dublinka

I've been thoroughly enjoying family business, a volume of letters between Allen and Louis Ginsberg. It's a fascinating insight into the minds of the two poets, and anybody who's into one or other Ginsberg will certainly love it. But even if you dislike the Ginsberg phenomenon, the level on which you'll probably enjoy this most, is watching the seemingly ineluctable, emergence from the letters of Louis, of that well intentioned, but ultimately nagging and hectoring, paternal instinct which haunts so many fathers. In a state of obliviousness, even while discussing poetry, this father seems almost pathologically unable to stop himself from giving unsolicited advice on matters which are clearly, for want of a better phrase, not part of his remit. Allen, for his part, returns the complement, in his own way, by playing the financially martyred college student/son, and doubtless would have sent his washing home by letter if he could have. Elsewhere the correspondence is about life, politics and poetry, and the divide between two polarised generations; but every son will recognise his father here, and every father his son. This is made all the more curious, because you might expect that two highly erudite poets would be able to transcend this quasi instinctual relationship. But not so. As such it's probably the most insightful father-son book in existence.