Life amd poetry of Larkin

A great blend of exploration of Larkin's poetry with biographical content and the two skilfully linked. I found the narrator's voice lacked engagement and vitality but a solid enough performance. A must-read for lovers of Larkin the poet as well as Larkin the librarian, son and lover.

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1 person found this helpful

excellent

Being already familiar with Larkin's poetry and elements of his life, I have realised that my knowledge was very limited. This excellently written book managed to interweave his poetry and his life in a very engaging way. The biographer's knowledge of poetry helped to analyse some of his poems creatively, yet technically. He did deal with Larkin's prejudices and shadow side openly and honestly but with possibly a degree of minimisation in my view.
Overall, it was well read and very stimulating.

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2 people found this helpful

Good literary analysis embedded in a grating hagiography

Would you try another book written by James Booth or narrated by Derek Perkins?

Yes, I'd read a book by James Booth about someone he is less embarrassingly personally biased towards. The close, sensitive readings of the poems are excellent and beautifully done. The constant praise and defence of Larkin's personality - often contradicting and dismissing Larkin's own serious self-criticism - is deeply off-putting. It's annoying throughout the book but becomes appalling and offensive in the section excusing Larkin's racist language (which, broadly, adopts the theory that it's totally okay and ironic to refer to immigrants as niggers and pakis, provided you have a brown colleague somewhere who you are polite to). There's also an unintentionally hilarious moment when Booth proposes that Larkin is sexually involved with 2 women at once because he's too kind and considerate to break either's heart (again, dismissing Larkin's own scathing analysis of his own motives as misplaced 'guilt'). In general, I think that the book would have been much much better if all the barrister-for-defence stuff was dropped and he let Larkin do more of the talking.

What could James Booth have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

He could have avoided editorialising so extensively on Larkin's personality. I'm interested in Larkin's work and his life, on which James Booth is an expert. I'm not interested in James Booth's view on what counts as harmless racism and when cheating is altruistic - he's clearly not an expert in moral philosophy and it's both boring and embarrassing to have to listen to him go on and on in speeches for the defence that are built on such tenuous foundations.

What three words best describe Derek Perkins’s performance?

Clear, lively, unobtrusive.

Was Philip Larkin worth the listening time?

Yes

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13 people found this helpful

More than a biography.

This is much more than a mundane tale of Larkin's life. Little time is wasted on his childhood nor his parents lives which is a blessed relief, but a huge amount of time is spent studying his poetry and prose and linking them with his life's story.
I really enjoyed the approach as it didn't simply paint a picture of the writer/librarian but gave me a deeper understanding of his work and his motivation for it.
The tone is quite dry and scholarly and I learned some new words (metonymy and diphthong spring immediately to mind) and neither the poet's life nor his work excites much if any emotional response in the author. This is no bad thing. In fact it is a refreshing antidote to the twenty first century predilection for hyperbole and vicarious exaggeration of and obsession with, the live styles of so called celebrities.
Larkin's life was not extraordinary, his talent was. This book lays that out clearly and unambiguously for the reader and is a vital companion to his work.

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6 people found this helpful