”Depression is to me what daffodils were for Wordsworth”

More catching up – this time, some thoughts on the Channel 4 programme ‘Philip Larkin: Love And Death In Hull’, which was screened last Sunday but which I’ve only just got round to watching on video.

I was well aware of the nature of Larkin’s character, and despite contributions by a number of literary friends and paramours, the programme was unflinching in its depiction of his vices. ‘This Be The Verse’ famously begins with the lines, “They fuck you up, your mum and dad / They may not mean to, but they do” – in these terms it seems Larkin’s own parents must have done a spectacularly if unintentionally bad job. He came across as relentlessly pessimistic, bitingly cynical, gloomy, “a grumpy old bachelor”, cruel, insensitive, racist, sexist, self-centred, simultaneously obsessed with and petrified of death, misanthropic, and – by the end of his life, at least – an alcoholic. In other words, thoroughly dislikeable.

This wouldn’t be a problem, of course, except that his poetry is almost unfailingly brilliant.

How, then, to reconcile love for the art and distaste for the artist? In Larkin’s case it’s even harder – because the poetry so obviously springs from personal experiences and thoughts. This was something I had to confront a few years ago. Not normally an avid reader of poetry, I became obsessed with Larkin and particularly ‘High Windows’. I’m not quite sure whether I ever resolved the issue – or whether it’s even possible. Still, I imagine I’m not alone – Anthony Thwaite’s edition of Larkin’s collected letters, published after his death, forced many of those who admired his wry observations on the minutiae of everyday life to re-evaluate their views of him. Particularly damaging were his numerous letters to Kingsley Amis – full of sexist and racist remarks, with coldly clinical references to pornography, characterized by a childish tone and toilet humour.

I have difficulty accepting his views on poetry, too. He was notoriously and stubbornly antipathetic towards the notions of experimentation and novelty – without which, of course, the art form would just stagnate and eventually shrivel up. Also, there’s a sense that in his attention to the everyday he is claiming to speak for everyone, when he and his poetry are clearly the product of a particular time, place and person. And in focusing on life’s mundane reality, he perhaps ignores or denies the imaginative power of art

In many ways, he is a fascinating enigma – the racist bigot who loved jazz, a predominantly black music form; the bachelor who preferred his own company and yet who was depressed by his loneliness; the poet who claimed our lasting legacy would be love but who only seems to write about it in terms of frustration, selfishness, self-deception and emptiness…

The fact remains, though, that I can’t help but love his morbidly bleak and blackly comical poetry.

As Larkin once said himself, “I rather like being on the edge of things”. Well, for me, he’s right on the edge of love and hate, somewhere between the two. A couple of years ago I got chatting to the guy in charge of the University’s libraries, and discovered he trained under Larkin at the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull. I must confess to feeling a strange kind of thrill – here I was, speaking to someone who’d actually met the man. Even then, though, I was quite glad that I never met him myself.

(Incidentally the programme was also notable for the fact that Andrew Motion had the temerity to show his face – presumably it was recorded before the appearance of his risible commemorative rap poem for Prince William’s birthday.)