Though his poems are beloved in Britain, it seems that most Americans have no idea who Philip Larkin (1922-1985) was. Readers unfamiliar with this great poet can learn much from James Booth's engaging Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love. Booth (New Larkins for Old) is closely involved with the Larkin Society and was a colleague of Larkin at the University of Hull, so his biography of this lauded postwar British poet (a contemporary of W.H. Auden and Dylan Thomas) presents a fairly sympathetic portrait.
While Larkin's work was praised, it was a different case with the man. Many perceived him as a racist, a misogynist and a narcissist. Booth prefers to frame Larkin as misunderstood. As he shows, Larkin was rather reclusive. He rarely read in public, preferring to work tirelessly at his craft, revising and revising each poem, while serving as a librarian at Hull. His total output was meager--four collections (one every 10 years or so) and two novels--but what poems they were: "Church Going," "The Whitsun Weddings," "Aubade" and "This Be the Verse," with its infamous opening line, "They f*ck you up, your mum and dad."
Booth goes into great detail when addressing the "love" (Larkin had relationships with many women, including three at a time) but it's the "art" (the individual poems) that he relishes writing about and analyzing. These poems, which John Updike perfectly describes as "ruminative, frank... seemingly unconscious of [themselves] as poetic," ought to be read and enjoyed forever. Booth's biography is impeccably written, illuminating and revelatory. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher