SWEET AND TOUGH
THE SWEET SCIENCE, by A. J. Liebling; Victor Gollancz, English price 18/-. \V HEN American journalists settle . down to a job in which they are really interested, surely they are the world’s best. Followers of the Fancy (now The Sweet Science) will be delighted -with Mr. Liebling, He is rich with a dry humour, he takes no sides, he talks to winners and losers and trainers and hangers-on, and he loves the NeSle Art. ("A boxer, like a writer, must stand alone.") Faced with a rival, he tells us, an American newspaper will usually offer to buy it, which is sometimes done in Scientific circles but is not considered ethical. All the great modern fighters are here-Louis, Marciano, Walcott, Archie Moore, and a lot of interesting boys of no more name than willing fists will earn them. ("But I must have didn’t do so bad, because they all applaused me.) And for those who think boxing both brutal and dangerous he produces a "resonant old gentleman, wiry, straight, and whitehaired," who invited them to.a ninetieth birthday party in another saloon. On the invitation was "Billy Ray, Last Surviving Bare Knuckle Fighter."’ Asked how many fights he’d had, Mr. Ray said, "A huncert forty." The last one . was with gloves. I thought the game was getting soft, so I retired." On the Fancy Jeffrey Farnol wrote with romantic enthusiasm, Hemingway with tough-guy lack of humour. Hazlitt adorned it with good prose, and Dickens could not overlook reference to Tom Cribb. Liebling’s hero-chronicler is Egan, who in 1812 turned out the racy Boxiana; or Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism; from the days of Broughton and Slack to the Heroes of the Present Milling Aera. After the classic age of trulls and lushes, toffs and toddlers, Liebling deals with only 195155, but he has the eye and the wit of his master and the game of man against man,’ skill against skill in the boxing ring, is a deal less questionable than some other forms of combativeness.
Denis
Glover
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19570329.2.20.5
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 920, 29 March 1957, Page 14
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340SWEET AND TOUGH New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 920, 29 March 1957, Page 14
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.
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