Philip Larkin: A Writer’s Life, Andrew Motion
Reading Andrew Motion’s memoir, Sleeping on Islands (see this post) led me to this which I enjoyed very much. One way or another, mostly memoirs and books about literary circles and poetry, I’ve absorbed some knowledge about Larkin but I’ve not read much of his poetry. Motion was, along with Monica Jones and Anthony Thwaite, Larkin’s literary executor. Following Larkin’s death in December 1985 Thwaite released a comprehensive edition of the poems in 1988 and an edition of Larkin’s letters in 1992. The latter revealed that Britain’s best loved and most critically acclaimed poet was privately misogynistic, xenophobic and racist as well as guilty of decidedly deceitful, selfish and intolerant behaviour, especially towards the women in his life! Motion’s biography was first published in 1993 with a second edition in 2017 where in a new Introduction he writes at length about his personal dealings with Larkin – but this is no hagiography. Larkin’s family was solidly middle class. His father waa successful council administrator but authoritarian and dominated the family. His mother with whom he had a very close relationship was submissive. Larkin was very bright so off to Oxford where he took out a First and befriended some of the bright young men, of the age, in particular Kingsley Amis. From the get go he was hopeless with women so it’s hard to see why he attracted so many whom he treated badly. It reminded me of how T.S. Elliott treated the women in his life. Motion is sympathetic to Monica with whom Larkin had his only long term (and long distance – they never lived together) relationship who has long been reviled by the bright young men, especially Amis. Beautifully written, the biography is very interesting on the poems – the real life events that prompted them and the circumstances in which they were written. Larkin led a much more rounded life than I expected. A modernising librarian overseeing what was required for a rapidly increasing student body at the University of Hull, managing the complex architectural and budgetary issues well – a good committee man! A humorous and charming friend and colleague when he wanted to be. Close platonic relationships with strong women and strangely non-committal sexual relationships with others. He seemed to value emotional crises to spur his poetry. Mostly it seems when the women he as seeing got too demanding. He was certainly marriage phobic. Only to Monica did he stay true and she was careful never to mention marriage! He was a jazz expert and a skilled photographer. And yes, misanthropic and increasingly conservative as he got older. Some of which is reflected in the poems. Motion in his Introduction in 2017 says he wanted to present as complete a picture of Larkin as possible. And he has done so. Another biography by James Booth was published in 2014 but is said to be a hagiography – and also critical of Monica – so I wouldn’t recommend that.
Philip Larkins Collected Poems
I prefer printed poetry books but despite searching I couldn’t find any by Larkin – anywhere! Not in contemporary bookshops nor in second-hand ones. A good sign – shows people want to keep hold of them, like Simenon. So, keen to be able to read the poems as I read the biography, I got this ebook. It’s nicely set out and obviously very easy to find the poem you’re looking for. I loved the poems and have decided that the people selecting Larkin for anthologies have done a very poor job! I’ve done a separate blog about those that I particularly loved which you can find here.
The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books, John Carey
I’ve had this book on my iPad for ages; this was published in 2014. I loved it. He is emeritus fellow of Merton where he became a Professor in 1975, retiring in 2002. He’s been a public literary figure in Britain, Booker Price judge, book reviewer for the London Sunday Times and appearing on television book shows as well as writing critically acclaimed books on Milton , Donne, Dickens and Thackeray among others. He won an Open Scholarship to St John’s College Oxford and then held a number of teaching positions at the different colleges. It’s all very interesting about the whole Oxford experience – undergraduate life, teaching practices, inspiring academics and the other sort. He’s takes a dim view of elitist attitudes among his colleagues and snobbish cultures at some of the colleges. He recounts how at dinner he was described as no-one by a college dean. And how later when he suggested some of the Fellows give lectures on the syllabus he was roundly condemned for attacking their independence. He tried to modernise the syllabus when he finally became a professor; suggesting Anglo Saxon literature not be compulsory for first years – it took him ten years to win that battle. He recounts lots of encounters with literary lions including Robert Graves, Ted Hughes and Phillip Larkin. And critiques authors who have influenced him including D. H. Lawrence about whom he wrote a book and George Orwell – only one mention of Eileen, when George ate the eels she’d prepared for the cat instead of the Shepherds Pie she made for him! Carey comes across as a mild, unambitious chap which is obviously not accurate. But nice in an author; he apologises for writing about the positive reviews for some of his books – balancing those with less successful authorial experiences. There’s so much in here I feel I could read it again – which I’d do if only there were not so many books to be read!
