#40: ‘A Neutral Corner’ by A.J. Liebling

‘A Neutral Corner’ is a collection of essays by A.J. Liebling.

In my opinion this collection is a much more varied and superior collection of essays than Liebling’s celebrated ‘The Sweet Science’. I feel as though Liebling’s greatest skill, as with Budd Schulberg and Djuna Barnes, is as an observer of people, and perhaps the reason I enjoy this collection more is that the essays seem more concerned with observation rather than reportage.

My highlight (though as a Londoner I’m probably biased) is Liebling’s visit to Shoreditch Town Hall in They Must Tike Me for a Proper Mugg, to watch Terry Spinks fight Ivan McCready in 1957. His short description of making his way from Old Street station to the venue and listening to the conversation of locals and their borderline obsession with not being seen to take a liberty, and for no one to do so to them, is one of the simplest and most perfect descriptions of a group of London fightgoers I’ve read. It’s probably necessary for an observer from another culture to pick up on such small differences and leanings of local dialect.