Philip larkin letters to.., p.43
Philip Larkin: Letters to Monica, page 43
BJ read out my summary of CDL’s1 claims on our attention – ‘sensitivity of Hardy & intellectual stress of Meredith’ – then ascribed it to me, wch was unfair I thought! CDL is really awfully charming. He asked why I mentioned Chatto in Naturally2 (he is a director) so I told him ogh ogh. He agreed, with just the right amount of ruefulness. […]
1 C. Day Lewis: proposed for honorary degree, he became the first Compton Poetry Lecturer at Hull.
2 Chatto is mentioned in stanza 1 of ‘Naturally the Foundation will Bear Your Expenses’.
19 May 1964
32 Pearson Park, Hull
[…] The TV men1 are after the Arundel tomb in Chichester – I hope to God it’s there & I didn’t dream it. They want to know if it’s freestanding, or against a wall. I hope all my descriptions are accurate – jointed armour, stiffened pleat, little dogs. I’m quite likely to have invented them. Do you remember it? I expect you do: total recall. […]
1 From Patrick Garland’s Monitor film of L.
22 May 1964
32 Pearson Park, Hull
Dearest,
The London trip was as predicted: I saw the MS. sub-committee1 receive the £600 Auden notebook (all the best poems cut out & no doubt sold separately) before handing over my own notebook no. 1, 1944–50, FOR NOTHING … Christ! jammed with unpublished poems etc. I must say they are all fearfully dull, stodgy humorless (?) thin Yeats-&-catpiss. Still.
Judy & Ansell2 were as usual, Judy having to be persuaded that it wd be nice to accept an invitation to someone’s box for the Derby, & asking where it was run. She lent me the new De Vries (U.S. edition), wch is all right without being good. ‘We want you to feel a member of this congregation’ – ‘Fine, who is she?’
The TV film is very much in the air, but I wd prefer it to be more down to earth. They are going to try to make it in time to put it out on July 5 (I believe), so there won’t be much time for calculated effects. Betjeman is still due to be included, wch I rather deplore – I shall be typed as just another Betjeman. […]
1 Of the scheme initiated by L. to acquire writers’ manuscripts for a national collection.
2 Egerton.
23 May 1964
32 Pearson Park, Hull
[…] I had your letter this morning: I am ashamed to have behaved so inconsistently. I wasn’t angry with you, just miserable. What happened was simply that Mother quite innocently asked if I could spend a week at home in August to facilitate her own holiday arrangements, & this threw me into a fury of despair about the way I do the same things every year, & not adventurous things either; every Christmas, every Easter, every Whitsun, when other people are enjoying themselves I am stewing at home in a rage of irritation & boredom. I needn’t elaborate. We had the usual ‘home’ scene – tears etc. – Where you came into it was that my unhappiness about ourselves got caught up in it, but I didn’t feel able to say anything because I thought you wd promptly say what in fact you have said about Lords. It’s not so much doing the things I mind, it’s the way they underline the emptiness & indecision of my life; not to mention the incompetence, when I think of Betty with her car passage to Corsica booked & even the women at the off licence just back from Greece. And so on & so on. Even Brenda1 spent 2 days ‘walking in Swaledale’ – how? where did they stay? how did they get there? who were they, anyway? Anyway, I’ve said enough to recreate the mood in wch I was last Sunday.
It’s nearly half-past nine. I am trying to do a BBC progr. of my poems2 – ‘only the links’, as your friend wd say, & ought to get on with it. I’m not finding it easy. But I don’t find anything easy these days. No poem done since March 1963.3 […]
1 Brenda Moon, at this time chief cataloguer in the Brynmor Jones Library.
2 The Living Poet: Philip Larkin, Third Programme, 16 December 1964.
3 ‘Dockery and Son’ completed 28 March 1963; L. abandoned ‘The Dance’ in May 1964. See Collected Poems (1988).
