Philip larkin letters to.., p.50
Philip Larkin: Letters to Monica, page 50
2 J. K. Peel: see Appendix B.
17 October 1968
32 Pearson Park, Hull
Dearest,
I’ve just written to Barbara Pym, to send back AUA;1 the last quarter or so I reread before doing so. I think the real book shd concern itself simply with Leonora, James, Phoebe, Humphrey, Ned & the ‘girl from Christie’s’ who doesn’t materialise. Leonora should get James off Phoebe. Then the Christie’s girl should get James off Leonora, through the Puckish intervention of Ned. Leonora falls back on Humphrey. It could be a simple but strong book, depending on the pathos of Leonora. […]
1 Barbara Pym, An Unsuitable Attachment (written 1963, published 1982).
20 October 1968
32 Pearson Park, Hull
[…] Friday night was boring, though all right otherwise I suppose. George1 was his usual boring self. He has a maddening habit of thrashing his feet about, so that my rug stands up like quills upon the fretful porpentine: he lifts his feet alternately and lets them fall with a bang, very charming to people below, & scatters crumbs everywhere. The Dunns (Douglas & Lesley) were pleasant enough: she very ordinary, he amusing when he had 3 whiskies on board, but rather fond of the books. Indeed at times I thought I was presiding over a 3rd rate provincial literary soirée, as I suppose I was. […]
1 George Hartley.
27 November 1968
32 Pearson Park, Hull
Dearest bun,
Morning, noon & bloody night,
Seven sodding days a week,
I slave at filthy work, that might
Be done by any book-drunk freak.
This goes on till I kick the bucket:
FUCK IT FUCK IT FUCK IT FUCK IT
Nice to be a pawet, ya knaw, an express ya feelins. Eh? The last line should be screamed in a paroxysm of rage.
This is just to say that I’ll be coming home on Saturday, having decided I must go to the meeting after all, bloody conscientious fool. Clearly we are all set to sell the SCR out, and nothing I can do will stop it, but I’d better be there. Another 20 years of the status quo. I’m fed up.
Anyway, this means I’ll be over to see you after lunch on Sunday, as soon as I decently can. Sorry not to be coming as usual, but I don’t much want to delay things another week. I wonder some of you don’t kick Dr Potter’s arse, stupid little jumped-up cow: how tiresome she sounds!
Ghastly day here. Students by all accounts have had a ‘moderate’ swing, & accepted the parallel proposals. Library still hot news. Awgh. Love, darling. P.
23 January 1969
32 Pearson Park, Hull
Dearest bun,
The second little letter today – fine day it’s been, I expect it has been with you, as Thwaite rang up & said it was fine in London. He wanted me to do the Ricks Tennyson for the N.S., & I said I would, but I’ll have to do some boning up on the old boy. I can’t think of anything to say at the moment!
He also said (I asked him) he didn’t care for the poem on Sunday.1 ‘If you believe them when they say you’re good, you have to believe them when they say you’re bad’ (E. Hemingway). Of course, I shouldn’t have asked him, but I thought as he rather makes a speciality of me he might be a good judge. […]
1 ‘Homage to a Government’ in Sunday Times.
2 February 1969
32 Pearson Park, Hull
Am drinking up a bottle of Bastille (you remember): pretty grim. Bottled by Quink Frères. Imported by Stephens Père et Fils.
*
After lunch Marvellous extracts from Paisley on The World This Weekend – pure Tom Teevan – recorded at a secret meeting – of course, it’s frightful stuff, but one hears so much lefty nonsense it makes a pleasant change. I did wish you’d heard it. The drums in the background were thrilling. But ‘There is always something peculiarly impotent about the violence of a literary man. It seems to bear no reference to facts, for it is never kept in check by action. It is simply a question of adjectives and rhetoric, of exaggeration and over-emphasis.’1 Guess the author of that if you can. £5 by return. 1850–1900. We both like him. Hay?
Love you always, darling XXX P.
1 Oscar Wilde, from his review ‘On Mr Mahaffy’s New Book’ (on Greek Life and Thought).
5 February 1969
32 Pearson Park, Hull
Hilly has opened a chip shop in USA called ‘Lucky Jim’. It was in the S Express.
