Thoughts on the Bachelor Condition: #2 in an occasional series. (Or number 300-odd, if we assume this whole column is an ongoing meditation on it.)
I’ve been having to read, or reread, a lot of Larkin lately, for work purposes. “Been having to” makes it sound like a penance, but it isn’t, because I’ve loved him since first exposure, and have continued to do so even when we all discovered that he made racist and sexist remarks, which was a bit of a problem, until I realised that this wasn’t going to change the wording of the poetry. (Incidentally, the recent news that Handel invested in the slave trade didn’t affect my opinion of him in the slightest, as his work always made it very clear that not only was human society organised as a hierarchy, but it was supremely desirable that this be so. I hate him. Larkin liked Handel very much, but where this gets us I don’t know. Loads of people like Handel.)
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