Book review: Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love by James Booth

The reputation of Philip Larkin (1922-1985), termed by some the greatest British poet of the twentieth century, took a pounding in the early 1990s, when Anthony Thwaite's Selected Letters and Andrew Motion's biography were published. Larkin was portrayed as a casual racist, a philanderer and a misogynist. Terry Eagleton, referred to "the sewer under the national monument of Larkin".

James Booth, a former colleague of Larkin at Hull University, has attempted to restore Larkin's image through an extensive biographical examination of his "Life, Art and Love". Building on new archival material, interviews and a close linking to his poetry, Booth tries to understand Larkin rather than judge.

At times, however, he stretches the reader's credulity in attempting to make Larkin likeable. After all, great writers and artists don't have to be nice people. Larkin famously told Peter Shergold, the former head of Prime Minister and Cabinet, to "f--- off "when Shergold, then a student at Hull, asked Larkin to judge the student poetry prize.

Larkin's lines, "They f--- you up, your mum and dad / They may not mean to, but they do / They fill you with all the fault they had / and add some extra just for you", are decidedly applicable to Larkin. He inherited some of his father's racist tendencies and had a difficult relationship with his mother. His claustrophobic home life resulted in an early stammer, physical self-consciousness and a sense of being an outsider.

Living in Hull, where Larkin became the University Librarian in 1955, suited his outsider image because it was "so far away from everywhere else". Larkin remained at Hull University until his death. He successfully built up the library but his dark side is revealed in a 1968 letter. "Morning, noon and bloody night / 7 sodding days a week / I slave at filthy work, that might / be done by any book - drunk freak / this goes on till I kick the bucket / f--- it / f--- it / f--- it / f--- it. He added" the last line should be screamed in in a paroxysm of rage!".

In an interview in 1956, Larkin said, "I think of myself as dignified, melancholy and amusing ... the best thing to do is to try to be utterly schizoid about it all, using each personality as a refuge from the other". Larkin certainly needed to compartmentalise his life when he was juggling relationships with three women in the latter part of his life.

These relationships belie his famous words, "Sexual intercourse began in 1963 / (Which was rather late for me) / Between the end of the 'Chatterley' ban / And the Beatles first LP". Larkin acknowledged these relationships "sapped his emotional energies with guilt", but that mattered little in the long run.

His affair with Leicester University lecturer Monica Jones, began in 1947 and lasted until his death, after which Monica commented, "He lied to me, the bugger, but I loved him". This is a statement that could have been applied to the devout Roman Catholic Maeve Brennan, whose relationship with Larkin began in 1961. Brennan worked in the Hull University Library, which made Larkin's juggling even more complex when he began an affair in 1975 with his long time secretary Betty Mackereth.

Mackereth, was more relaxed than Brennan about Larkin's love of soft pornography, some of which was kept in the Librarian's office in a ringback folder titled "Staff Handbook". It was Mackereth who destroyed Larkin's notebooks after his death, sometimes called the biggest crime in English literature since John Murray burnt Byron's journals.

One of the strengths of Booth's biography is his analytical linking of Larkin's poetry to events in his life. Booth helps the reader understand, if not necessarily condone, the various facets of Larkin's life, highlighting Larkin's "graveyard humour", his love of jazz and his relationships, but above all his poetic genius, often framed within that "malevolent Providence that chooses your life for you and makes decisions without your agreement".

As Clive James once wrote, Larkin was "a supreme master of language levels ... without losing the reader". Amongst those many readers were Leonard Bernstein and Marlon Brando, who apparently knew his poetry by heart.

When once asked if he would have liked to have lived a happier life, Larkin replied, "not without being someone else". Larkin would undoubtedly have been happier with James Booth's detailed and fascinating biography than any of its predecessors.