Books – March/April 2024

The Letters of Seamus Heaney, Ed. Christopher Reid

I spent March immersed in the world of Seamus Heaney. Joe gave me this beautiful book for Christmas – ordered before the 25th December, it took a while to arrive.

I like the informality of letters (and diaries) as an easy way to get to know a person in their own words. I found these ones fascinating – both about the personal life and also about the craft of poetry. There is a very good review in the London Review of Books with which I agree. Hopefully you can read it without subscribing (though that is worth doing) here. You are dependent on the skill of the editor in selecting a small number of letters honestly representative of the total number. Reid was a fellow poet and friend of Seamus and has also edited the letters of Ted Hughes. The reader has to rely on his judgement. Sometimes – in letters written in the later years – I wondered whether he was writing for posterity – which he mentioned from time to time. After all the letters of Hughes, Philip Larkin et al. were published.

Seamus’s letters here are all very literary, containing beautiful writing full of allusions, quotes, sympathy, encouragement, and enthusiasm for people and for work that he has been shown. It’s sometimes a bit pompous as one of his addressees noted! As well they reflect plenty of introspection, mostly anxiety, about his roles – as husband and father, emerging and later national poet – and associated responsibilities, money, maintaining his creativity – in short his place in the world he’s in. A full and happy family life and a large number of long-term friends as well as increasingly famous figures e.g. Bill Clinton. Tricky when you are successful so quickly – publication, prizes and effusive critical responses to his work. And in a place as complicated as Ireland and in a business not known for collaboration. Complicated.

I’m not terribly keen on essays and critical analyses about poetry in general although I do enjoy deep dives into particular poems like T.S. Elliot’s The Waste Land. But as I said, I like the insights into the craft and lifestyle of individual poets illuminated in volumes of letters. Although when I read a poem first off I don’t want to know the real life circumstances that gave rise to it. I want to respond to it completely raw. But I’ve loved Seamus’s poems for a long time, and re-read some of them a lot, so I found the background to the ones talked about in these letters – references to individuals, events, and memories – interesting. And also where and when he wrote them. Sometimes in peace and quiet, especially in Glanmore in the South when he moved from Belfast but also on holidays with his family. Sometimes he wrote in hotel rooms, even on planes on the fly as it were. Some came easily and some were hard wrought.

The Poetry

Having the books to hand I was able to look the individual poems up when they were mentioned – giving a fuller picture than the extract quoted. I also read some of the poems by other poets referred to in the correspondence. Especially poems by Yeats that Seamus quoted; handily having to hand a book of those selected by himself. Rich pickings all round!

I’ve already written about Seamus’s poetry and you can read that blog, in which I extract bits of my favourite of his poems here. Which also links to another blog about a short and highly recommended book on Seamus by R F Foster which you can read here. It’s a short and accessible introduction to his work. In the latter part of the volume of letters Seamus talks frequently about a project he undertook with another friend which resulted in this book.

Stepping Stones, Dennis O’Driscoll

O’Driscoll is another friend of the poet. There was a lot of discussion about this in the letters so I was keen to see the finished product. It consists of a series of questions put by O’Driscoll and answered by Seamus. Although it reads like an interview the dialogue was conducted via letters and email. It’s like an autobiography and quite wonderful. My New Years Resolution was to buy no new books (in order to read those I already have!) but I made an exception for this and for three others.

New Poetry Volumes / Translations

I was surprised to find I was missing the second of his books of poetry – I used to buy them as soon as they came out – but somewhere along the line I missed Door into the Dark. And also, despite being convinced I had it, I didn’t own his second last volume, Electric Light. So I broke my resolution and bought, with one click as the site promises, these ebooks.

