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_______________'Superb . Booth's psychology is subtler than Motion's and more convincing' - Peter J. Conradi, Spectator 'Booth's diligence is unquestionable and even readers who think they know the poems will see nuances they had previously missed . should render further attention by biographers superfluous for several years' - Guardian 'Those of us who never warmed to Larkin the man or poet, will have our aversions challenged by this sympathetic but different account of his life and work' - Independent _______________A fascinating and controversial study of Philip Larkin's world and how it…mehr

Produktbeschreibung
_______________'Superb . Booth's psychology is subtler than Motion's and more convincing' - Peter J. Conradi, Spectator'Booth's diligence is unquestionable and even readers who think they know the poems will see nuances they had previously missed . should render further attention by biographers superfluous for several years' - Guardian'Those of us who never warmed to Larkin the man or poet, will have our aversions challenged by this sympathetic but different account of his life and work' - Independent_______________A fascinating and controversial study of Philip Larkin's world and how it bled into his work, James Booth's biography is a unique insight into the man whose life and art have been misunderstood for too longPhilip Larkin was that rare thing among poets: a household name in his own lifetime. Lines such as 'Never such innocence again' and 'Sexual intercourse began / In nineteen sixty-three' made him one of the most popular poets of the last century. Larkin's reputation as a man, however, has been more controversial. A solitary librarian known for his pessimism, he disliked exposure and had no patience with the literary circus. And when, in 1992, the publication of his Selected Letters laid bare his compartmentalised personal life, accusations of duplicity, faithlessness, racism and misogyny were levelled against him. There is, of course, no requirement that poets should be likeable or virtuous, but James Booth asks whether art and life were really so deeply at odds with each other. Can the poet who composed the moving 'Love Songs in Age' have been such a cold-hearted man? Can he who uttered the playful, self-deprecating words 'Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth' really have been so boorish? A very different public image is offered by those who shared the poet's life: the women with whom he was romantically involved, his friends and his university colleagues. It is with their personal testimony, including access to previously unseen letters, that Booth reinstates a man misunderstood: not a gaunt, emotional failure, but a witty, provocative and entertaining presence, delightful company; an attentive son and a man devoted to the women he loved. Meticulously researched, unwaveringly frank and full of fresh material, Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love definitively reinterprets one of our greatest poets.
Autorenporträt
James Booth
Rezensionen
James Booth has written a literary biography which is both elegant and moving, conveying the shape of a life - and a love-life - as sensitively as he conveys the shape of the poetic oeuvre ... At the core of the book is the poetry, which Booth analyses in a reader-friendly manner, without verbosity but with passion and precision. He provides new perspectives on the early novels and poems, and explores the symbolist dimension which is so essential for an understanding of Larkin - and there's a particularly fine-tuned discussion of the poet's more controversial views in the chapter on Jazz, Race and Modernism ... This is the first biography which, one feels, Larkin might have admitted to reading - and, even more unwillingly, enjoying Carol Rumens