A.J. Liebling seems to love setting the scene. Location is given a big focus at the beginning of his stories. An in depth description is naturally apart of the location setup. “Beginning with the Undertaker,” starts off with “In the middle of any New York block there is likely to be one store that remains open and discreetly lighted all night,” from this line the reader get an immediate sense of location. Liebling is able to further develop the story into describing the inhabitants of the space. The use of description helps to organize the story by bringing about the dialogue with the characters the reader meets.
The sentence structure is the perfect mix of long and short allowing the reader to read with ease. The quotes from the characters tend to be long at times, but it is done to give the reader a sense of the personality of the person speaking. The grammar used with in the dialogue further hints at the cultural background of the speaker. “Oh, Madonna mia, she says, and what will do? So I says, Why don’t you forget all about it and purtend this is a new year,” is a perfect example of Liebling’s characterization style. The reader finally gets confirmation of the character’s nationality when Mayor Rizzo asks the police officer if he was Italian. The way libeling captures the essence of each character adds more life to the writing.
The only critique is the writing captures the time period in which it was written. It lacks timelessness in the sense of being able to be read without thinking of New York during the 1930,40s, and 50s. However, the writing allows a comparison to be made with the New York today versus the New York of Yesterday. This helps the reader to see exactly what has changed, but more importantly what has remained the same.
Do you think the use of dialect can be critical?