A Study of Reading Habits - Larkin

A Study of Reading Habits is a poem to do with the different stages of ageing. From within the first stanza we are able to see that books helped the persona to escape bullies through the quote 'Cured most things short of school', it's as if the persona was living his life through books during his childhood. 'To know I could still keep cool' suggests that the persona immersed himself so much in these books that he imagined he is a character from within these books. The tragic thing is that he only read books just to escape the bullies. 'dirty dogs' is used within this stanza as a metaphor for these bullies.

The second stanza of this poem conveys the persona entering his teenage years. 'Me and my coat and fangs' conveys a vampire kind of novel, so we get this sense that the persona is growing up, however he is still fairly young. The last part of this stanza conveys he is ageing into his later teens when he starts to read more romantic novels. This is represented through the quote 'The women I clubbed with sex! I broke them up like meringues'. This acts as light hearted imagery, however this books symbolise the persona ageing. Larkin is conveying the view that our interests in life differ over time and are never always the same.

The last stanza of this poem again reinforces a dull nature to life itself. Larkin is representing the view that the characters we relate ourselves to in novels convey what we are like ourselves in life. The books are the same in this stanza, but now he is older he has different interpretations of these books. The poem ends with the persona commenting that 'books are a load of crap'. This is quite demotic and colloquial in its use of language. The persona doesn't like books anymore because he has come to realise that he relates himself more now to the coward. Books have made him realise that he is actually a coward himself in life and he isn't at all like the heroes you get. It's as if books used to be his friends when he was a child, as he gives them human characteristics such as 'The women'. However when he is older they seem to be the complete opposite, now they are his enemy. This poem has major themes of life, disappointment, ageing and loneliness.