*
Dearest,
No, Oscar Wilde! You’ll find it in H. Pearson, about Mahaffy (another surprise). I was looking at HP because when in Any Qs they asked what book cheered you up, I immediately thought of that. It does, too. You remember Yeats always said Wilde was a man of action. […]
19 February 1969
32 Pearson Park, Hull
Dearest,
Bite, frost, bite!
You roll up away from the light
The blue woodlouse, and the
plump dormouse …1
Brr! Foully cold today, east wind, ground iron-hard. I at last got my hair cut, & bought a pair of shoes, also a pair of Swedish overshoes, very odd, for use in slush. Brr! No slush now, though.
I am writing this because I go to London tomorrow until Friday night, & I don’t know what chances there’ll be of writing there – perhaps I could finish it there. Last night I went out to Paull, to loony Binns,2 & found about a dozen people, hardly anything to do with the university – oafs and oafesses poor romantic Binns invests with the unearthly light of trade & navigation. I suppose they’re all right. Stayed till nearly one & drove home well warmed with hot rum-infused wine. He seems to be living with this hare-lipped German girl. We had pickled herring and reindeer meat balls & similar Binns delicacies.
I feel rather discontented and out of sorts – cannot get on top of my work –
I finished the stew, & had some slight quatermass experiences, but was more cautious & so more successful. The Sunday I had some indigestion again, but the Monday it went down better. On the whole, though, I think it doesn’t suit me – too tough & fibrous. I think a lot about you, & tibi cras, & Generations have trod,3 & my Tennyson line ‘At the heart of frost love burns’.4 Not a good line! but you know what I meant. A lovely great warm breathing rabbit.
I noticed that one of the assistants at Southampton is called Miss Rabbitts! Nice. One of the attendants is called Wasp.
It’s eleven o’clock – I keep putting the news on, to see how the weather is. My record player has broken & been taken away, & life is very narrow. Did you see Pee Wee Russell was dead?
*
Friday a.m. I’m in my hotel room; Castle5 is coming here instead of me going there, as he has had flu. I had a grim journey down yesterday, in almost continual snow – about ½ hour late. Lunched with Thwaite, then went to the exhibition,6 & spent a bit over an hour there. Of course it’s exceedingly interesting & enjoyable, but very big! I cut the sculpture & stuff, & most of the drawings, though there’s a fine Palmer, chestnut-candles & sheep. Do go. Plenty of John Martin, a Grimshaw just like that one (how I curse myself) in Hexham, Val d’Aosta, Pretty Baa-Lambs, Boulter’s Lock, and lots more. Tiring, but full of decent people, like Lords – only the occasional au pair girl. No students. I wished you’d been there. I’ve decided I don’t like Constable: his muddy palette has no inner life.
In the evening I went to Bob’s & had dinner, very pleasant. He showed me a cutting saying ‘Latest book on Richard Nixon’s desk: Robert Conquest’s The Great Terror …’ & I showed him the rod room photograph, wch he quite liked, but in an abstracted kind of way. He is obsessed with the Eton man becoming head of a girls’ school, & has written (but not posted) a letter to The Times signed A. C. Swinburne saying how much he wished the reverse had been true in his day, as a feminine touch would have made all the difference. Bluebell, the bassett (?) hound, is more of an obsession also than ever – really quite absurd. I don’t like dogs. Bob is now a grandfather.
They have been to Lemmons7 (K’s house), & Caroleen says it has the biggest rooms she has ever seen outside Blenheim. Apparently the A’s ‘have to have’ a car there, & so EJ has learnt to drive, terrifyingly, according to Bob. No news otherwise. They had a painting by the brother’s boy friend.8
I hope you are cured of your cold. I felt your visit was too short. I never know whether you come to escape from worries or to discuss them: perhaps the former, since they don’t arise. I hope you are keeping well & warm, dear dear bun. I do love you.
I dreamed of Russian tanks last night – terrifying. Today I read of our defence estimates. Huh!
Much love Philip
1 ‘Bite, frost, bite!:’ from Tennyson, ‘Window, Winter’.
