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Pretending to Be Me: Philp Larkin, a Portrait
Tom Courtenay
- Unabridged
Narrator: Tom Courtenay
Length: 1 hour and 25 min.
£7.70
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Pretending to Be Me is an intimate, acerbic, and occasionally scurrilous show about the poet, jazz aficionado, and Hull University librarian Philip Larkin. Larkin has moved home; surrounded by packing cases, playing selections from his favourite jazz LPs, and making himself cups of tea, and later whiskies, he reflects wryly on writing and life. Hilarious and moving, the narrative shifts seamlessly between Larkin's outrageous wit and the poems, which Courtenay reads with powerful directness and simplicity. Philip Larkin, one of the foremost figures in 20th-Century English poetry, feared his epitaph would be: "They fuck you up, your mum and dad". This, and other familiar poems, "An Arundel Tomb", "The Whitsun Weddings" and "High Windows" are included in Pretending to Be Me.
©2003 Tom Courtenay; (P)2005 Time Warner AudioBooks
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Review
4/4 registered users found this helpful
A rare treat for poetry lovers!
19/12/2006
This is a truly wonderful audiobook - if you're listening on your MP3, you'll be entranced and transported, made to feel so very glad that such things as audiobooks exist.
Tom Courtney narrates as if he were the poet, Philip Larkin. It's rather like an autobiographical diary spoken on behalf of the poet, taking us on a journey through Larkin's life with various poems cleverly worked into the narrative as things go along. You'll smile as well as be moved. The readings of Larkin's poems are exceptional.
Altogether, very highly recommended.
