[David Anthony]

Here's a review I wrote for 'First Things' on A N Wilson's Betjeman biography:

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-1641...19731B7B1D6B39

[Allen Tice]

"Camp"? Oh, come on. Not Uhmerican "camp" anyway. Youse guys splat the label "camp" on something and think you've said something intelligible. Might be true sometimes, but not here. Betjeman was various things, but not yet "camp". Rather more just himself, chumbly as he was. I actually like him a bit, primarily for his skill and comfortableness (which, as we can now see, is streng verboten in "art" these sad days). I once had a British acquaintance (he's now moth-eaten and mentally gone to seed, I fear, drinking lonely acidulous screwdrivers in his thatchy home), who loved Betjeman but who wrote truly terrible prosaic free verse, and somehow didn't allow there was a difference between them except in level of technique.

Betjeman: Not as good by far as Kingsley Amis at his best, but good enough.

[John Whitworth]

Not as good as KA!!! KA was primarily a novelist, and a very good one, much better than Martin, but his poems are minor things, though I like them. Betjeman is one of the three best English poets of the last century, along with Larkin and Auden in my opinion. His voice is distinctive and he has that wonderful English melancholy we find in Tennyson and Arnold and in lesser voices too, like de la Mare. The Scots, where I grew up, don't do melancholy, and neither do Americans unless I've missed something.

Some of those closing stanzas. Just read them and you'll see what I mean. Larkin can do that, but Amis can't, and doesn't want to.

David, any chance of getting to see that article of yours without all that plaver of a 7 days free trial. I am always suspicious of free trials, but I'd like to read the article.

[Holly Martins]

I actually prefer Kingsley's poems to his novels. I reread Lucky Jim recently and found it a struggle to get through. His later novels have a weird kind of syntax that makes them difficult to enjoy.

[John Whitworth]

I agree that the early novels are the best. I think 'Take a Girl Like You' is the pinnacle of his achievement. I suppose he ran out of interesting things to say. On the other hand, the older I get the less inclined I am to read books through unless I've read them before.

[David Anthony]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

David, any chance of getting to see that article of yours without all that plaver of a 7 days free trial. I am always suspicious of free trials, but I'd like to read the article.

--That's strange, John.
When I first posted the link you could read it all, and the free trial has appeared since then.
It's in the archives of First Things, but seems you need to be a subscriber to read it there.

[Roger Slater]

I watched the Youtube of Pam Ayres's "Just Ask My Husband" (or something like that) and found it quite entertaining, literary judgments aside. I was surprised to find that Pam was apparently married to my father-in-law.

[Allen Tice]

They're both very good. Especially at their very best.

[Gail White]

I love Betjeman and am delighted that he has a biography (I also love literary biographies).

As Chesterton said of Dickens, he didn't just "give the people what they wanted" -- he wanted what the people wanted.

[Dan Breene]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

On the other hand, the older I get the less inclined I am to read books through unless I've read them before.

Funny isn't it, John. I'm becoming the same way. Stodgy maybe.

I'm all for Betjeman. Limpid and sad. Funny and sharp. his voice has that wonderful British ring to it that some might mistake for pretentiousness. It's actually the opposite of pretentious. I sometimes wish I was born English until I realize that then I would have to be English.