6/7 June 1964
32 Pearson Park, Hull
Dearest,
This is exhausting – the pattern is one of fatigue & boredom, standing about while they ‘set up’, then short periods of intense fright while they film. So far it has been Wednesday in the Library; Thursday in the fish dock (up at 6), a ruined chapel, & my flat; Friday over the river at Barton; Saturday in my flat with Betjeman; today we are supposed to be on the ferry, but the weather looks unpromising. Betjeman is very nice: he was much taken with Virginia, & has brought his teddy bear Archie, also a girl called Lady Elizabeth Cavendish.1 He thinks Uncle Alfred’s water colour is a De Wint! I let him find an enlargement of you in King’s Norton wch I had got that morning & he identified it instantly. […]
1 Betjeman’s long-time companion.
8 June 1964
32 Pearson Park, Hull
[…] I’m writing at 9.15 a.m. – they are ‘coming for’ me at 10. Today we ‘work the graveyard’ – i.e. shoot about 2 mins of B. & I talking among the graves. It will take about 3 hours, I expect. Then this afternoon I have a Library Comm! Never have I prepared less for one. My rabbit, my burial ground – I suppose it is nice to have them filmed, but I know you’ll understand that they seem less mine now. In fact I feel less mine now, if you follow me. I shall be glad when I see the whole caravan of sound, lights & cameras disappearing up the road towards London.
I had your letter this morning – I’m sorry you had such a wretched weekend. The thought of being the cause, or partly the cause, makes it worse. I think we both have very curious characters or upbringings or something, that render us quite incapable of managing life – what is Dockery & Son but what you’re saying? Funnily enough, it isn’t our bond – our bond is more the things we like, and our friends, &, I think, the extreme gentleness of our natures (you may not think I am g. but I do). I wish it did bind us more in one way. Well, scripts for you, graveyard for me. Please try to keep more up, dear – I wish I could come & see you.
Many kisses
Philip
Later – Everything cancelled! No graveyard today. This is turning into a film about Betjeman.
9 June 1964
32 Pearson Park, Hull
Dearest bun,
Again I write before 10 a.m. – I ought to write at night, but I felt so corpsed last evening I could face only Stevie Smith, who had sent a note expressing regret for not having met me at the Poetry Panel when we were both there (we have in fact never both been there). The Library Committee took it out of me more than I expected – after asking for & getting £1 m. for the Library, BJ is now thinking of all the lovely halls of residence & social science buildings he could have for the money, like a boy who, having been given 6d to get his hair cut, passes a sweet shop on the way. And of course I felt terribly sad & remorseful about your letter & your sad state. If you were whooping it up with some plausible sod in Leicester I should be shattered: why then do I so lightly shatter you? You are a much nicer – well, more selfless – person, but is that any reason why I shd trade on it? Of course you are upset & it is I who am upsetting you. Blame me.
Betjeman is really very funny – a running monologue from the back seat in Yorkshire dialect – ‘Ee, they’ve got a compre’ensive … ay, well, you’ve got to keep up with the times – we’ve no place for the dreamer …’ Lady Elizabeth bought 3 fake breast-pocket handkerchiefs for 1/- in the market, & gave them to myself, Garland & the camera-man, Charles. They are incredibly debased things on card. She is a friend of Eliz. J. Howard, so my image of the English aristocracy is somewhat tarnished. I don’t think there’s much of the repose that stamps the cast etc. left today, do you? […]
31 July 1964
21 York Road, Loughborough, Leics.
[…] You mustn’t apologise for crying – cry all you need. It is not right to think you have to spare me the pain of remorse caused by my injuries to you, is it? I don’t at the moment feel like going on with the subject – I’m sorry to cause you pain, especially in this half & half way. Anyway, I liked the weekend, except as I said I feel ‘the situation’ hanging over our happiness rather, and, as I also said, I’d as soon start referring to it the moment I arrive. But then I wonder if there is ‘a situation’ – do I really want an R.C. wedding with Maeve & ‘a reception’ at somewhere in Hull, &c. – I don’t, of course, not really or even unreally. So then I begin to feel guilty about Maeve & that I ought to confront her wearing a sandwich board bearing a resumé of these remarks.
