John Banville on Seamus Heaney in today’s Guardian: ‘Heaney’s commitment to life beyond the study door is unusual for a poet, and all the more admirable for that.’
Beyond my study door lies all manner of life. Cats, usually, their fleas, on a good day, perhaps a stray mouse hitching a lift in Sam the ginger cat’s mouth. I tend to intervene to free the mice, but when I intervene with the fleas it’s usually to exterminate them, so I can’t work out quite how ‘committed’ I am to all this life one way or the other.
