of the material that is important to the reader while fudging some minor details like how Cannon could read the thoughts of Billy Conn and Joe Louis during the fight. I was taught that it’s important to get ages and approximations about how many people attend an event when you’re reporting. Here, Cannon says the exact number of seats filled at this event and the age of a Conn, 28, and already a broken man. The weave of detail and story is really done in a nice way where it becomes more of a feature story instead of hard news. The amount of detail Cannon shows, but doesn’t just tell the reader: when he personifies the night into a fat man who clobbers the author’s face. He shows that the night haunts him; probably setting the scene that the night Conn lost at Yankee Stadium will follow and haunt him as well. That’s one of those things that kept reiterating itself in the classroom; people kept saying that they could relate to other people’s pieces. If people catch the references, they’re more likely to read on.
Another defining feature of the literary journalism genre was the use of dialogue. The only dialogue to appear in this piece is at the end when Conn is questioned about the fight, most likely through reporters. This part is important because it sums up the fate of this fighter. His manager quips that he doesn’t see Conn return to the ring after this debacle with Louis. It’s important to know how character’s feel and sometimes the best way this is done are through their own words. A reader can immediately pick up the personality, like Cannon did, from Conn: “Not even having Louis catch his jabs like snowballs thrown by a child could shut off his humor.” It’s also inferred he plays by his own rules as he doesn’t answer some of the questions directly.
Cannon’s “Lethal Lightning” reflects the defining characteristics and techniques of literary journalism. It is thought-provoking and intriguing; it is the mixing of imagery and fact.
To begin, Cannon reports on the fight with accurate details pertaining to the event. Although he describes the event as a story instead of as a news brief, he still gives the proper information that a reader should be provided with. For instance, he gives the price of a seat ($100), the number of people in attendance (45,266), and the amount of revenue the fight generated ($1,925,564). However, he combines these facts with images, such as: “They sat there, and the 45,266 around them on the plains of the playing field and up in the stands mumbled with impatience and expectancy...” (p 463). By doing so, he entices and captivates his audience -- actions only a true literary journalist is capable of doing.
Even though his sentences are often long and complex, each is vital to the progression of the story. For instance, the sentence “He was white with anxiety and seemed to be weak with nervousness as he laid his flabby white arm along the rope and looked into Conn’s face as though he were trying to remember the features before they were destroyed,” can be condensed to simply say that the manager was nervous before the match (p 463). However, Cannon has a strategy behind this sentence. By showing the reader the image, he sets the mood of the match, and in turn the tone of his story. Thus, it is more effective to give the image.
Finally, his use of dialogue is unique. Rather than using quotes given to him as a reporter by Conn, he uses quotes from a conversation between Conn and another reporter. This is acceptable, even commendable in literary journalism; in news journalism the lack of names to attribute the conversation to would be frowned upon.
In conclusion, Cannon’s “Lethal Lightening” is a great example of literary journalism. It embodies the beauty of the craft -- that anything the journalist wants to say, he can say. He forgets the rules of conventional journalism, and simply writes what he wants. What New York Times article would begin with, “Once, dreaming with morphine after an operation, I believed the night climbed through the window and into my room like a second-story worker” (p 461)? Not many, if any at all. Yet, Cannon’s piece of journalism does. Furthermore, his work is a brilliant piece.
Over the semester we have looked at many different examples of literary journalism that covered an array of topics and themes. The authors all had different tones and skills that they used to create their stories. However, there were definitely elements in every story that were key to making these pieces “literary journalism” or “creative non-fiction” pieces.
Every journalism class I have taken before this one has taught me how to write a news story. Stick to the facts, short sentences, and be objective. Use names, places, and stay in order of events that occurred.
Literary journalism does not conform to any of those “rules”. Jimmy Cannon’s piece “Lethal Lightening” contains many of the characteristics that all the stories we have read over the semester have also had. These characteristics are what make a piece creative non-fiction.