The discussion of his translations in Seamus’s letters brought me back to the two I owned, and had read briefly – his translation of Book VI of Aeneid and The Burial at Thebes. And I didn’t have The Cure at Troy so I bought that too. I drew the line at his Beowulf which I have always disliked although his translation has been highly praised. Amazing that he wrote these without knowing any Greek! Re-reading them now, so soon after reading Emily Wilson’s Iliad, I recognise how wonderful they are. I’ve also discovered something that has eluded me until now, that one of the most famous quotes attributed to Seamus comes from his The Cure at Troy. When Neoptolemus has, through his honesty and grace, persuaded Philoctetes to return to Troy, the chorus sing: History says, don’t hope / On this side of the grave. / But then, once in a lifetime / The longed-for tidal wave / Of justice can rise up and hope and history rhyme.

So what did I learn having been submerged for the best part of four or five weeks in this world? First that it’s so important for creative people to have the support and encouragement of a close circle particularly starting out but also in the middle and in the later stages of careers – so I guess all the time. Seamus’s circle was consistent over all that time. And was almost exclusively male! There’s hardily a woman mentioned who is not the wife of a colleague. And barely any mention of well known Irish women poets – Eavan Boland is not in the index although she does get a passing mention. The feminists finally got cranky with this circle and Seamus does acknowledge the justice in that, but you feel he’s a man of his times. But his coterie of fellow poets were very important to him throughout his career – even, maybe especially after his Nobel Prize in 1995. Maybe it’s luck at the start, but the poems in Death of a Naturalist are pretty obviously fantastic – then (1966) and now. There were downtimes – the dreaded writer’s block, in later years depression and then heart troubles. But the work continued and his engagement with the literary world.

I was delighted to discover that Seamus reads poetry in the same way I do – galloping through a whole book in one go, quickly, and then returning to particular poems. I’ve always thought this might be the wrong way. His response to poems took everything about a new volume or individual poems. Rhythm and metre, the shape of lines, the amount of white on a page, the order of poems, along with the importance of word choice. For instance Seamus believes the word ‘now’ in the first line of Yeats’s famous poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree makes all the difference between a good poem and a great one. I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree. Without the now it would be a moment of homesickness, the now turns it into something sacred. Lots of other examples in letters praising poems or advising young poets. Fascinating – at least to me. This comes through in his letters to poets like Ted Hughes who was a great friend and Paul Muldoon who Seamus encouraged from the time Paul was a schoolboy.

Another thing that comes through the letters is how busy he was – lectures, poetry readings, reviews, essays. And being hospitable – there’s lots of carousing referred to obliquely. He carried letters from friends – distinguished from business ones – around with him hopeful of finding time to properly respond. Hence most start with an apology for his lateness. Lots are written in airport lounges and aeroplanes as he flies from Ireland to Harvard. He often refers to himself in Yeats’s phrase as a public smiling man. Especially after winning the Nobel Prize. And very conscious, though he doesn’t say much overtly – at least in these letters – about the cliques and divisions amongst his fellow Irish poets about his status as Ireland’s greatest poet. Would have been difficult.

Lots of poet friends amongst his correspondents or mentioned in -passing. I found snippets about them interesting – Patrick Kavanagh (whose autobiography I’ve read) Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Paul Muldoon, Ted Hughes. He knew Philip Larkin whose biography I’ve read – prefers a more positive view of the world! Also John Carey whose autobiography I’ve read. It’s fun seeing these cross references. Seamus was greatly influenced by Patrick Kavanagh whose autobiography I’ve read, especially in his early days. He says Yeats was only influential in his later years – in the 1970s but he refers to him a lot. I love what Seamus says about Yeats: He had this marvellous gift for beating the scrap metal of the day into a ringing bell. Those influences he mentions specifically are English ones after Kavanagh – Wordsworth, Thomas Hardy, the War poets. His His Haw Lantern volume was much influenced by Czeslaw Milosz, in particular his poetic sequence The World which is beautiful and you can see the similarity.

Seamus’s position on the political situation in Northern Ireland and the Troubles comes through a bit in the letters but most directly in the interviews. There are lots of very moving poems about the deaths of ordinary people and of the menacing environment caused by both the British army and the IRA. But he always resisted writing overtly about his position as a Catholic growing up in Ulster and as a young man in Belfast. He refused to write directly in support of the IRA despite being pressured to do so as described in in the cycle The Flight Path in his The Sprit Level volume. He describes an incident with a former schoolmate and known IRA commander on a train in 1979 – during the dirty protest in Long Kesh: So he enters and sits down / Opposite and goes for me head on. / When, for fuck’s sake, are you going to write / Something for us?’ ‘If I do write something, / Whatever it is, I’ll be writing for myself.’ / And that was that. Or words to that effect.

