Definitive in its scope and detail but somewhat too hagiographic.
A scholar who has published previously about Philip Larkin (1922-1985) returns with a full-meal biography glowing with admiration.
Booth (Philip Larkin: The Poet’s Plight, 2005), who was for nearly two decades one of Larkin’s colleagues at the University of Hull, does not find a lot to dislike in this lushly detailed life. Where others have found fault, the author often begs to differ. In Larkin’s letters, for example, are occasional terms and phrases that many readers find racially offensive. Booth characterizes them as “performative riffs,” examples of Larkin’s linguistic posturing. After a defensive introduction (Larkin was neither a racist nor a misogynist), Booth proceeds in chronological fashion. We learn about Larkin’s parents (his mother lived until 1977), his lifelong passion for classic jazz (and, later, his unhappiness with John Coltrane and other more modern performers), his schooling and his off-and-on friendship with Kingsley Amis. Both were hopeful novelists, but when Amis’ Lucky Jim (1954) appeared and soared, Larkin, who had published a couple of novels in the mid-1940s, turned exclusively to poetry. Larkin became a librarian and held various positions throughout his life, jobs that enabled him to have time for his poetry, and his verse soon became both popular and honored. Booth spends many pages discussing individual poems, as well as the drafts Larkin recorded in his many workbooks. Most of these analyses are accessible, though we occasionally read something precious: “The hissing monosyllable ‘this’ with its high short vowel seems arrogant.” Booth also charts the poet’s intimate relationships with various women (Larkin sometimes maintained as many as three simultaneously). We read, too, about his jealous disdain for Ted Hughes (he preferred Sylvia Plath’s poetry), as well as his physical decline (including deafness) preceding the arrival of the cancer that killed him.
Definitive in its scope and detail but somewhat too hagiographic.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1620407813
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