Cannon’s story is loaded with very descriptive imagery. He uses a lot of similes and metaphors in his story. He describes the blood running Conn’s check in a way that would never be seen in a news story. He said, “It cut Conn’s left eye, and a brook of blood dribbled down the cheek and widened like a red stream.”
He also said, “As they moved in a polite dance of caution, looking at each other as though they were angry men about to argue instead of punch, I saw the puckers of fat where Louis’s arms join his shoulders and his stomach moved when his legs did, as though it were not part of him but a slab of meat tied around his waist.”
The first characteristic in this one section that makes this a piece of literary journalism is the description of Louis’s arms. A news story would have used height and weight to describe Louis. Here, Cannon uses vivid descriptions such as “slab of meat” and “puckers of fat”
The second characteristic is the length of the sentence. He uses one sentence to make four points or four descriptions, each separated by a comma.
Cannon also does not mind offending people. When he describes the crowd and the people who are sitting close to the ring. “The old man sat there among the thieves and the good people and the truly talented and the Broadway trash and the black-market peerage, the Cabinet member and the Hollywood people.” It almost seems as if he is condemning society for treating such a cruel and violet event as a spectacle.
All of these characteristics that Cannon uses are key elements of producing a creative non-fiction piece. After carefully reading stories with similar elements all semester, I tried to use the same characteristics in my own stories.
This class has opened my eyes to a whole different kind of journalism that I didn't know existed. After a semester full of detailed and descriptive readings, my understanding of stories has completely changed. In this story, just like all the others we've read, Cannon uses insanely descriptive words and puts the reader right next to him watching the fight.
In the beginning sentences of the story, Cannon uses metaphors that everyone knows and understands to convey what he is trying to explain. The way Cannon talks about the night climbing through his window is a simple sentence but it is explained so in depth because of his word choice. Further in the paragraph, Cannon talks about the night being shaped like a fat man walking up into his mind. Everyone knows that a fat man, most likely, walks very slowly, so Cannon uses a common idea and uses it to describe how the night waddled up into his mind.
Besides the actual words, it's how Cannon describes something that adds to the story. The second to last paragraph on page 462, he talks about the people there to watch the fight. “The old man sat there among the thieves and the good people and the truly talented and the Broadway trash...”. Cannon could've easily just said that there were people sitting up front, some from Broadway and what not. But he specifically categorized them into sections, and repeats the word “and” throughout the story as well.
Reading the story, it amazes me how someone can take a fight and describe it as if you were watching a ballet recital. Cannon's word choice is on point throughout the whole piece, especially when talking about the actual fighting. In each fighting round/paragraph, Cannon specifically details each action taken by each fighter. “...the head cocked to the left, the legs pale and frail.” “...bluffed with his hands, making up and down feints as he moved his shoulders in tormenting spasms.” With the use of specific details and actions, I can easily create an image in my head of what is going on in the fight. Cannon takes the reader and sits them next to him when he is writing this piece. The fact that there is no dialogue until the end of the story, also adds to the story. (And it's ironic because when there is dialogue, it's all between reporters and the fighters—and isn't Cannon a reporter, sort of?)
Cannon, like many of the other writers we've read this semester, took an event that could've been described so cliché like and wrote it like a performance, because that's what it is. The beginning (prologue) he talked about the fighters and the people waiting to watch the fight, (middle/climax/drama/exciting part) he describes the fight with details, then the end (epilogue) is the knockout hit, and then the reporters hounding the fighters and photographers taking pictures.
The title fits Cannon's piece perfect because it describes the fighters in those two words, lethal and lightening.
(Sorry, I had to do it in two posts!)
Jimmy Cannon's "Lethal Lightning" reflects the defining characteristics or techniques of literary journalism in multiple ways. In the beginning of the piece, Cannon's first graf is a recollection of a memory being sedated in the operating room. This stream-of-conscious memory is written to resemble the defeat of Billy Conn in his helpless condition. Cannon says "The night had the dirty color of sickness and had no face at all as it strolled in my brain." This technique is used to suggest the groggy and dazed feelings the fighter felt after he was defeated. And when Cannon starts to actually introduce the fight to the readers he uses recollection again when he says "I remembered that last night in Yankee Stadium..."