2 A. L. Binns.
3 G. M. Hopkins.
4 This indeed appears to be a ‘Tennysonian’ line by L.
5 One of the University Library architects.
6 Royal Academy Bicentenary Exhibition.
7 House in Barnet, home of Kingsley Amis and Elizabeth Jane Howard.
8 Evidently Sargy Mann, a friend (but not a lover) of Colin Howard, Elizabeth Jane Howard’s brother.
4 March 1969
32 Pearson Park, Hull
[…] Why am I writing on Tuesday? Well, I’m not really: just that I have finished Tennyson,1 thank God, whoopee whoopee whoopee: cheap smart journalism, but a good weekend read for the yobs. The only good things in it are yours – I feel I ought to send you the cheque. Isn’t The Spinster’s Sweet-Arts good: I had to force myself to bring it in, but I didn’t quote from it – let them hunt for it. I loved the bit about the Tommies – ‘and one of you dead’ – as I’ve tried to say in the article it’s just caught the eccentricity of the village character who isn’t going to get any madder & is sane enough really, just a bit odd. […]
1 L.’s review of Christopher Ricks’s edition of Tennyson’s Collected Poems, New Statesman, 14 March 1969. Reprinted in Required Writing.
16 March 1969
32 Pearson Park, Hull
[…] I’m glad you liked the review. Interesting to compare it with Holloway in the Spr! He’s a dull bugger of course. Paul Johnson wrote to me saying it was one of the best reviews they’d ever printed, wch surprised me – but the credit is yours. I wish you could come out at them, dear, with a great scurry of feet: Words From the Warren. You have the ideas & the thenthibilitah1 & the knowledge: just a few essays on treason & filth & so on. I’m the only person to have noticed that misprint ogh ogh ogh. I do love Owlby & Scratby, as you say: think what they must be like, a bit like the villages to the east of Leicester, that I used to cycle round: Hungarton, Scraptoft. I think Owlby is very dark & tree-y, don’t you? and Scratby all stones and hens. […]
1 Fancied as spoken by Lord David Cecil.
30 March 1969
32 Pearson Park, Hull
[…] I listened to The Archers with my hearing aid on this morning, rare occurrence, but even so failed to catch much of it – it doesn’t sound interesting, does it? My old friend Colin Gunner’s receipt for novel-writing (‘have your heroine raped by a gorilla’) occurs to me: wouldn’t come amiss, as far as I’m concerned, for some of that crowd.
The weather seems to be cheering up: blue skies & some pale sun. Thursday was a fine day in Belfast: I wandered about the University area entranced with all I saw, nipping into the Dept of Spanish for a slash at one point, & noting how different schools were coming out, looking like schoolchildren & not the contents of the brothels of Paris (local tarts & teds). I pored over confectioners’ windows & boards of small ads & religious bookshops.
Now have been out & laid in drink, forgot papers (‘Forgot papers …?’) & went to Library, where I found a proof copy of Douglas Dunn’s book Terry Street. It looks just as I remember it – hard to pin down, evocative, unsatisfying, yet individual – not big enough, but Xt who is? I want great Victorian novels of poems, great Academy pictures. Watch out for it. And them, for that matter. […]
8 June 1969
32 Pearson Park, Hull
[…] I did wish you were here yesterday. After dreary & not very successful shopping, I went to Hessle but found no ponce, so got real cheese at Field’s, and motored aimlessly on till I remembered my 14 yr old desire to go to Yokefleet. It was a brilliant day, so I looked at the map & made for the territory in question. Broadly speaking it’s the land lying between the main road Hull–Goole and the river an absolute dead end. Well, I turned down rather late, at Balkholme; went through Kiplin & then down to Saltmarshe; then back & along to Laxton, Yokefleet, Blacktoft and Faxfleet, & then up to the main road again, and wonderful it was. Very quiet: lanes all lined shoulder high with cowparsley; huge trees in their first full freshness; & the villages – hardly more than collections of houses – made Clunbury & Clun seem like Manhattan. No inns – or hardly any – a church or two: I went into Blacktoft, but it was nicer outside than in. It had a queer deserted church hall (?) by its gate (Erected 1851, Extended 1873) wch looked completely overgrown and neglected, but inside I could see trestle tables laid for tea, as if for some outing that never came. Some nice houses, some nasty ones: plenty of farms, & yard dogs who would have liked to get at me. The river mostly invisible, behind high banks, but sometimes a gliding ship appeared (the cottage walls all have flood-marks): Blacktoft is where Ouse & Trent join to form the Humber. O, it was beautiful! And always the rare white of early summer: may, hawthorn, chestnut candles, cowparsley, nettle-flowers, so soon lost (I expect they go on till autumn really), so exciting, so sunny & marvellous. I drove slowly home, arriving about six. If only I’d had my camera! It was a day among days: I’m sure it’ll never be so fine again.
