From: jules
Category: Amis
Date: 8/27/99
Time: 5:53:06 AM
Remote Name: 205.188.192.33
For once, I agree wholeheartedly with you, Floyd. Your last sentence in the above post sums up your thesis regarding Larkin's racism, bigotry and his poetry. He was a master.
Remember, too, Martin is very respectful to his male counterparts & icons. It was only the women he shat on (i.e., figuratively: I almost forgt whom i was adddrssing here): his former literary agent, Pat (Mrs Julian Barnes), his former wife, Antonia, and many other dalliances along the way. It was Julian who dumped the friendship, crushing him.
Martin revered MRS. NABOKOV* as a ray in the splendor of his idolatry of Vlad.
Therefore, to a man who grew up with Larkin as his brother's God-father in a 1950's English class system, a little racism & sexism made the poet who he was—as did his nigardliness in handing out small-demoninated coins to the young Amis boys. These chaaacteristics did not detract from the Poet, the Man- far less his works.
As for racism, sexism, or those PC words, Martin allegedly is liberal, votes labor, etc etc., but when was the last time he donated anything to the London homeless or given to a charitable org. for Pakistani-Brit children?