Anthony Thwaite

Philip Larkin

Seven hundred of the great poet's letters are collected here offering a moving, instructive portrait of Larken, from his early correspondence with school friends to his last year of life, 1985, when he died at the age of sixty-three.

1940-1985

Selected Letters of Philip Larkin

Gavin

In which his sheer vulgarity and vitality show through. Letters were a massive part of his life, the only time he was (able to be) properly social or affectionate. Only shows his letters, not the interlocutors, which amplifies the grim humour and passive aggression. Couldn't believe how big a DH Lawrence fan he is.

  How little our careers express what lies in us, and yet how much time they take up. It's sad, really.



  I hate it when you go, for the dreary failure & selfishness on my part it seems to symbolise - this is nothing to do with Maeve, you've always come before her; it's my own unwillingness to give myself to anyone else that's at fault - like promising to stand on one leg for the rest of one's life...



  My great trouble, as usual, is that I lack desires. Life is to know what you want, & to get it. But I don’t feel I desire anything. I am unconvinced of the worth of literature. I don’t want money or position. I find it easier to abstain from women that sustain the trouble of them & the creakings of my own monastic personality.


Silliness abounds, particularly in the spells where he and Amis are railing against the world: 

  Now there can only be don't normally take anyone over 55, like to do a few tests if you don't mind, am returning it because it isn't really up to your own high standard, afraid I must stop coming Mr Larkin hope you find another cleaning lady to

AAAARRRRGHGHGHGHGH


And he is totally obsessed with the passage of time throughout his entire life. 

  I'm terrified of the thought of time passing (or whatever is meant by that phrase) whether I 'do' anything or not. In a way I may believe, deep down, that doing nothing acts as a brake on 'time's - it doesn't of course. It merely adds the torment of having done nothing, when the time comes when it really doesn't matter if you've done anything or not.
  


 
His existential decline is so steep in the 70s that I actually couldn't finish, too sad.

Selected Letters of Philip Larkin 1940-1985

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