Recklessly talented and glamorous

In the early stages of The Letters of Seamus Heaney, in 1970, he writes from Berkeley to Michael Longley and asks for a print of George Best to be forwarded to him. Editor Christopher Reed sees fit to note that Best was a 'recklessly talented and glamorous' footballer then at his peak. That is the most captivating phrase in the first 50 pages of the book.

That is not to say that Heaney is not good company. He is apparently made of bonhomie and goodwill as the rest of his life proved him to be but the early letters at least are only those of a good man at the outset of an illustrious career. Nothing at all to find fault with there but other poet's letters reveal more thoroughgoing idiosyncracies than the evidence for the poet's literary beatification.

Ted Hughes was full of horoscopes, superstition, money-making projects and tragedy; Thom Gunn was all promiscuity and dubious characters and three books of Larkin represented the compartmentalisation of his life into unworthy, immature attitudes shared with the likes of Kingsley Amis, some mawkish sentimentality to his mother and the excuses of a part-time lover to Monica. With Heaney we get a well-balanced grown-up, as one should have expected but no inner demons or perceived shortcomings look likely to be revealed which is good for Heaney but might come as a disappointment to some.

We will see, it's early days yet, but deep down we already know Heaney was short on shortcomings.