- Hardcover: 375 pages
- Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux (November 2006)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0374111987
- ISBN-13: 978-0374111984
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.7 x 3.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 680 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,739,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Certainly Britain's most popular poet since Kipling, John Betjeman (1906–1984) began as the shy son of a London manufacturer, got kicked out of Oxford for not taking his studies seriously and ended up as poet laureate (1972–1984). He also became a celebrity, known across the U.K. for hosting TV programs about travel and architecture, for his campaigns to preserve Victorian buildings and for Summoned by Bells (1960), his bestselling verse account of his childhood and youth. The English admired his unassuming comic persona, his devotion to the Anglican Church, his loyalty (somehow simultaneous, and real) to both aristocrats and Middle England, and his stand on behalf of Victorian values, which modern life seemed to have eroded. This enthusiastic, always readable biography from the prolific English critic Wilson (After the Victorians) follows Betjeman's rise to public acclaim, his sometimes surprising friends and acquaintances (Lord Alfred Douglas, Evelyn Waugh), and his frequently frustrating private affairs: unwilling to either divorce or live with his wife, Betjeman spent decades with a devoted younger mistress. With his sources in hymns and English music-hall comedy, his great causes (Anglican services and Victorian churches) quintessentially, parochially English, Betjeman seems as unlikely an export as Marmite. Whatever American fans he has, however, will be well served by this compact life. 74 b&w illus. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Though two and a half million copies of his Collected Poemshave been sold (a new U.S. paperback of it, including the autobiographical Summoned by Bells,1962, emerges in tandem with this book), John Betjeman (1906-84) is virtually unknown in America. But BBC programs on English architecture aren't big here, and Betjeman owed his enormous home fame to making so many of those so well. Perhaps his TV-fostered popularity fueled his poetry sales; Wilson discloses nothing to warrant thinking so. He says Betjeman's mastery of formal verse, evocation of particular places in Britain, and use of common, though personal, experiences as the matter of his poetry account for its popularity. But Wilson spends relatively little time arguing the poetry's merits. Instead he traces the man's many intense relationships--not often enough sexual, he said late in life--with women and men of remarkable energy, talent, and station (his mistress was lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret, who herself became a friend). A splendid, poignant biography, despite being peppered with references and assumptions many Americans won't get. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
The People's Poet,
By Ian Gordon Malcomson (Victoria, BC) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME) (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Betjeman (Paperback)
Before I picked up Wilson's biography of the late poet-laureate, John Betjeman, I knew very little about the man and his works. Reading through this account has thoroughly enlightened me as to how dynamic a character Betjeman was in the world of modern English verse. The biographer, Wilson, introduces his readers to a poet who was multi-talented, sometimes misunderstood by some of his contemporaries, but also greatly appreciated by those seeking a clearer picture of modern times. First, we get to see Betjeman springing from a rather uneventful upbringing by middle-class entrepreneurial parents in north London and then Cornwall. Public school was both dreary and challenging but nothing seemed to suppress that indomitable spirit of inquiry and creativity that Betjeman had in a wide variety of interests. As someone destined for higher learning, Betjeman arrived at Oxford unprepared to conform to the browbeating tactics of tutors like C. S. Lewis at Magdalene. This young student was too interested in the gaieties of life to conform to the strictures of formal learning. A lot of the book deals with the people whom Betjeman got on with famously in the artistic word: Eliot, Larkin, McNiece, Powell, and Osborne. These were writers who were hoping to break out and enjoy a richer appreciation of the modern world. Wilson spends considerable time building a character profile of Betjeman that deals with his conversion to High-Church Anglicanism, his homosexual tendencies, his infidelity and his love for the simplicity of modern architecture. This study does a decent job in presenting both the light and serious side of the man's life. Unfortunately, for some who thought they knew him well, they -including his wife - tended to write him off as a social clown who flaunted self-importance at the expense of conforming and upholding tradition. Nothing could be further from the truth. A closer analysis of his poems such as "Summoned by the Bells" portrays a very sensitive man who took issue with the smug contentment of a bigoted, narrow-minded society which insisted on relying on the vestiges of Victorian snobbery. There's lots to chew over in this book.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review) 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
So well-written and engaging, you won't want it to end!,
By D. Kovacs - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Betjeman: A Life (Hardcover)
You know that you've read a great biography when you start "missing" it once you turn over the last page!Betjeman, England's fascinating and popular poet laureate, has met his match in author A. N. Wilson. Wilson has never done a better job of drawing us into a particular time and place. His ability to plumb the complexities of this man, the poetry, and the many and varied relationships sustained throughout Betjeman's life shines through on every page. Highest recommend! |
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