A.J. LIEBLING
Every field of human endeavour has had, at one time or another, its classic historian. To name but three, Warfare has had Thucydides; Empire, Edward Gibbon; Gulag, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. These were not only meticulous chroniclers, but also great writers. Any student of history can profit from reading them. So, equally, can any student of fine prose.
In the history of history, few who essay the art can rank with the geniuses cited above. But one who can, within living memory, was the late A.J. Liebling. In everything he wrote (and he wrote much, on many topics), he comes across as one of the great masters of modern English prose. And when he wrote history, it was with a journalist’s immediacy but an historian’s objectivity. The result was magisterial, yet never solemn: urbane humour was one of his endearing traits.
His non-historical writings, mostly articles for the New Yorker were extremely diverse. He was an expert on French wine and food. He was an aficionado of horse-racing. His insights into the politics of the American South are famous. He was a judicious and generous critic, and a knowledgeable one: he once wrote a long review of a book about Arabic mathematics that showed a thorough grasp of the subject. He served as the regular conscience of the American Press. In all of these articles, readers knew they were in the presence of a highly civilized mind and a warmly attractive heart.
His historical writings are not in the classical mode. That is, he did not sit back in an ivory tower, reflecting on the past with scholarly detachment. Rather, he recorded the present, as eye-witness and chronicler. The two fields he covered were the liberation of France in World War Two and, after his return from Normandy and Paris, the civilian battles of the American prize-ring. He was, if you will, the Carlyle of la France engagée, and the Tacitus of boxing. But where those two masters wrote at a safe remove from events, Liebling, by contrast, plunged right in where the action was, and set down what he saw at first hand.
Personal safety was never a consideration with Liebling, in his work as war correspondent for the New Yorker during the Normandy invasion. Some of his colleagues filed reports from the rear, based in part on press releases handed out at headquarters, and in part on what they found on location after the fighting had moved on. Liebling preferred to be in the thick of things, sharing the dangers and difficulties of the serving men: somehow, he wangled the use of an army jeep and the help of a sergeant-driver; and his reports bristle with the reek of death, the dogged air of patience, and the implication of hope. Accompanying the front line, he was deeply respected by all ranks for his courage and understanding, and was beloved by his driver. For him, the whole journey was attended by profound emotions: for he had lived in France for years as a young man, and the campaign represented, for him, at a personal level, the deliverance of a place very dear to him.
As chronicler of the post-war prize-ring, he was not, of course, in any danger from the violence he recorded. But as a former amateur boxer himself, he understood what made up the life of a pugilist. He understood the skills involved; he could spot, in fine detail, the difference between a crude brawler and a master technician; he had a scholar’s knowledge of the sport’s past and its traditions; and he had a clear eye for the ring’s personalities, drawing adroit portraits of its colourful practitioners, men like Rocky Marciano, Tommy Farr, and Archie Moore. Especially Moore, whom he depicted as a kind of cross between Paul Bunyan and Bobby Fischer, at once an heroic strongman and a virtuoso of tactics. His chronicles of boxing qualify him as one of the great sportswriters of all time. In the years since his death, boxing has not lacked for stories and individuals worthy of his pen. But he has had no successor of equivalent power, insight, and charm. He is sorely missed.
Missed by those who care about boxing. And missed also by all who care about good reporting and the good use of language, whatever the subject. He was a better writer than most, was revered by his colleagues and has won an eminent place in the pantheon of American letters.
