A great pretender …

…‘Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love,’ by James Booth - NYTimes.com.(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Booth’s limiting estimation of “Show Saturday” counts as good critical sense, and thus serves to offset the strange moment when he includes the famous second-to-last line of “An Arundel Tomb” — “Our almost-instinct almost true” — among Larkin’s “awkward felicities.” In fact the line is about as un-awkward as a felicity can get. But Booth has not written an academic book. He has written a book of the higher journalism, which is still the kind of attention Larkin needs; although from now on, and partly because of Booth’s book, he might need it less. The way will now be open for commentators on this most lyrically rich of modern poets to be as tin-eared as they like.