Abstract
Nothing about Philip Larkin has proved quite so lastingly baffling as his attitude to ‘abroad’ and to the people who live there. Larkin himself seemed to pose the conundrum with fierce aggression. Asked of Jorge Luis Borges, he countered with: ‘Who’s Jorge Luis Borges?’ To the suggestion that he might, with advantage, read Laforgue, he replied: ‘If that chap Laforgue wants me to read him he’d better start writing in English.’ And to the proposition that he might care to visit China his answer was: ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing China if I could come back the same day.’1
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© 1989 Dale Salwak
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Hughes, N. (1989). An Innocent at Home. In: Salwak, D. (eds) Philip Larkin: The Man and his Work. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09700-5_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09700-5_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-09702-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-09700-5
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