I like benamored
even if it's not in the dictionary
or I assume it's not
I remember, sort of, Pound's regretting, in his old age, some aspects of
his behaviour -- though not, as I remember, the anti-semitism, more his
spreading his talent too thin
likewise, Eliot, I think, never retracted
but... but... not to excuse but
My father worked when young for a Jewish firm -- this would have been the
1920s -- fixing their vehicles
and he told me once that, on that experience, Jews were wonderful people
etc etc -- he was explaining to me the meaning and occurrence in his speech
of some Yiddish phrase that he'd picked up; and then maybe a decade or more
later when I mentioned that I was going to Poland for the summer (70s)
asking somewhat suspiciously "Poland... aren't they all Jewish there"...
I might explain his poor geographical / racial knowledge by saying he left
school at 14 and never went further south and east than Dover (a Londoner:
my mother told me that he once stopped the car at a pub in Devon to buy
cigarettes and went back to her to say he couldn't understand them - they
were all foreigners... He'd never met that accent somehow
None of that explains the inconsistency
But... but... I suspect all that wasn't that unusual.... certainly the
contradiction is common still; look at the nonsense that passes for debate
going on in UK now... NB attacks on Eastern Europeans by the self-righteous
English
And... My mother -- also an Edwardian birth -- would say "I don't know; I'm
only a woman" even if she could cope with Devon accents
And as DHL -- the writer, not the transport company -- has been mentioned,
somewhere he wrote something like having sex with a black woman would make
a man feel dirty... Can't remember where that was; but I remember turning a
page and stumbling on it and being dumbfounded
Ignorance... prejudice... oy vey... A London Jewish friend who lived in
Israel for some years, asked me to go with him to a Yiddish film festival.
(That festival was a 'revelation'.) And during our visits he communicated
his belief that Yiddish was a C19 invention made in response to Zionism!
I told him what I knew and he was a little gobsmacked
I of course am free of ignorance and prejudice
L
On 12 September 2017 at 10:05, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> enamoured, whoops
>
> On Tue, 12 Sep 2017 at 5:58 pm, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> > Yes, that's how I would take it, L. Also even a dickhead may not always
> > have been a dickhead or some gems might emerge despite their dickheadry.
> I
> > do recall Larkin's poem about the toad, work, squatting on your life and
> > being benamored of that expression.
> >
> > B
> >
> > On Tue, 12 Sep 2017 at 2:45 PM, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> I don't recall reading that; but if I understand it, then sure -- the
> >> writer's writing is more reliable than their commentary
> >>
> >> L
> >>
> >> On 12 September 2017 at 04:27, Andrew Burke <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> > I particularly liked having a small discussion about Larkin as a
> focus.
> >> So
> >> > I thought I'd throw in something else to discuss - from Poetry Daily's
> >> > Newsletter:
> >> >
> >> > DH Lawrence’s advice to 'never trust the artist; trust the tale',
> >> >
> >> > Over to you ...
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Andrew
> >> > http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
> >> > Books available through Walleah Press
> >> > http://walleahpress.com.au
> >> >
> >>
> >
>
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