John Frayn Turner's 'The Life & Selected Works of Rupert Brooke' 2004

 

Pen & Sword Military revised edition - 2004

Ever since, in the Sixth Form in the mid 1960s, I bought a selection of Rupert Brooke's poems in the little The Pocket Poets series produced by Vista Books, I have been fascinated by him.  Over the more recent years, I have purchased several books on Rupert Brooke, and last week I picked this one up cheaply in the Minster Bookshop in York. It makes for an easy read but too often borders on mere hagiography - certainly hero worship - and leaves out important aspects of the poet's life and - more importantly - character. It is the story of a talented, handsome young man who barely put a foot wrong throughout his short life, whereas from other sources we now know (and knew in 2004) that Brooke was a troubled soul, often depressive, tormented even, by his love life.

The author is clearly enamoured with Brooke's looks and character:

He grew in mind and body; developed a natural charm with magnetic manner and features to match...the secret lay in his immense sense of fun...the combined sense of the poem and Brooke's voice moved Dalton deeply as he listened amazed at their imagery and music...although extremely emotional, he was never swamped by sentiment, but could spice it with another mood to give extra point and piquancy by contrast...(he lands in Hawaii) ... several of the Hawaiian girls looked longingly at the strangely beautiful Englishman (and, when he leaves Fiji) ...he was departing - to the sincere sorrow of many of the people there, who had been as usual attracted by his charm. Back in the USA,  someone else fell under the incomparable Brooke personality.

When one reads, but Brooke was human; it would be wrong to depict him otherwise, the reader can surely be allowed a mild, ironic smirk, as that is exactly what the author has been doing.

Turner also rarely criticises the poetry. On Brooke's The Old Vicarage, Grantchester, Turner writes Here, for the first time he perfected that mature marriage of light and lyric; wit and wonder. He ends his book, The vital thing is that although he died so young, Rupert Brooke has left us a living force of poetry, imperishable, inspired.

The author has written 28 books, mostly modern history and aviation. He is an authority on aviation... No harm in that, but it means this book only touches the surface of both the life and work of Brooke. There is minimal analysis of either, but a plain narrative throughout. However, it is very useful to have 63 pages of Brooke's poetry  as a Part Two. By the revised edition of 2004, many of the books below had been published. Turner would have produced a more realistic appraisal of Rupert Brooke, if he had used the material from some of them. The proper title for his book would have been The Selected Life & Selected Works of Rupert Brooke.

As a footnote, it is interesting to record what Charles Hamilton Sorley, in my opinion a better poet (who was killed aged 20 later in 1915), wrote about Brooke.

That last sonnet-sequence of his...I find...overpraised. He is far too obsessed with his own sacrifice, regarding the going to war of himself (and others) as a highly intense, remarkable and sacrificial exploit, whereas it is merely the conduct demanded of him (and others) by the turn of circumstances, where non-compliance with this demand would have made life intolerable...He has clothed his attitude in fine words: but he has taken the sentimental attitude. 

Books in My Collection

1964    Christopher Hassall - Rupert Brooke. A Biography (Faber and Faber)

1967    Michael Hastings -    The Handsomest Young Man in England (Michael Joseph)

1980    John Lehmann - Rupert Brooke. His Life and his Legend (Weidenfeld and Nicolson)

1987    Paul Delaney - The Neo-Pagans: Friendship and Love in the Rupert Brooke Circle (Macmillan)

1991    ed. Pippa Harris - Song of Love. The Letters of Rupert Brooke and Noel Olivier (Bloomsbury)

1997    Mike Read - Forever England. The Life of Rupert Brooke (Mainstream) 

1998    ed. Keith Hale - Friends & Apostles. The Correspondence of Rupert Brooke and James Stracey 1905-1914  (Yale University Press)

1999    Nigel Jones - Rupert Brooke. Life, Death & Myth (Richard Cohen)

2004    John Frayn Turner - The Life & Selected Works of Rupert Brooke (Pen & Sword Military)

2015    Lorna Beckett - The Second I Saw You. The True Love Story of Rupert Brooke and Phyllis Gardner (British Library)

2019    Sarah Watling - Noble Savages. The Olivier Sisters. Four Lives in Seven Fragments (Jonathan Cape)