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John Betjeman

RockyRogerRockyRoger Shipmate
in Heaven
There have been a few JB related programmes on the BBC recently to mark (I think) 120 years since JB's birth. Stimulated by these, I've been reading a detailed biography and some of his poetry.
I was very intersted why JB and CS Lewis (his tutor at Oxford) didn't get on at all and JB detested Lewis for the rest of his (JB's that is) life. This I can understand. But was Lewis right about JB wasting his talents? I'm trying and failing to like JB as a person, and can't decide whether his poetry, though much loved by most, but so derided by others, is actually awful.
So I'm ambivalent about him, great TV communicator and amous Anglican though he was (and now (hopefully) in Glory).
How do other shipmates rate JB? Was he not really 'real' and always putting on an act? And then there's thewretched teddy bear ....
Help!

Comments

  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    I know who I'd rather read.
  • Gamma GamalielGamma Gamaliel Shipmate
    I'm not a big Betjeman fan but occasionally he hits the spot.

    I wouldn't 'deride' him but neither would I laud him.

    I admire his work on conservation - saving St Pancras station for instance and enjoyed visiting some of the churches he loved in Cornwall.

    Tell it not in Gath, I'm not an enormous Lewis fan either but again I wouldn't 'knock' him.

    Both of them hit the nail on the head at times but other times were well wide of the mark. A bit like all of us.

    I'd wish neither Betjeman or Lewis any harm. I read both from time to time.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    edited September 1
    Betjeman was less cosy than usually regarded. I identify with the speaker of Sun and Fun, since I think I too will end up 'old and ill and terrified and tight'.

    'The firm's Cortina' pins this poem to a particular period, but the satire is still relevant.

    What I like about Betjeman - and possibly Lewis didn't - is that he makes poetry out of the mundane, the shallow, the unromantic. Not a high elf in sight.
  • Jane RJane R Shipmate
    Lewis wasn't really into high elves either. Tolkien (and I know this is heresy) critiqued the first draft of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on the grounds that it was an illogical mishmash of different mythologies. Which, as an adult, I think is fair comment.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    FWIW, Tolkien was right...

    Betjeman's film about the old Somerset & Dorset Railway's original main line - Burnham to Highbridge and Evercreech Junction - is worth watching:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2NZU3S-0iM
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    Jane R wrote: »
    Lewis wasn't really into high elves either. Tolkien (and I know this is heresy) critiqued the first draft of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on the grounds that it was an illogical mishmash of different mythologies. Which, as an adult, I think is fair comment.

    It is fair comment, but it's not like Lewis didn't know that - he was as much an expert as Tolkien. Tolkien was, to my eyes, a perfectionist and a world builder. Lewis was a storyteller. And I love them both.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    I think Tolkien is the better storyteller, but you're right that Lewis is up to something different from Tolkien.

    Betjeman's Westminster Abbey is a great poem in its way.
  • Baptist TrainfanBaptist Trainfan Shipmate
    This article may shed some light on the Betjeman/Lewis feud: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/14/cs-lewis-john-betjeman-oxford-feud

    I think too that their backgrounds were so different: Lewis from, by all accounts, a pretty dour Belfast childhood, Betjeman the son of a north London business- and craftsman. We know too that Betjeman, social climber and would-be aesthete, despised "hearties" and may have regarded Lewis as one of that ilk. Lewis, too, had served (and was wounded) in the First World War trenches while the younger Betjeman had not.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    I can't claim to have done the research to support what is basically a gut feeling. But I can very well imagine what a man like Lewis might feel, attempting to teach a student who kept showing up unprepared and appearing not to find that a situation that needed amendment. I gather that there'd not be a great deal for Lewis to do during their sessions if Betjeman came in without an essay prepared?

    To have him later ask for support in a bid for an honors degree--well, I'm not surprised Lewis said no.

    Betjeman clearly had talents. To some teachers, the student with gifts who refuses to use them is much more frustrating than the one with little or nothing who nevertheless is trying his/her best.
  • Baptist TrainfanBaptist Trainfan Shipmate
    I had a somewhat unconventional English teacher at school. One student, in his end-of-term report, was rightly given an A for the quality of his work, but a U for his effort.

    (To explain, effort was graded Good, Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory. Plus or minus signs could be added at the teacher's discretion).

  • LatchKeyKidLatchKeyKid Shipmate
    I like JB's poetry.
    Some of that is because some poems are about the Harrow region where I grew up.

    I have three of the four albums of his poetry set to music. I think they came out in the 60s.
  • sionisaissionisais Shipmate
    Baptist Trainfan wrote: »
    I had a somewhat unconventional English teacher at school. One student, in his end-of-term report, was rightly given an A for the quality of his work, but a U for his effort.

    (To explain, effort was graded Good, Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory. Plus or minus signs could be added at the teacher's discretion).

    I had a history teacher like that. He graded me an A on internal exams but I did very little prep and homework so I had a “does no work!” remark added.
    In the subsequent O level exam, I got grade A. I really was an appallingly lazy student.

  • ChastMastrChastMastr Shipmate
    I love both Lewis and Tolkien, and I think Narnia is fine as it is, having centaurs and dwarves and Father Christmas and more. <3
    KarlLB wrote: »
    I know who I'd rather read.

    I literally don't know which one you mean here.

    Aw, the teddy bear has his own Wikipedia page. <3

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Ormsby-Gore
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    sionisais wrote: »
    Baptist Trainfan wrote: »
    I had a somewhat unconventional English teacher at school. One student, in his end-of-term report, was rightly given an A for the quality of his work, but a U for his effort.

    (To explain, effort was graded Good, Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory. Plus or minus signs could be added at the teacher's discretion).

    I had a history teacher like that. He graded me an A on internal exams but I did very little prep and homework so I had a “does no work!” remark added.
    In the subsequent O level exam, I got grade A. I really was an appallingly lazy student.

    What is wrong with being efficient ?
  • TurquoiseTasticTurquoiseTastic Kerygmania Host
    edited 6:13AM
    There is a little nugget early in "Surprised by Joy" where Lewis is discussing the childhood "Boxen" stories he made up in conjunction with his brother. He mentions a rebellious young bear who is always trying to resist the machinations of the powers-that-be ("Lord Big", maybe a frog if I remember rightly). He says (obviously looking backwards from a 1955 viewpoint) that to get an idea of the bear's character you should imagine John Betjeman. So that makes me think that he may not really have disliked Betjeman that much.
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