dumbfoundry

You can hardly write the life of another human being without devoting your own lifetime to it, and Bevis Hillier has more or less done so with John Betjeman. He began work three decades ago, a few years before his subject's death; he has now published the last in his trilogy of vast volumes, safely installing Betjeman, as he puts it, 'in the national pantheon' (accompanied, I suppose, by his teddy bear). [...]

The title rightly emphasises Betjeman's chortling comedy, and the cover shows him baring his teeth in what Philip Larkin called his 'horse-laugh'. But what makes Hillier's study so compelling is its melancholy sobriety. He expertly exposes the depression and fury that underlay Betjeman's affable mask. We remember him as a harmlessly dotty enthusiast, cooing over scraps of Victorian wrought iron or flapping his hands at a venomous spider in an Australian loo. Hillier enjoys the performance, but sees through it.

He emphasises Betjeman's vulnerability, his capacity to be hurt and the talent for hatred that it provoked. This is the poet, after all, who appealed for a nuclear catastrophe to rain down on Slough, and wrote a lyric about road rage on the A30 long before anyone thought of calling it that. His favourite character on television was Warren Mitchell's Alf Garnett, who is given to sputtering, vitriolic rants against the modern world. [...]

This entry was posted by eeksypeeksy on Sunday, October 31, 2004 at 10:31 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.