Anyway, dear, I wish I were with you now, especially if you are wearing your mauve dress. I really do. I hate my own behaviour these days, and yet, God, it’s pretty moral compared with some. I do send you kisses, & would wash your dishes, on any shift. This is a silly conclusion – perhaps I’m dizzied by the sun. Love & kisses Philip
5 August 1964
21 York Road, Loughborough, Leics.
Dearest bun,
Back from Lichfield,1 wch was pretty hellish – hacking long grass away from graves in a temperature of about 80º, and flies … And even on early closing day the town is rendered HIDEOUS by cars, lorries & motor bikes: it’s quite the foulest cathedral city in England. We went into the cathedral & got turned back on account of there being an invisible inaudible service on somewhere. The tea at Angel Croft Hotel was dingy & doughy. The drive there and back took about an hour – hardly any frights, but so hot. When I got back, I watered some flowers in the garden, wch were looking limp, then I sought out two bottles of Guinness as I thought I was looking limp myself. My father’s parents’ house has been divided into two – hair stylist & turf accountant.
I thought duck three times running was all right, and in fact in retrospect think you might have done even better with ordinary duck, not with orange. I hawked a bit at pal Bill’s2 gastronomic tastes – what does he like, then? Lyons’ individual fruit pie? Cod and two veg., free pepper, salt & mustard, followed by nice hard plums and lumpy custard? I think I should tell him to learn to eat all sorts of food, as he’ll probably have to. As regards advice, he seems to be doing all right – he sounds as if he has charm & disponibility, & will get on up to a point – the point at wch he has to do some work, I suppose. Still, don’t think I wish him ill, ogh ogh. (I love ogh ogh. It expresses so much. Ogh.)
I was terribly hot last night. I lay thinking how nice it would be to have you beside (or under!) me, & not to be drunk, or tired, or watching the clock, just gathering your great smooth hips under me & shoving into you as I felt inclined. How rarely this has happened! It didn’t happen last night, either. At least not for me, & I hope not for you – I’m not thinking of pal Bill as much as someone who might invite you out to dinner. They won’t be doin’ it acos they think you look hungry, y’knaow! You’ll ave a bill at t’end of it an’ all! […]
*
Friday I feel out of spirits this morning partly because my mother seems to be resuming her normal whining panicky grumbling maddening manner which infuriates me, partly I am just tired of being here I suppose (everything gets boring after a week), & partly I was sickened by an article in the D.T. announcing prospects for the grouse season. Am meditating a letter to the editor3 – it would be a good occupation for my birthday. […]
1 Where the Larkin family graves are.
2 Bill Ruddick.
3 L.’s letter to the Daily Telegraph was published 13 August 1964.
14 September 19641
32 Pearson Park, Hull
[…] Dear, don’t, please, be miserable over this Maeve business. You’ve been extremely tolerant all the time, and I shall be glad to have your sympathy, but I think we both feel this is the best thing at present – she is perhaps more upset than I, because it is she who has been rebuffed. I felt bound to say that I had not finished with you, nor did I seem likely to, & she just said, Well that doesn’t give me much alternative, does it, & I couldn’t honestly think of one. We are quite friendly & have to see each other daily – the real breach & dismay is yet to come, I feel. And I suppose it will come. This is like the interval between Sept 3 1939 & the first air raids. […]
1 In the margin of this letter Monica has scrawled ‘For 5 minutes’ against L.’s ‘at present’, which she ringed. In the margin alongside ‘We are quite friendly’ et seq. she squeezes an indignant critical analysis of L.’s tone: ‘Note the style, the irony of style, & no intention of doing anything like what is said – perhaps style indicates’. She begins again where there is more space in the opposite margin: ‘& both of you had my sympathy – what a good giggle for both of you too, later. I was terribly upset for both of you while you were giggling together*’ The asterisk directs the reader to the bottom of the page: ‘ *I learned a good deal more later’.
13 October 1964
32 Pearson Park, Hull
Dearest bun,
In hurriedly acknowledging your letters yesterday I omitted to mention the two most important things – the ten shillings & The Boy Friend ogh ogh ogh. Thanks very much for the former: I don’t think you should have troubled, but it was very kind of you. The B.F. sounds very nice, & I should like to see it, if you don’t think it wd be too painful – isn’t it early in January? I see you say it’ll last into term. I’m pretty sure that would be all right. Yes, you’ll have a lot to put up with (‘it was a copy of Salad Days’) (‘By Angus Wilson’). She Stoops sounds a rattling fine production – starring Miss Greatheart Montague.
