And just like that - it was January 2024, and The Latent Book Club returned from its Northern Hemisphere Christmas.
Travelling always provides opportunity for reflection, and our poem of the month examines a theme of the moment, common to both Europe and Australia: the Housing crisis. Everyone needs somewhere to live, but new housing and the infrastructure that comes with it has its own cost: natural beauty. Often, we are told, ‘they are paving over the countryside’. Presciently, Latent Book Club favourite Philip Larkin had his own somber reflection on this topic, in his sublime 1972 Poem, Going Going.
Going, Going, by Philip Larkin (1922 - 1985)
I thought it would last my time - The sense that, beyond the town, There would always be fields and farms, Where the village louts could climb Such trees as were not cut down; I knew there'd be false alarms In the papers about old streets And split level shopping, but some Have always been left so far; And when the old part retreats As the bleak high-risers come We can always escape in the car. Things are tougher than we are, just As earth will always respond However we mess it about; Chuck filth in the sea, if you must: The tides will be clean beyond. - But what do I feel now? Doubt? Or age, simply? The crowd Is young in the M1 cafe; Their kids are screaming for more - More houses, more parking allowed, More caravan sites, more pay. On the Business Page, a score Of spectacled grins approve Some takeover bid that entails Five per cent profit (and ten Per cent more in the estuaries): move Your works to the unspoilt dales (Grey area grants)! And when You try to get near the sea In summer . . . It seems, just now, To be happening so very fast; Despite all the land left free For the first time I feel somehow That it isn't going to last, That before I snuff it, the whole Boiling will be bricked in Except for the tourist parts - First slum of Europe: a role It won't be hard to win, With a cast of crooks and tarts. And that will be England gone, The shadows, the meadows, the lanes, The guildhalls, the carved choirs. There'll be books; it will linger on In galleries; but all that remains For us will be concrete and tyres. Most things are never meant. This won't be, most likely; but greeds And garbage are too thick-strewn To be swept up now, or invent Excuses that make them all needs. I just think it will happen, soon.
Latent Book Club Analysis
Larkin is perhaps better known these days for three things: his association with Hull, and its university; pessimism; and some attitudes which might be describe as anti-progressive at best, and bigoted at worst.
Those who write Larkin off because of two of those three categories are really missing out. Firstly, on the man’s deep capacity for humor and irony (Martin Amis described Larkin’s work as being steeped in both), and secondly on some really prescient analysis, the quality of which has not faded in the years since his death. Larkin has a pervading quality. There surely can be no question of his capacity to create sublime poetry, which is precisely what he did here.
Written in 1972, Going Going was (believe it or not) a government commissioned poem intended for a report on housing entitled ‘How Do You Want To Live?’ Such a commission is scarcely imaginable today, and indeed Larkin’s version appeared heavily censored, but was subsequently published in its full structure.
Lets start with the rhyme scheme. Its a sedate structure, ABCABC per six line stanza. This mode is pondering, deliberate: the poet wants you to take your time here. Like a watercolour, Larkin is painting a picture; and you won’t see it until he has completed it, and you can stand back and take a full view.
Yes, the characteristic pessimism is here. Larkin speaks of the erstwhile self-assuredness that, despite ‘progress’, there would always bee a reserved corner of countryside that one could set out for, within easy striking distance. But as Going Going, builds, he concludes he is no longer sure about that. His former confidence has gone, or at least been significantly eroded.
England’s recent furore over water companies dumping untreated sewage into the sea seems to be caught well by Larkin’s prescient lines:
Chuck filth in the sea, if you must:
The tides will be clean beyond.
- But what do I feel now? Doubt?
He was indeed right to question this. The poet, taking stock of his feelings, comes to the same conclusion we do. That we cannot be sure the tides will be clean beyond, or that this situation is reversible.
Perhaps it is going too far to call Going, Going an ecological poem, which doesn’t seem to be the tone Larkin is striking. That said his concern for nature at the expense of profit is notable:
…spectacled grins approve
Some takeover bid that entails
Five per cent profit (and ten
Per cent more in the estuaries):
This has all the hallmarks of someone recognising the fact that that ecology, in the western world at least, is as much a concern of economics as public policy.
The poem quickens, then, the realisation dawning on the reader as much as Larkin himself (‘It seems, just now, To be happening so very fast;’) towards the disturbing outcome:
And that will be England gone,
The shadows, the meadows, the lanes,
The guildhalls, the carved choirs.
There'll be books; it will linger on
In galleries; but all that remains
For us will be concrete and tyres.
For England in this context, the reader can imply many counties in a contemporary context, including our home of Australia.
Then final stanza contains an echo of another Larkin poem, Aubade: (‘Most things may never happen: this one will). Contrast this with Going Going: (‘Most things are never meant. This won't be, most likely;’) This is a very specific kind of lament: a lament against the inevitable perhaps? The fact that the inevitable, for Larkin, is also a reluctant conclusion, adds to its poignancy.
The poem concludes in a fatalistic vein. For Larkin the work is now complete, and he concludes it will happen, soon. He has lead the reader there too, who can now stand back and admire the picture he has painted, and also conclude that it may happen soon. Perhaps it may. Perhaps it has.
But Larkin’s fatalism discounts the human ability for ingenuity. Although ‘progress’ may have lead to a degradation of the countryside and the environment we hold so dear, couldn’t our expanding technological and engineering abilities lead us also to design a solution to our woes? If ecology is the problem, could our own technology also be the answer?
As the world commits to the ‘beginning of the end’ for fossil fuels, this is the Larkin-defying, optimistic hope.
Before you go…
Read Our Latent Book Club Poetry Series
Check out our long form poetry analysis:
Read Our Catalogue of Long Form Literary Criticism
If you like our long form literary criticism series, be sure to check out our previous reviews, including last month’s expensive review of the sublime The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch.
Subscribe to The Latent Book Club for free
Want more poetry analysis? We feature a new one every month. Make sure you don’t miss them, and other great recommendations, by subscribing for free to The Latent Book Club.