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    What W. H. Auden Can Do for You
    What W. H. Auden Can Do for You
    What W. H. Auden Can Do for You
    Ebook103 pages1 hour

    What W. H. Auden Can Do for You

    By Alexander McCall Smith

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Bestselling novelist Alexander McCall Smith's charming account of how the poet W. H. Auden has helped guide his life—and how he might guide yours, too

    When facing a moral dilemma, Isabel Dalhousie—Edinburgh philosopher, amateur detective, and title character of a series of novels by best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith—often refers to the great twentieth-century poet W. H. Auden. This is no accident: McCall Smith has long been fascinated by Auden. Indeed, the novelist, best known for his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, calls the poet not only the greatest literary discovery of his life but also the best of guides on how to live. In this book, McCall Smith has written a charming personal account about what Auden has done for him—and what he just might do for you.

    Part self-portrait, part literary appreciation, the book tells how McCall Smith first came across the poet's work in the 1970s, while teaching law in Belfast, a violently divided city where Auden's "September 1, 1939," a poem about the outbreak of World War II, strongly resonated. McCall Smith goes on to reveal how his life has related to and been inspired by other Auden poems ever since. For example, he describes how he has found an invaluable reflection on life's transience in "As I Walked Out One Evening," while "The More Loving One" has provided an instructive meditation on unrequited love. McCall Smith shows how Auden can speak to us throughout life, suggesting how, despite difficulties and change, we can celebrate understanding, acceptance, and love for others.

    An enchanting story about how art can help us live, this book will appeal to McCall Smith's fans and anyone curious about Auden.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateSep 22, 2013
    ISBN9781400847976
    What W. H. Auden Can Do for You
    Author

    Alexander McCall Smith

    Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the award-winning series The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, and he now devotes his time to the writing of fiction, including the 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie series. He is the author of over eighty books on a wide array of subjects, and his work has been translated into forty-six languages. Before becoming a full-time writer he was for many years Professor of Medical Law at Edinburgh.

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    Reviews for What W. H. Auden Can Do for You

    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Not remotely a scholarly study of Auden and his poetry (thank goodness) – the author refers readers seeking an academic angle to other works – this is both a personal appreciation (Smith describes various ways Auden's poetry has given him insights and delight) and an exploration of the ways that poetry, more generally, can enrich one's life. Deeply familiar with Auden's work, Smith is not blind to his flaws, but he focuses on the lovely language and images, and on the idea that Auden offers guidance to a “middle path” in life, balancing between the human desires for political engagement/worldly achievement and for private pleasures and spiritual growth – between the active life and the contemplative one. I picked this up not because I've been a huge fan of Smith's fiction or of Auden's poetry, but because my dad, who is not a religious believer, has found a tremendous lot of spiritual solace in recent years in Smith's books, and I've read a couple out of curiosity. So far I've liked Mma Precious Ramotswe, of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, best – Isabel Dalhousie (Sunday Philosophy Club series) and Professor Dr von Igelfeld (Portuguese Irregular Verbs) are both pretty obnoxious, at least in their opening books – but I have been impressed by the way Smith portrays a wide range of quirky individuals with real warmth and sympathy. The characters in the books I've read myself and those my dad has described to me are wonderfully diverse in backgrounds and interests – they engage in philosophy, linguistics, music, law, politics, natural science, etc. – suggesting an author who views the world with a friendly, intelligent curiosity. In this little book on Auden, Smith seems to credit the poet with helping him develop this outlook, emphasizing Auden's compassion for those suffering and his appreciation for the love and the loveliness which also fill the world.I was surprised by the number of “typo” sorts of errors I ran across – the sorts of things that should have been caught by a proof reader, but this is a minor complaint. As I said, I didn't start this as a big Auden fan, but by the time I'd finished I had quite a list of poems Smith had discussed that I now need to read or reread. Recommended!
    • 4/5
      A delightful, personal view of W.H. Auden's work, simple and honest, and an encouragement to get inspired by the ideas and thoughts Auden investigates. McCall Smith believes Auden can help us better understand life and ourselves, which is something only a true artist can - reveal something we did not know before.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I chose this book off the library shelf on a whim, mostly based on my fondness for the Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. This served me well as a general introduction to the British poet W. H. Auden and was a short, but interesting, read. The book would perhaps be of more interest to fans of McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie series, considering Isabel's considerable interest in Auden. I would recommend this to fans of McCall Smith or those interested in the ability of poetry to wind its way into our hearts and enhance our perceptions of the world we live in.

      1 person found this helpful

    Book preview

    What W. H. Auden Can Do for You - Alexander McCall Smith

    1

    Love Illuminates Again …

    In the early months of 1940, with Europe embarking on what was to prove the greatest conflict of the twentieth century, W. H. Auden, a celebrated—and controversial—English poet who had recently moved to the United States wrote a gravely beautiful poem. It took him some time, as this was no brief ode dashed off in a moment of inspiration—this was over one thousand lines, carefully and studiously constructed. Its title was New Year Letter, and it was addressed to Elizabeth Mayer, a refugee from the depredations of Nazi Germany, a translator, and a close friend. Like many of his works, this poem is conversational in tone but contains within it a complex skein of ideas about humanity and history, about art, civilization, and violence. At the end of the letter, though, there occur lines that are among the most beautiful he wrote. Addressing his friend, he draws attention to what she brings to the world through her therapeutic calling:

    We fall down in the dance, we make

    The old ridiculous mistake,

    But always there are such as you

    Forgiving, helping what we do.

