[John Whitworth]

Larkin on Ashbery? He is recorded as saying that he prefers strawberry, though it was ostensibly a joke about his own deafness. W.S, Gilbert on T.S. Eliot? Happy days!

No. 2807: hatchet job

In 1865 Henry James wrote a brutal review of Our Mutual Friend. You are invited to submit a hatchet job by a well-known author of your choice on a book or poem by another well-known writer (150 words/16 lines). Please email entries to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 17 July.

[John Whitworth]

John Betjeman on 'The Wasteland'.

God preserve us from the verses
Full of lots and lots of quotes,
Most of them in foreign lingo,
All of them bestrewn with notes.

God preserve us from the poet
Scribbling in his cubbyhole,
Malcontent, obscure and arid,
Of his wintry, withered soul.

God preserve us from the Moderns
Writing for their favoured few.
God preserve us from the Wasteland.
God preserve us from the new.

God preserve us, Mr Eliot,
From these godforsaken things.
Bring us back the tried and tested.
Bring us poetry that sings.

[Nigel Mace]

John, lovely; you've caught him just right and especially apt given his telling lines in Summoned By Bells both on Mr Eliot, his schoolmaster, and that lovely passage about (roughly - I haven't got my copy here) "Every time there comes a wind from Oxford,
To blow the candles out, I light them up again". A winner if there's any justice - and a worthwhile take on JB in any case.

[Ann Drysdale]

Alas, Nigel - I fear it was Cambridge...

[Nigel Mace]

Thanks Ann - of course it was! Why did my memory trip me on that? Probably just the lazy tendency to see them both as Oxbridge - a kind of community of the resented.

[Brian Allgar]

‘Tom Brown’s Schooldays’ reviewed by Geoffrey Willans

This book is about a skool that the auther call ‘Rugby’. This is a very pore start becos Rugby is not a skool but a roten game, as any fule kno.

The skool bully is called Flashman. He remind me of Grabber, eksept he hav never won the Mrs Joyful prize for rafia-work. Flashman and his frends roast Tom Brown over a fire, which is a wizard weeze. I shall try it on Fotherington-Tomas.

But most of the book is garstly and full of caracters like George Arthur who is a swot and a weed and uterly wet. (The auther do not sa if he hav a face like a squished tomato.) The head beak is portraid as a kindly figure which make the book hihgly unconvinsing. Every chapter begin with some lines of filthy peotry, or even Latin. The boys sa there prayers and do lots of homework. Enuff said!

[John Whitworth]

Now you do Thomas Hughes reviewing Down with Skool. Great stuff!

What's the difference between Cambridge and Oxford? At Cambridge they are cleverer and betray their country.

[Graham King]

Originally Posted by Nigel Mace

John, lovely; you've caught him just right and especially apt given his telling lines in Summoned By Bells both on Mr Eliot, his schoolmaster, and that lovely passage about (roughly - I haven't got my copy here) "Every time there comes a wind from Oxford,
To blow the candles out, I light them up again". A winner if there's any justice - and a worthwhile take on JB in any case.

Agreed! top notch.

[John Whitworth]

I should have thanked Nigel for his kind words and I do. And you, Graham. Didn't someone point out that this can be a bit of a Gordon Brown moment. Support from the poor man was always the kiss of death.

[Nigel Mace]

I don't know whether Graham is supposed to be Gordon or whether I am. If the latter, I'm flattered as I knew him and he was a much better man than most I've known - and one of the very brightest. That dreadful 'pact' - positively Faustian as it turned out - was his tragic downfall and almost from that moment on it was one of the saddest declines of our times in British politics. Somebody ought to write poetry about it - though not you John. You'll only seethe and then take the mick! I mean something which tries to communicate a personal tragedy which had truly wide consequences. Not JB territory either; more Soutar crossed with Lochead if such can be inagined.

In any case, I'm sure you're proof against being hexed - and it is a very good piece indeed.