It is hard being a British librarian. One has to lend, as often as not, mediocre rubbish to semi-literate readers who prefer pap to Pope. The year's most borrowed listings are out, and reveal a top 100 riddled with pulp fiction too bland even to deserve that B-side accolade. The top poetry book? Well it comes from faux-genius S. Fry, who is neither a poet or a critic, but a celebrity whose main message is to argue against vers libre, 100 years too late. In fiction, it is an American crime writer who has a Fordist production line to pump out his books so cheap they should be recalled as unsafe at any speed of reading. Literacy is so often extolled as a virtue that we often forget that reading badly can also mean reading unwisely. At least they only borrow bad books and not buy them.
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
Comments
My mother was a librarian and she was always dismayed by the public's lack of literary taste. I very nearly bought Fry's 'The Ode Less Travelled' in a Waterstone's '3 for 2' deal. As I was walking up to the cash desk to pay I spotted another book I wanted to read more (at the time) and replaced the Fry. It's a decision I have always regretted. I must lay my hands on a copy sometime.
Best wishes from Simon
Happily, I am not foolish enough to think I know what other people ought to be reading. Nor am I so steeped in my own superiority that I imagine millions of people worldwide are making some kind of calamitous mistake by buying and borrowing these books. We can't all enjoy tofu and rice wine. Some of us just want a pie and a pint, and such choices are entirely up to us.
Poetry only appeals to the few. Thank goodness. Let's keep it that way. And books that do what they say on the tin are invaluable. Hurray for genre fiction!