Another technique Cannon uses uses is multiple clauses that separates one idea by a conjunction. This smooth technique allows a bunch of important details to be in one sentence. Cannon says "It ceased to be sport when Louis let the big right go, then another cobblestone of a right and then the left hook as Conn fell off the rim of the conscious and crumpled into the dark privacy of the night he alone possessed."
One of the most notable techniques in literary journalism is the close attention to specific details. Cannon describes Conn's white green-bordered satin bathrobe that gleamed under the lights, Louis' flashy red-edged blue robe of silk and his towel that blew in the wind. He points out "the big feet that creaked on the pebbles of resin strewn across the canvas" and "a brook of blood dribbled down the cheek and widened like a red stream." This technique of vivid details is used to engage the reader into the fight and paint the scene for them.
Cannon set up a scene by scene construction that defines this style of writing. The first scene is the crowd waiting in anticipation for the fight, then each fighter coming out, followed by the announcement, then the rounds which have a graf or so for each, and lastly the post fight conversation.
Throughout the piece, Cannon used a lot of similes and metaphors to describe details of Conn being defeated, the fighters in the ring, and Louis' jabs like snowballs thrown at a child. At the end the writer uses dialogue with the reporters and fighters to conclude the piece.
Literary journalism isn’t journalism that simply answers who, what, where, when, and why. It is journalism that captures a significant event/moment, and the reader is able to delve and experience the experience. It combines the elements of literature that is able to capture a reader but also with accuracy.
Jimmy Cannon’s ‘Lethal Lighting,’ does exactly so. He does combine hard news facts within the story, such as details about the $100 chairs and 45,266 people surrounding the ring. In the preface by Bill Conlin, he goes to describe Cannon’s writing as one that could “outrage you one day and having tears rolling down your cheeks the next.” This explains Cannon’s skill for steering and controlling the reader into understanding his imagery, his experience.
Cannon’s story starts out with the line “Once, dreaming with morphine after an operation…” Using this imagery, he uses these muted words of ‘smoke,’ ‘blackness,’ to compare it to the grogginess he felt in an operating room. The use of this is to compare it and introduce the feelings the boxer had felt after being defeated and to bring the readers into the story. Also, Cannon uses the allude of colors within the details of the story whether its “white with anxiety” or the “flashy red-edged blue robe of silk.” One metaphor that Cannon uses that particularly stood out to me was the description of the cut of Conn’s left eye, “It was a brook of red that dribbled down the cheek and widened like a red stream.” Instead of simply saying that Conn was cut and bleeding, the words were descriptive. This comparison used led me to imagine the cut bleeding, first trickling like a small “brook” and then building up into a larger “stream.”
It’s these little details that bring alive the story of literary journalism. This type of creative detailing that can truly capture a moment. The entire time I was reading the story, I felt as if I had seen the fight itself. Literary journalism is powerful in the sense that it weaves together literary elements with scene, dialogue and details that stay engrained in your mind, a story not only read, but also seen.
All writing is selection and arrangement. While some literary journalism writers, such as Joan Didion, organize their pieces in a haphazard-seeming way, Jimmy Cannon chose to arrange his piece, “Lethal Lightning,” chronologically, much like the work of Stephen Crane. Writers of literary journalism use the arrangement of their writing as another way to communicate their message. Didion, for example, wanted to make the reader feel as confused about their purpose as she might feel about her own while standing in the piano bar. The traditional arrangement Cannon uses reflects the apparent simplicity of boxing – two men hitting each other while standing on a square. The scenes are connected by plot, occasional dialogue and details, but also through chronology. The reader knows that the second round will follow the first and so on. However, this uncomplicated arrangement allows Cannon to achieve a depth through the words he selects to describe the linear series of events.
