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        Pete Atkin >> Words >> Prospect - Clive James on Philip Larkin
        
(Message started by: Kevin Cryan on Today at 13:38)

Title: Prospect - Clive James on Philip Larkin
Post by Kevin Cryan on Today at 13:38

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/content/uploads/2018/11/Unknown-3-3-1-3.jpeg

In this podcast Sameer Rahim asks Clive James: what was Philip Larkin really like?.........

Prospect Podcast (https://soundcloud.com/prospect-magazine/the-prospect-podcast-64clive-james-on-the-real-philip-larkin)

Begins @ 14:52

Kevin Cryan

Addendum

A life more ordinary: inside Philip Larkin’s extraordinary everyday (https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/a-life-more-ordinary-inside-philip-larkins-extraordinary-everyday) by Clive James
December 11, 2018

Published in Mid-winter (Jan-Feb) 2019 issue of Prospect Magazine

Title: Re: Prospect - Clive James on Philip Larkin
Post by Kevin Cryan on 05.10.19 at 15:09

& in The Guardian

Clive James: ‘The most overrated books almost all emerged from a single genre – magic realism’ (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/05/clive-james-books-overrated-all-magic-realism)

The author, critic and poet on reading Biggles as a child and his admiration for Philip Larkin

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/794e0df9f68aff63d3da106188b8c7934021876a/0_327_5415_3248/master/5415.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=286404bfacb51d792dcff74eec0b7991
Clive James: “I can still quote whole scenes from Lucky Jim.’ Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

Quote:

The book I am currently reading

Mostly at this stage I am rereading myself, and finding something marvellous on every page. I’ve just received the advance copies of my new book about Philip Larkin, called Somewhere Becoming Rain. Holding it up to be observed at various angles, I gloat audibly. On a less self-involved note, I’ve just read Anne Applebaum’s Red Famine. Her clarity reminds me of Olivia Manning.

The book that changed my life

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. I can still quote whole scenes from it. I read it in my early 20s, still a bit young to have fully understood that a book can be simultaneously entertaining and serious. Abruptly I realised that it could be a possible aim, for a writer, to raise a serious point and a laugh along with it.

The book I wish I’d written

I won’t say that I wish I’d written Larkin’s poems because I remain endlessly glad that he did.

....................

read on... (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/05/clive-james-books-overrated-all-magic-realism)

Kevin Cryan

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41klHLzlcTL._SX326_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

amazon.co.uk (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Somewhere-Becoming-Rain-Collected-Writings/dp/1529028825)