A Wonderful Review by Peter Hitchens of Philip Larkin's Collected Poems...

...to be found here.

Peter Hitchens is a British national treasure. In an age where both left-wing and right-wing have degenerated into two slightly different flavours of libertarianism, Peter Hitchens is pretty much the only proper conservative-- that is, social and cultural conservative-- still keeping the fires burning. (There is also Roger Scruton, but his conservatism is so refined and intellectualised and irony-laced that it's difficult for most of us to identify with it. At least, it's difficult for me.)

Hitchens suggests that Larkin might, rather paradoxically, be viewed as a great religious poet. (Larkin, of course, was not only an atheist but an atheist who was utterly obsessed with his mortality, articulating the horror of eternal oblivion in unsurpassably stark terms in his  masterpiece "Aubade".) One thing I find interesting is that Hitchens is an Englishman very much in the manner of Philip Larkin, with a very similar temperament and set of opinions. And yet one of these Englishmen professes Christian faith while the other stoically refused to do so. Faith is the difference that makes everything different.

Just in case anyone is interested, I wrote a Larkin-related article myself some years ago, which can be found on the website of the Philip Larkin Society here. It's an appreciation of a piece of Larkin juvenalia, "The School in August". The text of the poem is not reproduced with the article, but it's not difficult to find.

Nice Holy Week Meditation from Peter Hitchens

"Something about the weather and the sky at this time of year, combined with my good fortune in having many times visited Jerusalem...makes each spring twilight very poignant. It is easy to imagine the surreptitious gathering, the expedition to the Garden of Gethsemane (gardens are everywhere in the Bible, and a tiny trace of Gethsemane still, astonishingly, survives), while the arresting party assembles, Judas nerves himself for his treacherous kiss, and then the chilly early morning where Peter warms himself by the fire and betrays his master, and the agitators prepare the mob for the show trial, and the orchestrated calls for the release of Barabbas, which will follow soon afterwards.

Read the whole post on his blog (it's very short).

Peter Hitchens might well be my favourite living writer. He writes so profoundly about so many topics, but it is obvious that his entire worldview centres upon his Anglican faith, fragile and tentative as he admits that faith to be.