In the interviews he is explicit – strongly aware of injustices meted out to Catholics in Ulster, vehemently opposed to violence on all sides and aware of the innocent lives affected. He was published quite early on – from his first book – by Faber so was always supported by and comfortable in the British literary scene. But he famously protested in a poem, An Open Letter, to being included in The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry in 1983. It concludes Be advised my passports green / No glass of ours was ever raised / to toast the Queen. It wasn’t included in any of his collections. He always felt it was too coarse, linguistically and politically … [but] … I felt honour-bound to break silence about the whole British / Irish nomenclature, but I still didn’t like putting a spring into the nationalistic step of either side. He also calls it an entertainment rather than a poem – a distinction he attributes to Graham Greene.

There is so much material in these books and poems that is rewarding. They reveal a sensibility that is intellectually and morally stringent and all expressed so beautifully. He is up there with Yeats whose work he is sure will survive for as long as poetry is read. I loved everything about all of it – letters, interviews, poems and translations. I now look forward to a biography of Seamus currently being written by Finton O’Toole.

Lee Miller: On Both Sides of the Camera,Carolyn Burke.

All of the above took most of March and a little bit of April. I was submerged! Then we discovered there was an exhibit of Lee Miller’s photographs at Heide Gallery, now concluded unfortunately. So I pulled out this biography – that I’ve had, unread for years! So one for the NYE resolution.

I was terribly pleased I had it. What an amazing life. From the get-go. Her mother and father were progressive for the time. Lived in Poughkeepsie. He was an atheist, an engineer and an amateur photographer. Manager of a technically advanced factory that separated substances. Mother a more shadowy picture in this book. Frustrated housewife, later student, adulterer who chooses to stay when found out (another tick for Dad I’d say). She was a tomboy, much loved. Two brothers, one of whom she got on with very well as an adult. Another who as an adult was into cross dressing! So a little bit unusual I would think. She was also very beautiful. As a very young girl she was sexually assaulted when staying with friends of the family in New York. An STD so lots of medical complications and some psychological treatment followed. One would think devastating.

She went on to become a famous model – picked out in the street by the publisher of Condé Nast. Decided she wanted to take photographs instead of being photographed went to Paris to learn from surrealist Man Ray, the start of lots of free love affairs. I dreaded another fellow coming on the scene as she was sure to have an affair with him! She wanted to live like a man – at least like the creative, artistic types she found herself among. Picasso and other famous artists. In England during the blitz she took photos that were published in Vogue, whose editor got her accreditation as a war photographer. She was actually on the front line for a memorable attack by the allies in France shortly after the Normandy landings. And went with American soldiers on into Germany, to the liberation of Dachau and from there onto Eastern Europe. Amazing photos.Fearless. The book posits that she never got over these experiences.

Stints in New York photographing the bold and beautiful, holidays with old artists friends in France – nothing quite lived up to that excitement. She subsequently had two marriages – one to an Egyptian (lots of desert photos) and one to an Englishman who was eventually knighted making her Lady Penrose. She had a son with him at the ripe old age of forty something. She became a gourmand. Put on weight, drank too much, lost her interest in fashion. I was disappointed at the end of the book which seemed very judgemental about all that. She looked fine in the pictures in the book. A bad relationship with her son who knew nothing about her wartime experience.