Family Romance, John Lanchester
This is another that I’ve had for ages – I read reviews and then click on Amazon; it’s so easy, then it takes me a while sometimes to reading the book in question. This was published in 2007! I’m sure I haven’t had it that long. Lanchester writes for the London Review of Books amongst other things and I like his writing. As it says on the cover, there is a tease that this memoir about his family will reveal deep dark secrets. It emerges quite quickly that it’s not really deep or dark. His mother was nun, which he knew quite early on. There is another secret that is consequential on that background which emerges later and which I won’t reveal. The bulk of the story tells of his mother’s life. A family in desperate poverty in Ireland, a clever girl, what should she do to relieve pressure on the family. Do what lots did – become a nun. It’s quite tragic really. Her family is pleased and proud. Then she does the unthinkable she doesn’t take her final vows! The family is ashamed and hostile – they make her wear her novice’s habit all the time she is at home. Some twists and turns and she re-enters a different convent. Everyone is happy and proud again. She stays for a long time; living for much of that period in India. Until she leaves and marries John’s father. Easily written but as the memoir hammers home – very difficult to achieve. The bits about what is expected of novitiates and then later of nuns is terrific and gels with the little I understood about it as a convent student. They were required to give up any sense of self; a notion rigorously enforced, no personal belongings, no thoughts for themselves. Terrible. It’s very well described here. And the emotional impact on those women affected is extreme. The book is really a son’s tribute to what his mother went through to achieve the life she wanted – at a great cost.
Family Business: A Memoir, Peter Conradi
Another out of my unread ebook archive. This was published in 2019 and I remember the review in the TLS. Conradi was Iris Murdoch’s biographer. As well as being as he describes first her disciple as he discovered her novels, and then her friend. He calls her his admired friend and parent surrogate, later my vulnerable subject. The trouble with the book is how it is a jumble. First up it’s about his parents hugely conflicted marriage and then he goes back to both their lineages. Father’s came from Paris via Germany at the time of the Franco-Prussian war, 1870. Mother’s from somewhere in Mitteleurope to England in the eighteenth century. Both families have some interesting bits and pieces; father has a cousin related to Arthur Sulzberger publisher of the New York Times; mother’s family became wealthy from the scrap metal trade. There’s a tenuous connection to Wagner via a Great Uncle escaping Europe before World War I. Interesting enough but all the going backwards and forwards makes it very confusing. His journey through adolescence into academe is a bit tortured. His Jewish identity and gayness loom large. The same confusion sets in with the story of his relationship with Iris. Found her novels and her philosophy when he finally got to university – outside Oxbridge he notes. Eventually does two PHDs, it’s unclear if both are about her work, the second one is dauntingly titled Iris Murdoch and the Purification of Eros. Not something I’d want to read. He describes in a sort of anecdotal or snapshot style their relationship. He met her in 1981 and became friends with both her and her husband John Bayley the year after. He and his partner shared holidays with both Iris and John and stayed at each others houses. Then he did her biography. He relies a lot on Iris’ friends, in particular Philippa Foot who I know something about but he assumes you know other people he talks about. He also spends a lot of time justifying things he revealed in his biography that apparently were challenged. Too much detail for me. He also refers a bit, but in a very oblique way to the controversy that followed John Bayley’s biography – friends dismayed at how much he revealed about her decline into dementia. I enjoyed both the book and the film, but I’m not sure what Conradi thought of them. I’ve also read and loved Iris’s novels but can’t remember which one and whilst Conradi talks about some of them I didn’t get a clear picture of which ones he thought were her major achievements. This book might make me go back to them to figure that out on my own. I wouldn’t really recommend this. Too much of an insiders view talking to insiders. Hence I suppose the positive reviews in Britains literary press.
