Episode 271: The Literary Life of Peter Hitchens

On The Literary Life Podcast today we bring you a special “Literary Life of…” episode featuring author and journalist Peter Hitchens. After sharing their commonplace quotes, Angelina and Thomas dive into the interview with Mr. Hitchens, first asking about his memories of books and reading in his childhood. They also talk about how he came to read The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and The Chronicles of Narnia and some of his thoughts on both. In this wide-ranging conversation, our hosts and Mr. Hitchens discuss such topics as the George Orwell’s lesser known works, the Spanish Civil War and the Balkan Wars, oft overlooked 20th Century authors, ghost stories, losing our literary tradition, and so much more!

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Literary Life Patreon Member Marcina created a Google Doc with titles and authors mentioned in this episode that you can access here, or you can scroll down for Amazon links to everything.

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Commonplace Quotes:

We require in literature both the authority of tradition and the liberty of genius to seek new conquests. Unfortunately we cannot agree as to the proportions in which each of them is required.

Robert Lynd, from The Art of Letters

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

William Butler Yeates, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern Enghsh, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.
George Orwell, from “Politics and the English Language“

Terence, This is Stupid Stuff

by A. E. Housman

TERENCE, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make, 
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, ’tis our turn now.
To hear such tunes as killed the cow!
Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad!
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad!

Why, if 'tis dancing you would be,
There's brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world's not.
And faith, 'tis pleasant till 'tis past:
The mischief is that 'twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried half way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.

Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,
I'd face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
'Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour,
The better for the embittered hour;
It should do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul's stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.

There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all the springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white's their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
--I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.

Book List:

Amazon affiliate links included below

The Abolition of Britain by Peter Hitchens

A Brief History of Crime by Peter Hitchens

The Rage Against God by Peter Hitchens

The Phony Victory by Peter Hitchens

Short Breaks in Mordor by Peter Hitchens

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren

Animal Farm by George Orwell

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

1984 by George Orwell

Coming Up for Air by George Orwell

A Clergyman’s Daughter by George Orwell

Inside the Whale and Other Essays by George Orwell

Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

The Fortunes of War: The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning

The Fortunes of War: The Levant Trilogy by Olivia Manning

Butterfield 8 by John O’Hara

Turn North Frederick by John O’Hara

Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk

The Winds of War by Herman Wouk

The War of Remembrance by Herman Wouk

The Cathedral by Hugh Walpole

The Killer and the Slain by Hugh Walpole

Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham

The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

Strangers and Brothers Sequence by C. P. Snow

The Daughter of Time for Josephine Tey

The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Micah Clark by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Martin’s Close by M. R. James

M. R. James

Graham Greene

The Green Man by Kingsley Amis

Girl, 20 by Kingsley Amis

Russian Hide-and-Seek by Kingsley Amis

Dear Illusion: Collected Stories by Kingsley Amis

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