Through this, Cannon works with words, not things, which is an important element of literary journalism. When encountering a lone noun in a story, it is up to the reader to come up with his own mental image. However, when joined with illustrative adjectives (“…Conn feinted at him with meaningless gestures…”) or metaphors and similes (“…Louis was there, waiting and harassing with a sheep dog’s harmless awareness.”), the author can control the mental image a reader conjures and use it to further the story. For example, Cannon does not describe the color of Joe Louis’s eyes or hair when introducing him in the first paragraph. Instead, Louis is described as an “empty-faced champion.” I think this image shows that Louis is a champion for whom winning has become expected and knockouts come, as Cannon later writes, on schedule (“It was here that Conn must have known he was scheduled for the oblivion…).
With images such as this, Cannon, like Crane, compounds physical details with a psychological dimension. This is another important aspect of literary journalism. An article in a daily paper will give the reader the details he needs to make a judgment. A work of literary journalism, however, will give the reader those same details but with a twist that is motivated by purpose. Richard Harding Davis, for example, gave the reader details about a Cuban revolutionary in his story just like a newspaper reporter might, but also imbued the revolutionary with Christ-like characteristics that bespoke Davis’s deeper purpose. Cannon uses colorful imagery to describe his characters. Conn is “the flashy and agile scientists of the ring” and Louis is the “ignoramus of the ring with nothing but strength to lick a man.”
Cannon lets this type of imagery take an important role in his writing through the structure of his sentences and paragraphs. He allows them prominence by placing them next to shorter, more direct sentences. This juxtaposition keeps the reader off balance and interested. For example, he transitions from a long sentence that follows detailed descriptions, “It this round it became obvious that Joe was waiting and Conn was running in a fight that would end in disaster,” to a short one, “The fifth was the big round.” At this point, Cannon allows the sentences to become choppy to reflect the rise in action and mimic the style of a sportscaster. No matter how long he constructed his sentences though, they always contained one thought. This is an important element of literary journalism because a surplus of thoughts in a single sentence can become overwhelming and alienate the reader. Through his vivid yet easy to relate to descriptions (“…as though they were angry men about to argue instead of punch…”), direct sentences (“The right hand was the beginning.), and chronological timeline (As the second round started … Now, in the third … In the fourth…) Cannon created a work of literary journalism that is seen, heard, and felt.
Throughout the semester, the pieces that we have read all seem to fit into the miscellaneous category of journalism. Yes, "Lethal Lightning" can be placed in the sports journalism genre of journalism, but that does not mean it fits there. "An Experiment in Misery" could sloppily be placed in a feature story section, same with Martha Gellhorn's piece. But the thing that separates all the pieces we have read this semester is that fact that they blur all the barriers that were previously set before.
"Lethal Lightning" is not just a sports piece announcing one mans victory over another man's fall. The piece itself takes you personally through each round. Throughout the piece you are in between the two gloves watching each boxer's face. Seeing, feeling and experiencing the fight as it is happening. A normal sports piece would not do that.
Like we have talked about all semester, Cannon breaks the fight down into scenes. Each scene explains just one section of the fight. Not only does this create momentum, as each scene begins with a different round, but it also keeps things simple. Simple writing is what grabs your attention as a reader, not the convoluted and mish-mashed writing.
Cannon also brings us into the story right in the middle of the fight. He spares the quotes of what one fighter promises the crowd he will do to the other fighter and visa versa. He gets straight to the point which in many cases is what literary journalism is all about.
I would argue that Literary journalism, new journalism, or whatever else someone wants to call it, follows the true ethics and values of journalism more so than hard news reporters, feature writers and sport writers attempt to do. The reason? Because these writers that we have read all semester do not care about inverted pyramid style because everything is important. Everything is relevant. In this piece, sure the most important part is that Louis won. In a normal sports piece, that is what would be listed; Louis with the win and Conn with the loss. But what these writers notice are the small details that bring together a larger picture. And they do not give a damn if the smaller details take up more word space because they know that people need to see it. They need to read writing that is not going to cut things out because they are deemed unimportant bey people who may or may not know a damn thing about the event.