So he also didn’t know about the hundreds of photos she’d stashed in the attic (refusing all requests for negatives) until after she died. He has since established the foundation that now exhibits them around the world. There were quite a few photos in the book, some on glossy paper, others inserted into the text. The ones done with Man Ray in Paris, the blitz photos and the war ones the most interesting. Dachau the most confronting – the former prison camp guards the most disturbing of those. Some of the Egypt ones were also good; one showing the shadow of the pyramid over Cairo. Most of these were included in the exhibition. I was a bit disappointed in the latter. I don’t think it recognised what a revolutionary she really was; focussing on her reputation as a surrealist artist which I didn’t think was the most interesting thing about her. The photos were small and I thought badly lit, explained and arranged. Still I’m glad I got to know a bit about Lee Miller. Formidable in a patriarchal society – amidst both the glamorous and the alternative crowds she mixed with.

Did I Ever Tell You This?, Sam Neill

I needed some light relief after all that so I read Sam Neill’s autobiography – another of my long-held, unread volumes. Commenced after a cancer diagnosis and written during his subsequent treatment and during Covid lockdowns. Gave him something to do he says. A lovely laconic style. You feel as though you’re sitting across from him at the dinner table. Lovely little vignettes about famous actors he has worked with that sum up what Sam sees as their essential character. Only a couple of bad reviews – Judy Davis and Harvey Keitel and unexpectedly Bob Hawke, who, invited to a dinner party by Meryl Streep during the filming of Evil Angels, behaved like a boor (who’d a thunk it?!) About the rest he is generous and often funny. This is a lovely, humorous take on what has been an exceptional career.

I really enjoyed his long and winding road to film stardom. Born in Ireland, English mother – he has three passports, handy given his occupation and Brexit. A loving family. He’s even nice about the rather mean spirited grandmother who lived nearby although full of love and admiration for the one in England. Christchurch private school is a challenge but he makes some good friends there. Another Nigel which name they both loathe and so they both change them – he to Sam. Not a great scholar but likes being in the school plays. He’s following a very clever brother who becomes a Shakespeare scholar. Uninspired university days but fun. By chance gets into a film unit for New Zealand’s equivalent to the ABC. Over to Australia, still free-wheeling. Then picked up for the wonderful My Brilliant Career. The film-makers had to recommend an agent. The rest is history – that he proceeds to meander through in a gentle, wry, unassuming way.

He mentions some of his films, including Jurassic Park and its sequels which made him really famous. About which he is unassuming. I’ve only seen the first one. He describes his role in Dean Spanley, a beautiful movie about grief set in London after the First World War, as his most difficult role. Unsurprising really as he plays a man who is a reincarnated spaniel. Sounds odd but is so moving! Peter O’Toole, Jeremy Northam and Brian Brown are also in it. Peter O’Toole sounds lovely I’m pleased to say. He’s proud of My Brilliant Career and praises the women who made it – director Gillian Armstrong, producers Margaret Fink and Jane Scott, and writer Eleanor Witcombe – for giving him his real start in films. He remembers Death in Brunswick and the wonderful John Clarke fondly. And also The Dish, which I then watched (it’s on Netflix) and was reminded how good it was. He is generous about The Piano, remembering how he had to drag Holly Hunter through the mud.

So many films – like Isabelle Huppert he’s a workaholic! He’s acted in one hundred and fifty two films, as well as producing nine, directing nine, writing four and editing three. These numbers come from IMDb. He talks about Reilly Ace of Spies, which I’ve seen years ago and liked at the time; but doesn’t say much about the much lauded Peaky Blinders which I haven’t seen. I also haven’t seen his documentaries set in the Pacific of which he is proud. I’d like to.

This includes the little films he made during covid which were quite lovely involving his actor friends who filmed things where they were isolating and sent the results in to be edited and joined up with Sam’s efforts. Fun. He acknowledges but doesn’t name, a few duds – necessary to feed his family, about which he is rightly protective so he says almost nothing about them. Beyond that they’ve been wonderfully supportive of him especially in his current circumstances. About which we receive updates during the course of his musings.

First when he’s told he has a rare and aggressive blood cancer, next when he’s told the treatment is going well, then not well and new, speculative treatment is the only option available and finally in the last few pages we wait with him while he gets the results of his latest PET scan. I won’t spoil the surprise. I follow Sam on X and Instagram which gives one the feeling , however misleadingly, of a personal relationship. But on those platforms and in this book Sam comes across as an all round good fellow!