Getting back, I found Dickens mentions none of these places, Mee only Blacktoft. Yet there are plenty of ‘halls’: Empson’s brother lives at Yokefleet Hall. There’s a Saltmarshe Hall. I felt I’d found a new little country. I did wish you could have seen it. […]
13 July 1969
32 Pearson Park, Hull
[…] I’m glad you liked Belfast. I felt overwhelmingly at Easter that, although nowhere is really ‘home’ to me, Belfast probably means more to me, packs a stronger emotional punch, than anywhere else, even Oxford. That was why I planned a longer stay. I didn’t feel it quite as strongly as at Easter, but I did feel it. […]
18 September 1969
32 Pearson Park, Hull
Dearest bun,
Quite a satisfactory evening: I did a verse after talking to you. Since they’re nine lines long this is not bad! I now have two verses1 – no good, of course. But I feel as if I should like to get some poems written. If only I had time! That ponce Murphy.
As I said, I did enjoy reading The Land2 – some of it’s crap, but there are three or four fine passages. I also read the Norman McCaig one about Stac Polly3 – he’s all at sea, isn’t he? Doesn’t know anything about it. […]
1 Of ‘To the Sea’ (completed October 1969).
2 V. Sackville-West, The Land; L. included two passages in OBTCEV.
3 MacCaig’s ‘Dying Landscape’.
11 October 1969
32 Pearson Park, Hull
Darling,
‘The Prot – est – ant Boys … will carry the day’ – oh dear, gin and Orange again, the songs are so thrilling, I can’t let them alone. No reply from the Belfast record firm! Expect they’ve moved, or been burnt out, or think I’m getting at them (‘Lark’n? Lark’n? To haill wi’ annywan carled Lark’n!’).
Well, I had my kedgeree tonight: made too much, but on the whole it was very good. I used ‘natural’ rice, having found some in Beverley, wch took a long time to cook: haddock fillet, very nice – nearly ate it as it was! But it was very nice, and I wished only that you were sharing it with me. [drawing of rabbit] I think you might have eaten it. Thanks for your kindness in telling me how to do it.
Nobody tells me these things, but I gather that York gave G. Barker a filthy press, & BJ has dropped him like a hot turd: D. Holbrook is the candidate now. I expect we’ll end up with Thwaite1 – not that I’d mind, jolly good show. I’m bloody glad about G. Barker. I’m sure he’s a shit, a real layabout cadging ponce. We had to absolutely kick Ray into ringing up York, though.
Oh yes, more pictures, rather disappointing really. […] A nice one of you at Wexford, but I wish I’d got one of you in the hat. Sicut bucketus erat, if I can quote Joyce. […]
I wrote to ‘my MP’ last week calling on him to speak and vote against the Ministry of Ag’s proposed Codes of Practice for the keeping of food animals: fat lot of good it’ll do, but still. Why don’t you write to yours? It’s to be debated on Wednesday.
1 Barker, Holbrook, Thwaite: possible candidates for the Compton poetry fellowship at Hull. Barker was turned down, Holbrook withdrew, Thwaite never applied.
26 October 1969
32 Pearson Park, Hull
[…] Spent the evening writing angry letters (one at last to The Spr about their ‘Hotel Guide’), checking my money, & reading the poems of J. C. Powys, wch aren’t bad, funnily enough. Very Hardyesque. Try the one that starts
‘I’ll never forgive you!’ I said,
As among the phloxes we went,
Where the orchard-rail begins …
It’s not really good enough for the OBTCEV – but completely unlike Jack Flint’s flirtation in the Space–Time continuum with Stella Matrix, or whatever his novels are about.