All of these writers were innovators and unfortunately for some, way ahead of their time. However, looking back on everything I have read for this class and what I read in the newspaper daily, these are the stories I am going to remember. And that is what literary journalism does. It opens our eyes to everything we do not want to see, but what we need to see.
Literary Journalism
Jimmy Cannon’s Lethal Lighting is a prime example of literary journalism.
If I could describe his piece in one word, it would be dynamic. Cannon is a sportswriter who recognized that the story is not just about what happened it is about the journey, the surroundings. It is about everything.
Cannon observeed everything. He just doesn’t report who is boxing and who won, takes note of his surroundings. He answers the basic journalism questions in every scene. “They sat there, and the 45,266 around them on the plains of the playing field and up in the stands mumbled with impatience and expectancy and now and then a lonely shout, blurred by the distance, came down to the ringside.” Cannon captured everyone’s emotion. His observations reminded me of Orwell and Rodriguez in the sense that he did not leave anyone or anything out.
His powerful use of imagery sets people into the scene. For a sportswriter, he uses imagery that is unlikely for this type of writing, but grabs the audience’s attention. My favorite scene was on page 462 when Louis and Conn began the fight. “It was like watching a friend of yours being run over by a trolley car watching it coming and knowing what would happen but looking at it quietly, the curiosity dominating the horror and compelling you to be attentively silent.” With this sentence alone you can instantly picture side by side the fight as well as this powerful image of the trolley. No one would ever think to juxtapose two images together, but for Cannon it works effectively.
Aside from the scenes, within each sentence Cannon jam packs every scene with strong usage of verbs and adjectives. On page 463 he writes, “As the second round started, Conn lunged out of his scampering retreat and hit Louis with a right and then a mild of volley of lefts. Billy bluffed with his hands, making up and down feints as he moved his shoulders in tormenting spasms.” The strong usage of these words makes the boxing match more interesting. Readers do not want to read about a regular boxing match. He sets this one apart from others. He answers the question “What makes this boxing match so interesting?”
Lethal Lighting is indeed an example of Literary Journalism. His use of details, language, and style is proof of the case.
Jimmy Cannon's piece "Lethal Lightning" is written in a way that is markedly characteristic of "literary journalism". This refers to a style of writing that goes beyond stating the facts, and uses literary devices to more completely explore a topic. "Lethal Lightning" is a remarkable example of this genre, and is dripping with imagery and expirimental techniques.
Immediately, the use of "I" in the piece alerts the reader to the presence of literary journalism. Throughout my journalism education, I have been repeatedly warned about the dangers of speaking in the first person and the importance of remaining objective. Cannon revels in this forbidden tense, and uses it to transport the reader to this particular scene.
The opening line alone alerts the reader to the unique voice being used "Once, dreaming with morphine after an operation...". In this story, as with all literary journalism, nothing is off-limits, especially drug experiences.
The order of the piece is another keenly literary aspect. The end of the fight is revealed at the start of the piece, with Cannon going into great detail about the knockout before describing the fight at all. Then, when he goes through the fight chronologically he skips over the eighth round entirely. Using this method created a sense of impending doom in the piece that I found very engaging.
Cannon's sense of cynicism and insight is another aspect of the piece that defines it as literary journalism. Rather than trying to abide by the rules of conventional journalism and objectivity, Cannon makes powerful statements about the social and societal implications of this fight and probes far beyond the surface. This is evident with the section about the ex bank robber and Bernard Baruch. He goes on to say "Stand up and look back out of the press row and there they were, all the big people waiting for this controlled violence, licensed and sanctioned by the laws of the state." This statement uses sarcasm to expose how barbaric this widely accepted, and expensive, event is. This is something that is definitely not "allowed" in other forms of journalism.
