I've not read it, Deb. They quoted from it liberally in City of Angels, though.

Just browsing Bibliomania and this seemed worth sharing:

*************

December 1st

Philip Larkin, who died on this day in 1985, probably would have agreed on the general principle of Wilde's comment. One of his finest poems, "Talking in Bed" (from The Whitsun Weddings) puts it like this, in his characteristic mode that lies somewhere between humour and profound sadness:

"At this unique distance from isolation
It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind
Or not untrue and not unkind."

Larkin had something of a melancholy nature as these lines illustrate, but like his friend Kingsley Amis could be relied on for some moments of delightful wit. As a judge at the Booker Prize awards in 1977, Larkin said of the various entries and of modern fiction in general that, "Far too many relied on the classic formula of a beginning, a muddle, and an end". But usually he was capable of the grouchiness one might well associate with a man who worked in a library in Hull for the greater part of his life. Which, of course, he did. John Carey once, brilliantly and accurately, wrote that Larkin's, "attitude to most accredited sources of pleasure would make Scrooge seem unduly frolicsome". His views on death (best seen in "An Arundel Tomb" and "Aubade") were typical in their negativity: in the year before his death he wrote that "I am getting progressively less fond of poems about old age as I near the Pearly Gates". Woody Allen, born today and whose Collected Prose is essential reading for anyone for whom free association is more palatable than free love, put it best when it came to the matter of death and art. He exclaimed, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying".

Aw, too bad he's dead. We might've made each other...not happy, certainly, but appreciably less miserable :) It'd be weird, being the cheery one.

Nah, Larkin was a racist & a fascist sympathizer. Wholly the product of his times & upbringing, sure, but he's better to read than to know.

Seven Seasons of Buffy -- with an introduction by Drew Goddard and chapters written by (for example) - Jennifer Crusie, David Brin, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Charlaine Harris. .. looks interesting.

Seven Seasons of Buffy -- with an introduction by Drew Goddard and chapters written by (for example) - Jennifer Crusie, David Brin, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Charlaine Harris. .. looks interesting.

I actually got this for Christmas from my Mom and I haven't started it yet.

Summer Reading suggestions from indie booksellers as heard on NPR.

Sumi, I got it for Christmas and read it on the plane home. It was only okay. The best essay, IIRC, was Jennifer Crusie's. Jacqueline Lichtenberg's was full of plugs for her own website.

Really, the analysis was not spectacular: I read better on a regular basis from the folks here at B.org, or on the posts linked to on Mutant_Allies on LJ.

FWIW, and YBMV.

That's too bad.

Late to the WS discussion. I saw what may have been the alltime worst version of Macbeth ever made. As treat my entire high school class got some sort of subsidy to see friggin CHeston play Macbeth.

The conceit was that the witches were not phsical entities, but spirits - so when M first meets them they are possessing the bodies of three dead soldiers, and attract CH's attention by grabbing his ankle. His reaction, as conveyed by face and body language was "Hmm. A dead body is grabbing my ankle. This is an unusual phenomena. I wonder if it is in anyway important." Actually, now that I think of it, it may have been the funniest MacBeth ever made.