All The Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf, Katharine Smyth
I liked this book a lot. Especially her interpretations of characters, mood, individual episodes and overall context of Virginia Woolf’s novel To The Lighthouse. Seek solace she does. The title comes from a line of poetry spoken by Mr Ramsay and later repeated by his wife. It’s about people continuing to live on past their individual deaths. Smyth summarises it as nothing is lost everything gets carried forward. This book is her attempt to make sense of her relationship with her father and the impact his death had on her. She is attracted to the idea that there is one book for every life .. with the power to reflect and illuminate that life; one book that will forever inform how we navigate the little strip of time we are given, while also helping us to clarify and catch hold of its most vital moments. That is how she views Woolf’s novel. And she proceeds to describe those scenes from her life that she identifies as most vital. Her father was English, her mother Australian but she was brought up in America where her father took the family before she was born. Her father is quite a character – handsome, talented and charming. Also self destructive and abusive. The family episodes she writes about record his early successful life and then his long decline. There are beautiful moments, scary moments and devastating moments. He is an alcoholic and a smoker. We meet him in the book about to have his bladder out because of cancer. Successful surgery but he continues to drink – three bottles a day. We go back and forth over his life. University and early success in London as an avant garde architect, meets the woman he would marry but restless moves to Harvard where she moves with him. They live in Boston. Early on his drinking is just a part of him that is just that – a part of him. A smoke and a glass of wine out on the deck overlooking water off Rhode Island where they had a holiday house. Sitting in his newly renovated house in Boston admiring the contours of a room he was painting, back to the wall, glass of wine in hand. And there are happy memories of holidays spent sailing and mucking about in boats. But things get darker. Until family life resolves around helping him die. And then the aftermath of grief. Mother moves back to Sydney. She emerges finally in her own right. Overall though family life at the end is a bit grim. And I didn’t like Dad at all. But the writing is terrific – honest and unsentimental. Interspersed with these scenes are forays into episodes from To The Lighthouse and deeper explanations based on Woolf’s own writings and the reams that have been written about her. I found these bits wonderful. Smyth has obviously studied Virginia Woolf extensively and it shows here. If you love the novel, or want to read it, this book is a good start.
To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
I read the Woolf novel alongside the Smyth book. I’d tried to read it once before but gave it away pretty early. The deep exploration of themes and the circumstances in which the novel was written helped my reading. I got a better understanding of the characters. The writing is beautiful and once you get into the zone you can be overtaken by the moods she evokes. I don’t think I would have persisted without the Smyth interpretations, they certainly added to my enjoyment.
Chopin’s Piano, Paul Kildea
Another from the ebook archive, published in 2018. I liked the sound of this – a bit about music, a bit about history, a bit about romanticism – and loved the cover. I didn’t read the about the author section, so didn’t realise he’s been CEO of Musica Viva since 2019, having come from England to take on the role. I loved the book. It starts with George Sands and Chopin travelling to Majorca where he uses a piano hand built by a local man. A good enough job but nothing like the beautiful and far more technically advanced pianos they’re building in Paris. You learn a lot about how pianos are made. It is here, in pretty dreadful living conditions – damp, cold, noisy – that Chopin composed some of his famous preludes; not all of the twenty five but historians have worked out which ones. I’ve always loved Chopin’s music but knew nothing about the preludes. Modern technology enabled me to download two versions of them and I loved listening to them as I read about the circumstances in which they were written and their critical reception. Kildea disputes the hostile attitude to George Sands evinced by many who’ve written about Chopin – which I liked, she sounds amazing. He writes very accessably (for musically illiterate me) about the different approaches to playing Chopin. Lizst, Rubinstein and others played his compositions il faut faire grand – loudly to fill massive concert halls unknown in Chopin’s day. Which suited the exponents and instruments of high Romanticism, yet it turned out to be a terrible match for the nineteenth century’s great musical miniaturist. Which leads him to Wanda Landowski who would champion a finer, subtler way of playing him. She comes into possession of Chopin’s Majorca piano in 1931 and performed his preludes and other works around the world. She was born in Poland, lived in Berlin and Paris before the nazis drove her to America in the 1940s. She sounds an amazing woman.According to Kildea she changed the way the twentieth century viewed a whole swathe of composers and scores from earlier centuries. Her story includes an account of the lengths to which the nazis collected and disposed of thousands of precious musical instruments, leading to the loss of many, including Chopin’s piano. The book contains lots of stories – all of them interesting.
Would That Be Funny? Growing up with John Clark, Lorin Clark
Some time during my reading these heavier tomes I needed a bit of light relief and found it here. John comes across as a lovely fellow. He and his wife built a slightly mad but very secure life for their two girls. Lots of family in-jokes and polished family anecdotes lovingly described by his daughter. I’m not familiar with her other writing, notably Fitzroy Diaries. She writes well, conversationally, building pictures of the places they lived and how they all related to each other. You get a sense of how John worked and his relationships with family and friends. He had a tough early life – what is it with these deeply hostile fathers?! It took him a long while to find his métier. The impact of fame on the family, especially in relation to his death comes through – both good and bad.
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