Reading 6
“What about the themes that run through your poetry—not getting married, for instance?
“Is that one of my themes? I don’t think it is anything very personal. I find the idea of always being in company rather oppressive; I see life more as an affair of solitude diversified by company than an affair of company diversified by solitude.
“I don’t want to sound falsely naïve, but I often wonder why people get married. I think perhaps they dislike being alone more than I do. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m not fond of company. I’m very fond of people, but it’s difficult to get people without company. And I think living with someone and being in love is a very difficult business anyway because almost by definition it means putting yourself at the disposal of someone else, ranking them higher than yourself. I wrote a little poem about this which was never collected so perhaps you never saw it. Do you know it? ‘The difficult part of love / Is being selfish enough / Is having the blind persistence / To upset someone’s existence / Just for your own sake— / What cheek it must take.’ End of first verse. ‘Then take the unselfish side— / Who can be satisfied / Putting someone else first, / So that you come off worst? / My life is for me: / As well deny gravity.’ There is a third verse, but that’s the gist of it. I think love collides very sharply with selfishness, and they’re both pretty powerful things.”
- Philip Larkin, “An Interview with the Observer,” Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces, 1955-1982 (1983)
“I count it as one of the great moments of my life when I first realized one could actually walk out of a theatre. I don’t mean offensively—but go to the bar at the interval and not come back. I did it first at Oxford: I was watching Playboy of the Western World and when the bell rang at the interval I asked myself: ‘Am I enjoying myself? No, I’ve never watched such stupid balls.’ So I just had another drink and walked out into the evening sunshine.”
- Philip Larkin, “An Interview with the Observer,” Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces, 1955-1982 (1983)