Because Cannon takes these risks and challenges taboos with his writing, he is a prime example of what it means for a piece to be a work of literary journalism.
While journalism is a story being told, literary journalism is a song being sung. A story tells you what happened, whereas a song shows you how it felt.
In Lethal Lightening, Jimmy Cannon not only puts the reader ringside at the 1946 Joe Louis-Billy Conn boxing match, but makes you feel as guilty for it as a spectator at a hanging.
The knockout was gruesome. “…the blood running… beaten body… senses groping… boneless and helpless…”
The crowd of “thieves and the good people and the truly talented and the Broadway trash,” were sadistic for even being there.
Cannon points out the weirdness of the situation. “So they were there, and it was a night out for them at $100 a chair,” as if to say the audience were sick for participating in such a slaughter.
Journalism puts the most important part of the story first. In literary journalism, the most important part is never spelled out so plainly. You have to arrive at that sort of conclusion yourself.
Traditionally, who won would be the very first sentence of this piece. But is that Cannon’s point?
Who won is certainly at the beginning, like a buried lede. Cannon described how it happened, and used a similee/metaphor with vividly descriptive imagery to develop the feeling of the scene:
“It was like watching a friend of yours being run over by a trolley car, watching it coming and knowing what would happen but looking at it quietly, the curiosity dominating the horror and compelling you to be attentively silent.”
However, who won was not the point of the story. The story is in how they fought, what happened in the in-between and not just at the end. This piece, and literary journalism overall, is about the journey, not the destination. The process, not the result. It’s about how the story unfolded when someone was reporting it. The behind the scenes. Traditional journalism leaves the process out, whereas in literary journalism, the gathering of the story IS the story.
While journalism is formulaic, literary journalism is innovative.
Instead of writing, “’The seat prices ranged from $X to $100,’ said the stadium manager,” Cannon writes “So there they were at $100 a look, but back of them were empty places in the cheaper seats when Billy Conn first came into the ring.”
While journalists write with only the last names of their subjects, Cannon uses both first and last names interchangeably, and sometimes euphemisms for the characters: Billy Conn, Billy, Conn, Joe Louis, Joe, Louis, the scientist, the little man, the ignoramus, the big man.
In journalism, the reporter is omnipotent and omnipresent but would never refer to herself. In literary journalism, you can mention yourself if you want, because you’re a character in the story, a part of every scene.
This is perhaps more honest, because just your presence as an observer somewhere changes the atmosphere. It’s like the double slit experiment in quantum physics. When an electron is being watched, it behaves like a particle as opposed to a wave. But when it’s not being watched, of course not by the human eye even just by a machine, it behaves like a wave.
A source is going to behave differently or say things differently just because you’re there and being watched so perhaps, the nature of literary journalism is more honest.
Cannon is very interesting in this respect. He starts out the story referring to himself:
“Once, dreaming with morphine after an operation, I believed the night climbed in my window like a second-story worker.”
He then ceases to include his self throughout most of the piece, until the end, where smoothly, he appears again with the genius transition, “he said to me,” referring to Louis.
Another difference between journalism and literary journalism follows this smooth transition at the end of the piece. Whereas journalism uses quotes, as in a one sided monologue, as if the interviewee is speaking aloud to himself, literary journalism uses dialogue, recognizing someone needs to be asking the question the person is answering.
Although in traditional journalism the quotes are sprinkled strategically throughout the story, in literary journalism, the dialogue can appear at the time it actually occurred. Cannon has the only dialogue then naturally appear at the end.
He uses the dialogue between the reporters and the boxers as an opportunity to make fun of traditional journalism, through the words of the athlete.
“When did he hurt you?” a reporter asked.
“When he hit me,” he answered, sneering.
Whereas journalism is never funny, because it’s all so serious, in literary journalism humor is okay, and this scene was very funny, as was the trolley simile at the beginning, and many other darkly comedic and cynical points throughout the piece.
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