![]() Photo: The Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate of Philip Larkin To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up here: lrb.me/closereadings The eloquent contradictions of his life and work have made Larkin a subject we’ve returned to more than most throughout the LRB’s 38-year history. By the time his second appeared in our pages ten years later, contributors including Barbara Everett, Frank Kermode, Alan Bennett, Ian Hamilton and Christopher Ricks had also written for the paper about the ‘man on the jetty,’ as Bennett described him at the end of his review of Andrew Motion’s biography, ‘who might be anybody’. ‘Why is Larkin so different from other poets of today?’ asked John Bayley in his first piece about the poet for the LRB, published in 1983. anyway, my writing schedule is all messed up and writer’s block has been really hard recently.For their first episode together, recorded in 2017, Mark Ford and Seamus Perry look at the life and work of Philip Larkin, a poet written about extensively in the archive of the London Review of Books. I start classes next monday? i’m scared shitless but there’s really nothing i can do about it. Soooooo, this isn’t exactly a reader insert but? i couldn’t not write this bc it had been in my head for so long. For his father, mostly, for the man he becameĪnd the way he raised his son to be the same, and how that eventually led themīoth to a death in which everything was sacrificed yet nothing was won. On, Philip doesn’t speak out like he had spent so long wanting to. To his chest, guilt outshining the tears in his eyes as he begs his son to hold Reassurances to him as if she will see him again, and his father holding his hands In his deathbed, with his mother cradling his head and cooing With an unexplained sadness inside of him, a poet), just like Alexanderīlame his father. Then lodged into his left arm, because whether he liked it or not he was hisįather’s child, and he was compulsive, big mouthed and a poet (like every man Walking to what he feels is his dead and trusting that his dad’s advice won’tĪ Hamilton, Philip will learn later with a bullet shot above his right hip and He asked his father for advice, the man that betrayed himĪnd the rest of Philip’s family as if they meant nothing to him, and is now There was nothing left to say or think or feel. Happened that it made the young boy want to scream his lungs out, scream until Morning, sitting there so casually and talking to his son as if nothing had ![]() He’d read it every time he fell asleep and then he’d pretend not to feelĪ stab on his heart when he saw his father at the breakfast table the next Underneath his pillow so his mother couldn’t find it on his desk or his night And then the second, and the third, and then it was hidden Remember all the words out of it, he ended up memorizing it after he read itįor the first time. Nothing good can come of it now, not after the affair. Man during his short life suddenly tainted with his own words and the idea of a It’s better that he’s not like his father, the image he had preserved of the Philip isn’t sure he can still trust his father’s actions at all anymore.Įventually comes to the conclusion that maybe it’s better off this way. Sure, he would’ve probably shouted all the insults known to man towards Eacker,īut at least he would still be alive by the end of the day. Wouldn’t have been stupid enough to jump straight into a duel like Philip did. Poet, too, he thinks, just not like his dad. His whole life, the one that won a war and wrote his way through life as if it ![]() ![]() He wants to be like the man he’s looked up to Imitation, this facade that Philip has been working so hard to maintain as everythingĪround him seems to fall apart. Wishes he actually were a splitting image of his father, brilliant and charming The ones that are trying to hide the fear bubbling in his stomach as much as Strands of hair that he’s consistently wiping away from his freckled features, The wind blows on his face but he refuses to tie up the loose He can’t feel the barrel of his father’s guns pressing against his legs withĮvery step he takes, like some sort of rhythmic countdown he can’t seem to stop He doesn’t know this as he walks across the river to New Jersey. Hamilton is only 19, but his life is over. somehow, everything goes back to his father. Summary: on his last few sane thoughts, philip tries to think about what went wrong. Warnings: character death, heavy topics? alex is a dick, we all know that, tho. Character: philip hamilton (hamilton: an american musical)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |