The More Perceived
Reposted from my old blog (June 14th, 2024):
Having recently watched The Lady in the Van written by Alan Bennett and based on real events, I found myself revisiting Bennett's remarkable review of Andrew Motion's biography of Philip Larkin.
There is much there in the essay to ruminate upon, but this passage stands out:
...lazed, drank, read, pottered round the village and amused themselves with private games. Soon after the move, for instance, they began systematically defacing a copy of Iris Murdoch’s novel The Flight from the Enchanter, taking it in turns to interpolate salacious remarks and corrupt the text. Many apparently innocent sentences are merely underlined (‘Today it seemed likely to be especially hard’). Many more are altered (‘her lips were parted and he had never seen her eyes so wide open’ becomes ‘Her legs were parted and he had never seen her cunt so wide open’). Many of the numbered chapter-headings are changed (‘Ten’ is assimilated into I Fuck my STENographer). Even the list of books by the same author is changed to include UNDER THE NETher Garments.
The infinite variations of the smallness of this great man...
And among the responses to this review, there is one by Neville Smith who describes an incident that is also mentioned in Bennett's Diaries (Smith is an actor who played the role of the police inspector in the film about Joe Orton, Prick Up Your Ears for which Bennett wrote the screenplay. Incidentally, I remember that Bennett wrote a very nice introduction to the published screenplay of that book where he discusses the difficulty of making movies about writers (they are boring, they spend most of their time sitting at desks). Alas, I have since misplaced the book.
Smith's recollection of his interaction with the great poet:
My last encounter with the librarian occurred outside the university at the bus stop waiting for the 24. It began to rain stair-rods. Larkin put up his umbrella. Seeking shelter, and being much smaller. I edged towards him. There were only the two of us there. He looked at me. I smiled and said: ‘I did enjoy The North Ship.’ He stared down at me and said: ‘If you think you’re sharing my umbrella you’ve got another think coming.’ And with that he pressed the catch on his umbrella so that it folded down closer around his head.
This last image - the soaking-wet student and the great poet with his giant noggin' pushed into an umbrella - would make for a great, if gothic, painting.