May 9th, 2006
You may not be familiar with the poetry of Philip Larkin–I wasn’t–only being introduced to it by the A-Level English syllabus (though education largely spoils learning sometimes it gets things right).
We studied his last published volume of poetry High Windows. It’s a thin letter sized book, with pages that share their texture with that of sugar-paper, but not the thickness. The typeset is actually quite beautiful, I think the font used is Birka but I could be wrong, though I’m pretty confident it’s one of Franko Luin’s. On the back is written:
Like Betjeman and Hardy, Larkin is a poet who can move a large audience - to laughter and to tears - without betraying the highest artistic standards.
It’s right, I can say that every one of the poems in that book has been meticulously crafted. It’s not a case of fitting the ideas around the rhyme and rhythm, they exist together as one, from the jaunty nursery rhyme simplicity of ‘This Be the Verse’ to the trochaic quality of ‘The Explosion’. The emotions dealt with are complex, the technicalities are equally so. This is coming from a person who hates looking at text in a “mathematical” way: in fact I just sat there for a little while at the end of the lesson to silently think about what the motive was behind writing a certain poem, as the lesson itself had just focused on literary devices.
I sat there as I had the feeling that we had somehow violated the text by bypassing an open conversation about why it was written. High Windows largely deals with Larkin’s intense fixation on mortality, something that I can empathise with a great deal. In fact I think I can pinpoint the rough week when I sat there for a while. It was the same week I wrote Education:
Someone in your day
Will tell you what I meant to say;
What you should think about what
I thought:
“To be remembered is all he sought.�
I imagined my writing being objectified in the same way that the teacher was doing so with Larkin’s. I’m not saying it’s wrong to learn about literary devices, I suppose I personally just wanted to spend more time reading the words of someone who has gone, in the same way I hope some person in the future will consider some of my (more interesting) writing. In a way reading through the poems absolves their themes of death, that’s why they’re so powerful: it’s as if every time a poem is read a persona–part of his personality–springs to life again; in his poetry he vividly lives on.
On a somewhat related note in writing ‘Education’ I found it amusing that even if comprehension of English doesn’t survive into a few hundred years time, my message will still live on. “Yes” they’ll say in whatever English has evolved into at this time (or even what has superceded English) “These markings were clearly made to give posterity to some thought”, thus they will have inadvertently deciphered the last line: “To be remembered is all he sought”. To those who think it’s preposterous for modern day writing to be lost, try reading some of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Arthur C. Clarke also picked up on language difficulties in 3001, where Frank Poole, the frozen astronaut from 2001, finds his language is studied akin to the Latin of our time.
Today I listened to a teacher who had actually known Larkin through her husband, as he worked alongside Larkin’s official capacity as a librarian at Hull University. She told of their ever increasing liquid lunches and liquid dinners after work and Larkin’s desire for company as he grew older. She also said there was perhaps a more practical reason why he didn’t like busy places full of people: as years progressed he became quite deaf and had to rely on a hearing aide, so he preferred more intimate settings.
She often attributed Larkin as being quite an old fashioned gentleman, shown by his mannerisms: if he visited for dinner he would bring round flowers, chocolates, or a bottle of wine and would quite often write a letter of appreciation afterwards. His flair for English was not only confined to his poetry, his style also peppered his conversation and letters. She told an anecdote about Larkin fretting about not being able to get a parking space in the front of their attached house (he used to drive a Rover). She assured him that they would park their car out [of their drive presumably] then move it when he drew up so he could move into their space. His response, of which I’m loosely quoting, was along the lines of:
“I feel like the cuckoo moving her eggs ready to take over the nest.”
Larkin’s poetry has become quite controversial lately as they have been put into the context of the letters published after his death that eluded to racism, xenophobia, sexism, far-right politics and a general “with the lads” attitude. In fact several blinkered Universities both here and in the US have banned the teaching of his writing. She elaborated on this part of Larkin, specifically that throughout his life he moved in academic circles he had built up from his time at St. John’s College, Oxford. These circles were mostly composed of similar middle-aged men with similar views, who would engage in conversation much like detailed in his poem ‘Livings III’. It seems that his behaviour was in fact masqueraded with duality, she said that he would never behave in the way detailed above around her, or most of the people he was supposed to have misgivings for. Touchingly she also told of the way Larkin had quite a considered conversation with a baby and equated him with being much like a big bear; a caring Uncle figure who while never having children himself was at ease with their presence. I quite like the way someone on the web put it: that he tailored his behaviour towards the recipient.
Interestingly it was also pointed out that a lot of his poems are set in places where people meet, whether they know each other or not: in hotels, hospitals, pubs, train stations, airports, shows and holiday destinations. Not quite the behaviour of a misanthropist, unless he was going to those locations for the sole purpose of criticising the people there. It also seemed Larkin was very English in the respect of getting attached to such places. It was brought to light that she actually knew some places referenced in the poems were describing real locations, like the Royal Station Hotel in King’s Lynn, or up Yorkshire way in the case of ‘Show Saturday’.
Personally I don’t think you can pin any one of Larkin’s multiple personas as being the “definitive” Larkin. This paradox is extended into his poems where often he presents two totally conflicting points of view. She told that even Larkin was uneasy with his true nature and that he seemed to feel most secure in his official roles like “the Librarian”, without which he seemed a fish out of water. It’s tempting to extrapolate what Larkin was like by reading his poetry, but no-one can ever say whether the sentiments presented were his, or just an abstraction of his imagination. Once you attempt to peel back the veneer of his poetry, to catch a glimpse of who he once was, I think you’re again presented with the same dilemma.
December 26th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
[…] If the reader can’t extrapolate what we mean from our text, then all we can manage is vague approximations: to strive towards a catalyst that speeds up a certain reaction we want to create in the reader’s mind. Amongst all writers, I believe that poets put the most thought into not only the words they write, but also into the motives behind writing them. In Issue 84 of the Paris Review Philip Larkin, on being asked why he writes, replied: The short answer is that you write because you have to. If you rationalize it, it seems as if you’ve seen this sight, felt this feeling, had this vision, and have got to find a combination of words that will preserve it by setting it off in other people. The duty is to the original experience. […]