Just Enough Liebling: Classic Work
by the Legendary New Yorker Writer
by A. J. Liebling
Just Enough To Get You Hooked
Abbott Joseph Liebling was one of the greatest of all New Yorker writers, a
colorful figure who helped set the magazines urbane tone and style. Just
Enough Liebling gathers in one volume the vividest and most enjoyable of
his pieces. Charles McGrath (in The New York Times Book Review)
praised it as a judicious sampling-a useful window on Lieblings vast body
of writing and a reminder, to those lucky enough to have read him the first
time around, of why he was so beloved. Today Liebling is best known as a
celebrant of the sweet science of boxing, and as a feeder who ravishes the
reader with his descriptions of food and wine. But as David Remnick
observes in his fond and insightful introduction, Liebling is boundlessly
curious, a listener, a boulevardier, a man of appetites and sympathy-and a
writer who, with his great friend and colleague Joseph Mitchell, deftly

traversed the boundaries between reporting and storytelling, between
news and art.
Personal Review: Just Enough Liebling: Classic Work by the
Legendary New Yorker Writer by A. J. Liebling
The only reason I pick this nice volume over the LOA duo is for those who
still do not know his work and do not want to plunk down more than the
nice low price for this "tasting flight". Once you satisfyingly pat your mouth
with the back cover, you will be reaching for the LOA volumes pretty quick,
if not individual copies of the whole slate of individual volumes appearing
at the very beginning of this happy volume.
Joe Liebling is the other bookend of the matched set of great New Yorker
journalists with Joe Mitchell. They were as different in origin as could be,
except in character, skill and sensibility. Could be non-identical twins
separated at birth otherwise. Liebling was a war reporter, but no blood or
guts, all GI. He grasped the war as few others could, but in a way nobody
else did. "Westbound Tanker" finds him on the Norwegian "Regenbue", or
Rainbow, obvious from "Her lead-gray hull...streaked with rust, and her
masts and funnel and deckhouses showed only a trace of paint" He was
going on December 1, 1941 to visit home for the holidays as a neutral.
While at sea, he was transformed into a co-belligerent on the 7th.
A gourmet of food and drink of the highest order, he made a natural
Francophile. Those of you reading his "Between Meals" know of his young
introduction to pre-war Paris. He grasped the French as deTocqueville had
only aspired in his three month American visit. All the French I read him to
for years now are astounded and warmly pleased, even at their own
occasional expense. So we begin this tour with a few stories of drink, food
and France -- "The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good
appetite ... Each day brings only two opportunities for field work".
His sporting nature had two foci, the horse track (as opposed to horse
races) and boxing. If you hate boxing, the section on "Boxiana" is for you.
If you are a fan, so much the better. My now pugnacious daughter read
his work on boxing as a high school sophomore for a book report. Her
teacher was impressed; worried, but impressed. She became a monster
La Crosse player. Liebling coined "The Sweet Science". In the piece
included here, "The University of Eighth Avenue" he writes, "Forty-seventh
Street between Sixth and Fifth ...is devoted to polishing and trading
diamonds...The block on the west side of Eighth Avenue between Fifty-
fourth and Fifty-fifth Streets is given over to the polishing of prizefighters. It
has a quiet academic charm" As with war, Liebling is nosing behind and
scouting beyond the violence for other verities. And he always delivers.
Joe is always most critical of politicians and other reporters. Two more
sections follow on his prime targets, but always with the Liebling twist,

which, oddly enough allows us to see straight. Sort of undoing the spin.
He felt these two occupations require (but seldom achieve) a higher moral
standard than, say, a school teacher. And Joe treated them with requisite
scrutiny. "Our idea of a great liberal statesman was Al Smith, because he
came right out and told the farmers (who in New York are good socialist
Republicans), knowing in advance they were not going to vote for him
anyway, exactly where he stood. He stood on the same side of the bar we
did."
On the New York Times: "The very existence of the Times sports section
marked a concession to frivolity on the part of Adolph Ochs, the great
Merchandiser of stodginess, but the old man determined that if he had to
have a sports stage at all, it would be as uninteresting as possible." Joe
could afford to sneer at the Times; the New Yorker had the premiere
baseball writer, Roger Angell. And Liebling could even hold his own when
writing about his native city in the company of his emigre brother, Joe
Mitchell. Drink deeply here, smile and discover.
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