Directory of Lost Causes

Recently I've been thinking about the following poem by Larkin. It's one of those that didn't mean a great deal to me when I first read it, but now, years later, I find every word of it to be on target. I say this both as a writer and a reader, but the attitude of the audience to the writer is often hugely hypocritical: Entertain me, but I don't want to know how you do it; write something that's real, but you're a swine if you write about someone and they find out about it. As a reader I am also frustrated with other readers, because my tastes are generally not represented by publishers. Do I have better taste? I would say that my taste has more to do with art for art's sake. I would say that is also a moral position. Anyway, here's the poem:

Fiction and the Reading Public

Give me a thrill, says the reader,
Give me a kick;
I don't care how you succeed, or
What subject you pick.
Choose something you know all about
That'll sound like real life:
Your childhood, your Dad pegging out,
How you sleep with your wife.

But that's not sufficient, unless
You make me feel good -
Whatever you're 'trying to express'
Let it be understood
That 'somehow' God plaits up the threads,
Makes 'all for the best',
That we may lie quiet in our beds
And not be 'depressed'.

For I call the tune in this racket:
I pay your screw,
Write reviews and the bull on the jacket -
So stop looking blue
And start serving up your sensations
Before it's too late;
Just please me for two generations -
You'll be 'truly great'.

(Larkin)

I've also been thinking about a poem of his called 'Heads in the Women's Ward'. Interestingly, the couplet that I was thinking of is quoted in this article immediately after a discussion of 'Fiction and the Reading Public'; "Smiles are for youth. For old age come/Death's terror and delirium."

Here's the poem in full:

Heads in the Women's Ward

On pillow after pillow lies
The wild white hair and staring eyes;
Jaws stand open; necks are stretched
With every tendon sharply sketched;
A bearded mouth talks silently
To someone no one else can see.

Sixty years ago they smiled
At lover, husband, first-born child.

Smiles are for youth. For old age come
Death's terror and delirium. (1972)

(Larkin)