    O every day in sleep and labour

    Our life and death are with our neighbour,

    And love illuminates again

    The city and the lion’s den,

    The world’s great rage, the travel of young men.

    These lines are about the person to whom the poem is addressed but when we read them today could be about Auden himself. He would never compliment himself, of course, but I believe that he is clearly one who is forgiving, who helps what we do, and if there is anything to be learned from his own work, it is precisely this message: that every day in sleep and labor, our life and death are indeed with our neighbor. And yes, in reading his poetry we see love illuminating our world.

    It is this view of Auden’s work that has prompted me to write an entirely personal book about the poet, about the influence he has had on my life, and about what this poet can mean for somebody who comes fresh to his work. I believe that if you read this poet, and think about what he has to say to you, then in a subtle but significant way you will be changed. This happened to me, and it can happen to you.

    This small book does not purport to be a work of criticism. It does not claim to shed new light on a body of work that has already been extensively examined. It is simply an attempt to share an enthusiasm with others who may not have yet discovered, or may not have given much thought to the work of Wystan Hugh Auden, generally known as W. H. Auden, the man whom many consider to be one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. It is not a hagiography—it recognizes that Auden has been taken to task for trying to be too clever, for using words for effect and without real regard to their meaning, and for being juvenile. There are other charges against him: in particular, he was famously criticized by the poet Philip Larkin for turning his back on political and social engagement in favor of the self-indulgent and the frivolous—a criticism that has lingered and is still occasionally encountered.

    Some of these charges—particularly the ones that accuse him of using language for effect—have some basis, but those of frivolity are certainly not justified. It is true that he deliberately turned his back on the leadership role to which English intellectuals had elected him in the years before the Second World War—the Auden age, as some called it—but he by no means sought refuge in private reflection. His later poetry, although not overtly political, was very much concerned with the question of how we are to live and by no means evades profound issues. Of course some of the poems are better than others, and we can all agree that there are some that should never have seen the light of day, but what poet or novelist has not done at least something that is best forgotten? We fall down in the dance.… Some writers have written whole books over which they, and sometimes their readers, would prefer to draw a veil. None of us is perfect, and Auden was a self-critical man who was in many cases his own severest judge, describing some of his poems as meretricious and worthless. Interestingly enough, even poems he rejected have, in the minds of his readers, survived this disowning. He wrote a poem called Spain that he considered dishonest, and yet it is still read—and appreciated—in spite of its exclusion from the official canon. Similarly, September 1, 1939 has survived its author’s judgment that it was a poem that he was ashamed to have written. This raises complex questions about aesthetics and the genuine. If a work of art gives pleasure in spite of the insincerity—at the time—of its maker, then does that detract from its value?

    That question arises only in relation to a small number of Auden’s poems, but it illuminates a larger point about Auden’s work. Auden was a poet who changed. It may seem trite to say that his life was a journey—whose life isn’t?—but in his case we can see his poetry respond to the salient challenges of his times. This is enlightening, not the least for anybody who feels—as many of us perhaps do—that we are living in a time of heightened flux and crisis. How should we respond to the challenges that this provokes? Most of us want to lead a good life—however that is defined. Auden wanted that too, and the solution he found might help us today. But what was it?

    2

    Who Was He?

    Many of us can point, I believe, to a particular artist—whether he or she be an author, a painter, or a musician—and say: This person’s work means a very great deal to me. Sometimes, indeed, we might go further and say: This person has changed my life. Alain de Botton has written a book called How Proust Can Change Your Life, a title that I suspect was devised with at least some tongue in cheek but that speaks, nonetheless, to a very real possibility of personal transformation. The title of this book is in a way lighthearted homage to de Botton’s remarkable book. But something that is lighthearted can be very serious in its intention. I believe that reading the work of W. H. Auden may make a difference to one’s life. Of course we can be changed by reading or listening to something that moves us deeply, that makes us see ourselves or the world in a different light. It may be a poem that has this effect, or it may be the contemplation of a great painting; it may even be the great Proustian novel itself. In any event the work of art we are confronted with unlocks within us the recognition of something that had escaped us before. We are changed because we now understand something that we did not understand before.

    For me, the person who has had this effect is Auden. Who was he? One of his poems begins: A shilling life will give you all the facts. Well, here are the facts, in even less detail than one might expect from a shilling life. Auden was the son of an English doctor. The family tradition was that the name was of Icelandic origin, although this has been the subject of dispute. When you look at a photograph of the poet as a young boy, though, he looks the part—large-boned, with a shock of light-colored hair, and that almost translucent skin that one sees in many Scandinavians. He was born into a comfortable home in which scientific inquisitiveness was always present. He grew to like rocks and

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