KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As the world of journalism comes crashing down around us, it might be useful to think about whence we came and about what some people think we are on the verge of losing.
Here’s one great way to do it: Take a dip into the latest volume of the Library of America series. It’s a collection of five books by A.J. Liebling, one of the long-form journalists who defined the craft of nonfiction writing in mid-20th-century America.
The umbrella title is “The Sweet Science and Other Writings.” In addition to pieces on boxing (that would be the sweet science), the volume reflects Liebling’s vast talent for writing about anything that sparked his senses.
The other books collected here find Liebling exploring and expounding on big-deal politics (“The Earl of Louisiana”); small-time New York operators (“The Jollity Building”); food, travel and Paris (“Between Meals”); and the practice of journalism (“The Press”). Liebling’s World War II journalism was collected in a previous Library of America volume published in 2008.
Although Liebling began as a newspaper reporter, all of the pieces in this volume originally appeared in The New Yorker, for which he wrote from 1935 until his death in 1963.
If you were to think that Liebling’s writings about the newspaper world of the 1940s and ’50s would be quaint and out of date, you’d be only partly right. It’s tempting to excerpt some bit of out-of-context irony that might indicate that the media’s current flux was ever so.
I enjoyed revisiting Liebling’s wanderings through Paris, where he reports on many intriguing and edifying vinous and culinary experiences.
Here’s a passage about a certain, excellent rose from southern France: “Tavel has a rose-cerise robe, like a number of well-known racing silks, but its taste is not thin or acidulous, as that of most of its mimics is. The taste is warm but dry, like an enthusiasm held under restraint, and there is a tantalizing suspicion of bitterness when the wine hits the top of the palate. With the second glass, the enthusiasm gains; with the third, it is overpowering.”
Quaint, yes, but indicative of the sensory reporting skills of a great journalist — and an entertaining diversion to boot.
