Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love

Booth (Philip Larkin: The Poet’s Plight), coeditor of the Philip Larkin Society and former Larkin colleague at the University of Hull, delves deep into the poet’s writing life and sexual history in this overlong biography. By examining the context of how Larkin’s poems were constructed, Booth offers a complex study of England’s “best-loved” poet. Throughout, Booth hews close to Larkin’s text—hardly a page goes by without quoting a verse, novel, or letter. Booth is not an impartial observer, though; he staunchly defends “Larkin’s contradictions” against claims of racism, misogyny, and pornography, admitting that there is “no requirement that poets should be likeable or virtuous.” Indeed, Larkin’s poetry parallels his life in many ways, but his life outside writing is a rich source of narrative, and Booth is at his most energetic when he tells the straightforward story of Larkin’s librarianship and relationships with women. Despite his critical and popular success, Larkin was “haunted by failure” and Booth neatly traces the origins of the poet’s psychological pain. According to Booth, “the key to Larkin, the poet and the man, is an ingenuous openness to life’s simplest pleasures and pains.” (Nov.)