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Synopsis
A definitive collection of A.J. Liebling's boxing essays for the New Yorker.
Review
For many of us who have witnessed Mike Tyson's spectacular eruptions, professional boxing appears to be a crude celebration of machismo — practically indistinguishable from, say, Wrestlemania. To dub the sport a "sweet science" seems more than a little off.
As he wrote these witty, evocative essays for the New Yorker between 1951 and 1956, A.J. Liebling was aware that the ceremonies of his favorite sport were changing. The advent of televised fights made it easier for an already dwindling fan base to stay home. Liebling insisted that television offered none of the visceral thrills of a live match — especially the chance to yell along with (or at) other spectators.
Liebling's preference for communal observation aside, these are no common fan's notes: the essays are laden with ornate metaphors and passing references to Herodotus and Etruscan art. Liebling frequently draws parallels between boxers and writers. He compares a successful boxing manager (Whitey Bimstein) to a great editor (Maxwell Perkins). Watching Sugar Ray Robinson size up a new opponent, he says, "I felt confident that Robinson would interpret him in an interesting way." The Sweet Science is fascinated with the interchange between the appreciators and purveyors of this curious art form and with the transformation their relationship underwent over time.
Yet, even with such literary leanings, Liebling is more interested in action than symbols. As a spectator, he clearly prefers technical skill to brute strength, favoring veterans over upstarts. He describes Rocky Marciano's ascension to greatness with equal parts ambivalence and appreciation; he depicts Joe Louis's fall from grace with nostalgia. It's nostalgia, ultimately, that unites the collection. Though these essays are episodic, they're tied together by an attention to ritual. Liebling attends a match uptown; Liebling goes to a favorite bar after. It's the rhythms of spectatorship that Liebling captures most splendidly, and it's a longing for the moribund rites of live boxing that the book, without sentimentality, evokes best.
- Gena Hamshaw
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| FICTION |
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Prep
by Curtis Sittenfeld
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| Published: |
2005 |
| Pages: |
420 |
| Publisher: |
Random House |
Links:
Author bio
Iowa Writer's Workshop interview
Other works by Ms. Sittenfeld
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Synopsis
When Hoosier Lee Fiora wins a scholarship to an elite East Coast prep school, she is forced to confront snotty peers and a sense of inferiority.
Review
The scores of most competitions aren't recorded in the light bulbs of a scoreboard, and no buzzer announces the end of the game. Most competitions take place outside the easily readable arena of sports with their immediately identifiable teammates. Most of the time, the stakes are much higher.
Lee Fiora, the teenage protagonist and narrator in Curtis Sittenfeld's first novel, Prep, essentially plays a solo game. The novel traces Lee's four years at a fancy East Coast prep school named Ault. Before winning a scholarship there, Lee lived with her family in South Bend, Indiana. Her father sold mattresses, her mother stayed at home. The family made loud, cheesy jokes and bickered in public. Class and money were never an issue for Lee — although her family did not have much of either, neither did anyone else. Lee was, if not completely happy, at least comfortable. But this period of unselfconsciousness changes the moment Lee's family pulls up to Ault's flagstone gates in their rusty white Datsun. Mercedes abound and the game begins.
Teendom is a time of alienation. Gawky and gangly, your body betrays you by growing too quickly or, flatchested and/or hairless, by not growing fast enough. Neither pretty nor rich enough to fit in, Lee strives to blend in, to blur the edges of her personality enough to walk through the school corridors unnoticed. She is a loner by circumstance and not by nature. Prep's plot is no great shakes — crushes crush, tests test, sex happens. The compelling struggle is surprisingly not between Lee and her wealthy classmates so much as it is between the inner Lee, who writes with subtlety and compassion, and the Lee who wants to fit in with those classmates. The two duke it out in small battles. When Lee rebuffs a potential date and current commissary worker in front of her peers, the writerly Lee loses. When Lee boldly confronts Cross Sugarman — her golden ex-boyfriend — the inner Lee triumphs. But as she heads off to the University of Michigan, just who has prevailed in the end is unclear. After all, when you compete against yourself, you're never fully a winner, nor wholly a loser.
- Joshua David Stein
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