dumbfoundry

Rhyme and punishment [UK]:

DOES the fact that Philip Larkin was in many respects an unsavoury individual detract from his poetry? It is easy – and to an extent arrogant – to assume that it does not. As the decades drift by, Larkin’s admirers argue, we will forget his well-thumbed collection of pornography, his scatological sense of humour, the casual racism and derogation of women, of which there is ample evidence in his letters, and reach for the poetry, oblivious to the grubby life from whence it sprang.

I do hope so, but I’m not sure if we will. [...]

For many of Larkin’s admirers this frenetic posthumous activity has been hard to swallow. What they will make of this latest volume is surely predictable. The editor, AT Tolley, however, is not inclined to make excuses. Larkin’s writings, he opines at the outset, “have been the subject of many studies and learned gatherings”. Ergo, “everything he wrote should be available to those who study his work”.

I would like to know more about this "well-thumbed collection of pornography." I don't suppose anyone had the sense to note which books and magazines he had? Or which pages were stuck together?

This entry was posted by eeksypeeksy on Tuesday, April 05, 2005 at 12:02 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.