I’ve heard the name Paris Leary1 before – isn’t he some vile expatriate littérateur from the old rive gauche? I seem to remember him asking me for poems about 10 years ago. Some no-good bum, desperately leaping from log to log in the Fulbright timber river. Where did ARH pick him up? Should think he approached him somewhere in Montmartre with a fistful of infamous Camera Studies. Still, perhaps I’ve got it wrong – maybe he is a nice reliable Ivy League character. But I can’t imagine he’ll do much of your work. Ray’s report to Senate begins sadly ‘The links between the Department and North America grow firmer each year’ – yes, poor bugger, always someone on the lam over there, leaving his work to be shared out among the mugs remaining behind. I’m glad you put that question to ARH – I can just imagine ’Espinasse quibbling on Senate or Faculty ‘I-may-be-very-stupid-but-I-think-we-must-decide- … whether we are over-staffed if no-one goes away … or over-worked if they do … I’ve-given-it-a-great-deal-of-thought-and-it-does-seem-to-me-that-this-is-quite-crucial-to-our-planning’ etc. etc. No more news of Kenyon & his £750 p.a. for being Dean.
I’m sorry you are feeling so awfully low – it is silly for me to express sympathy when it is my fault, I suppose. How utterly unsatisfactory life is. I think this is a grim time of year. In theory it is beautiful, and is I suppose, but people are so full of energy after their summers of foreign travel & doing nothing. I don’t mean I’m not sympathetic, of course, dear – it’s just that I feel hypocritical, talking as if you had an attack of ’flu, when really I am denying you happiness & have for over 10 years. Of course your life is very unhappy anyway. All alone, & not able to go to the Clarendon! Not that I go much, or have one to go to. My dear, I do wish you felt well, let alone happy: I don’t like the sound of your rheumatism and paralysis.
I have got two tickets for Pee Wee Russell at the Conway Hall W.C.1. at 7.30 pm on 30 October (Friday) – could you go? It would mean staying the night in London – you could pick a Ronay hotel. They aren’t ‘Press’ – wish they were – but paid for by me. It would be nice to have your company, but I don’t want to force you if you feel it wd all be too much. This weekend is Oxford, next Swansea. Russell has never been to England before & of course this will be a great thrill for me, though I expect he’s gone off now. He’s 58. It’s a long time since we’ve heard any jazz together – it is row E, I see – perhaps a bit loud. I bought the extra one with you in mind – rather blackmail, really. What do you think? In retrospect it seems a mad thing to have done, but he is such a legend of my youth I couldn’t resist:
I would I were where Russell plays
Through a foul tobacco haze
I would I were where Russell plays
And Condon calls the key
as I used to say – Condon won’t be calling the key of course, but Russell will certainly be playing.
I feel drowsy now, having turned up the fire – must I be either cold or dopy? This is really a serious problem. Do you feel all right with your coal fire?
I’ve finished my little poem about the sun:2 it’s the sort of thing anyone could write, and indeed it ought to be much longer & deeper & altogether better, but one can’t be on one’s high horse all the time. Nay, nor any of the time, an yr name be Hughes, or Gunne. Arp3 knows Gunn. He seemed surprised I didn’t – I expect all Americans expect all English people to know each other. I explained he was much younger than I, & had been at Cambridge. Arp said Gunn was suffering from hepatitis – who he? – & was in England, I mean is in England: he would try to get him up. In vain I tried to suggest that I have got on without him all right for 40 years – we’d not been together now for 40 years & it didn’t seem a day too much.
*
(Wed.) There ain’t a lady living in the land That I’d swop for my dear old Butch ogh ogh.
Well, first Senate meeting – I went to sleep. Woke up with Kenyon kicking me, to hear the raising of the retiring age being debated. Why not lower it? Surely the trend today is shorter hours, not longer. Brett quipped that he wanted to sack people at 35 not 63 – yes, & I know who: Alun Jones for one.
