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INTERVIEWER
You haven’t been to America, have you?
LARKIN
Oh no, I’ve never been to America, nor to anywhere else, for that matter. Does that sound very snubbing? It isn’t meant to. I suppose I’m pretty unadventurous by nature, partly that isn’t the way I earn my living—reading and lecturing and taking classes and so on. I should hate it. And of course I’m so deaf now that I shouldn’t dare. Someone would say, What about Ashbery, and I’d say, I’d prefer strawberry, that kind of thing. I suppose everyone has his own dream of America. A writer once said to me, If you ever go to America, go either to the East Coast or the West Coast: the rest is a desert full of bigots. That’s what I think I’d like: where if you help a girl trim the Christmas tree you’re regarded as engaged, and her brothers start oiling their shotguns if you don’t call on the minister. A version of pastoral.
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