PHILIP LARKIN AND HIS SURPRISING APPEARANCE
Exploring Patrington, England and Pondering Philip Larkin
‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad’ reads the first line
My ex and I didn’t like the same literature. He loved a story entitled ‘The Egg,” by Sherwood Anderson. In that story, a desperate man owns a little diner is trying to sell someone an idea — maybe he’s trying to persuade someone to purchase an egg. I don’t remember.
Ken was saddened by this story. He felt sorry for the protagonist, the man desperate for some attention and support. I was frustrated by the story. At the time, I was trying to get Ken to read a book by Sharon Doubiago.
Doubiago, an American woman, writes about the female experience of the ’60s and ’70s. Her candid description of her own sexuality, along with stunning and mystic essays about U.S. history — including the cruel treatment of Native Americans — was what I liked in the ’90s.
A woman describing her love of sex! Weaving anal sex into a story! Doubiago was the queen. In my early thirties, I craved the female voice. So sick of T.S. Eliot, the Romantic poets, Ernest Hemingway, e.e. cummings, all the men. What we in the university English department called “dead white guy” literature.
