Rarely has one of these anniversaries served to restore or establish a reputation for me better than the current Dylan Thomas centenary. I don't think one ever has.
Hilly Janes is the daughter of the painter Alfred Janes who made three portraits of Dylan at different times. She makes a life of the poet from that perspective, with anecdotes and material brought from the relationships between him and the group that also included the composer Dan Jones and the broadcaster Wynford Vaughan Thomas.
It is very readable, certainly not making any more of the darker side of Dylan than needs to be and celebrating his achievement while retaining an awareness of how and why his reputation in several areas wasn't always beyond reproach. It is sympathetic but by no means hagiography.
There was simply never enough money in his lifetime although in a coda that traces the development of the Dylan Thomas industry after his death, there is plenty now and, inevitably, it has to be contested. Dylan's behaviour was beyond incorrigible much of the time but many couldn't help but tolerate him due to an irresistable charm. A few made it clear that they didn't and Kingsley Amis, often incorrigible himself, is one of them and seems to be a strange choice as a trustee of the trust that administers the estate. His first-hand knowledge of the workings of the literary world was his qualification rather than any perceived kindred feeling.
Hilly Janes sets just the right tone in retrieving from the sensationalism and gaucheness of the poet superstar status that Dylan was accorded the right amount of credit for linguistic innovation, deeper meanings and ground-breaking poetry. Of course, he is not an easy poet to appreciate fully but neither is he merely a purveyor of grand-sounding rhetoric. This is a valuable contribution to the subject published at the right, significant time.
Caitlin is as difficult as Dylan- at least- and they are made for each other in a desperate, serially unfaithful and eventually traumatic way. It couldn't have been happy but it must have been magnificent in its best moments.
The book is only perhaps a little bit unsteady in a few places later on in the assessment of Dylan's legacy. I wouldn't dispute that he was a 'game-changer' but it's just a phrase I wish an alternative could have been found for. And John Goodby, professor at Swansea University, is quoted in some detail, as witness to where the poetry now stands,
'A lot of modern poetry is now formulaic and anecdotal, following on from writers like Philip Larkin,' Goodby says. 'It doesn't relish the resources of language, and is rather scared of them. Dylan's poetry is not afraid to sound like poetry
Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves there. We have only just come to realize that some of us misjudged some of what we regarded as Dylan's bombast and immediately we are accusing Larkin of some kind of lexicophobia. I think we can allow that Larkin relished the resources of language but not in quite the same way. His 'ruin-bibber, randy for antique' doesn't sound formulaic to me. Formulae, theory and doctrine are the constituency of a particularly dull strain of avant-garde, still stuck somewhere in the 1960's, who have no idea of Dylan's invention or Larkin's more considered craft and ironies.
But one is not to complain and a misguided opinion can be as interesting as one that nails it.
This is a fine book and does its job beautifully well.