Going, Going, by Philip Larkin
Larkin wrote this poem in 1972. How
much more evocative is it today?
The title ‘Going, Going’ is the
key to the whole poem. In Larkin’s view, what is ‘going’ is the landscape of England as a
green and pleasant land. It is being replaced by shoddy development, summed up
by the auctioneer’s excited cry of ‘going, going’ as another piece of the old
heritage falls under the hammer. Going, going, but not yet quite gone. Larkin once
thought it would ‘last his time’. Now he doubts that.
The poem has a disarmingly
conversational tone, which belies the bleakness of what Larkin is saying. This
tone is partly contrived by the rhyming pattern of each six line stanza: A B C
A B C, which makes for a more open quality than couplets, for example, would
have done. Right from the start he has a disillusioned air about the future of England. ‘I
thought’ – past tense – ‘it would last my time’. There is a comfortable public
belief, which he once shared, that traditional England
will not be overwhelmed by ‘development’; there will always be an England that
even ‘village louts’ – not just those with special discernment – can enjoy.
Note the play on the patriotic song: ‘There’ll always be an England’. But
already Larkin signals danger in the words ‘such trees’ as were not cut
down. He knew there’d be alarms, but thought them false. It is important
that this line ends the first stanza, as it ties in with Larkin’s half
apologetic acknowledgement that he was wrong in what he thought.
The second stanza, continuing
the sentence, names some of what is being lost to ‘progress’. The reader is
surely getting nervous about what is happening, but Larkin ironically dismisses
concern; after all, ‘we can always escape in the car’, a reference that
prepares us for the impact of the car, later in the poem. Larkin then continues
to outline the modern belief in development; that we aren’t doing any real
damage, that things are tougher than we are. This is followed at the end of the
line with another ironic usage; ‘just’ belongs with the next line, but
qualifies the one it is on. Larkin has been talking about manufactured or built
things, in contrast to the earth and the sea. These, it is said, will always
adjust to whatever rubbish is thrown at them. But suddenly at the end of the
third stanza, Larkin moves from this comfortable belief to what – doubt? Coming
at the end of the line, this has added impact.
Or is it simply age? Here ‘age’
refers to his own advancing years, and also to the deterioration of things, as
in the spirit of the age. Is this gloom merely a private reaction? The rest of
this stanza is devoted to a sharply hostile vision of the ‘new England’ in
which people want more, an adjective that Larkin uses five times in this
stanza, giving an effect of dreary repetition. He clearly feels no affinity
with the people who use cafes on the M1. But he equally despises those in
society who promote and profit from development; ‘spectacled grins’ is a clever
summary of the new businessmen and technocrats. ‘More’ is also being used to
great effect here; its repetition builds a sense of urgency as more houses, pay
and parking, and more profit, combine to ruin what was previously unspoilt. And
escaping in the car just leads to gridlock at the beach. Here again is that
conversational tone; you know what the traffic’s like. His lack of dogmatism,
his air of bemusement – ‘it seems, just now, to be happening so very fast’ –
give an added weight to his statement, as if after all, everyone must see that
it is true.
Larkin is beginning to think
that it is all up with England.
I take the word ‘boiling’ to mean ‘the whole damn thing’, but would welcome
other interpretations. Think of streams, diverted into concrete culverts, and
paved over. He fears that what he thinks of as England will become just another
theme-park for tourists. There is real bitterness in his dismissive reference
to England’s
leaders as ‘crooks and tarts’. The idea that ‘first slum of Europe’
is a title that might be won is a reference to the sort of game show mentality
that Larkin sees demolishing traditional culture.
And then he outlines what will
be lost. ‘The shadows, the meadows, the lanes,/The guildhalls, the carved
choirs.’ In just a few words he paints a picture of what he thinks is valuable
about England;
I think this is a wonderful selection. He’s probably wrong about the books (and
don’t forget he was a librarian); there will just be e-readers. But what
there will be most of is the sort of parking lots around shopping centres that
our reliance on the car demands.
Larkin isn’t really blaming
anyone for this. It just happens. Weary fatalism is the over-riding mood of the
poem. Greed and garbage – note the alliteration – go together; each causes the
other and neither can be easily swept away. ‘Too thick-strewn to be swept’ is
also highly alliterative. The rhyming of ‘greeds’ and ‘needs’ is particularly
clever, as turning what people want into what they think they need is a feature
of the consumer society that Larkin is bewailing. The last line gets its punch,
I think, from the comma after ‘happen’, leaving ‘soon’ as the full stop.
This poem is forty years old. So
much of what Larkin feared then, has happened. Nevertheless, I’m slightly
uneasy about this poem. Decisions about where people live, and what their built
environment looks like don’t in my view, just happen. They are a product of a
set of choices made by people who control the resources of a society, with more
or less input from the people who live in that society. Larkin despises both
the young people in the M1 cafe, and the financial types with ‘spectacled
grins’. But I don’t think they bear equal responsibility.
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