Dear Cyndy,

Thank you for your letter and for introducing Philip Larkin.
I read the poem, and I skimmed an article about him in Wikipedia.
Considering his prominence in contemporary English literature
I should be ashamed that I had never heard of him, - and I am.
I reviewed in the local library catalogue, the list of books of
his that are available. I could easily read more of his work,
but I don't know whether I shall. So far as literature is concerned,
I rediscover somewhat to my embarrassment, that I am on a diet
of which I'm not at all sure that it's healthy; I don't think
Larkin is on it.

I was startled by Larkin's iconoclasm, which I had considered a
16th and 17th century expression of Protestant fervor, but apparently
Moslems also were offended by Christian imagery, and there seems also
to have been much conflict about images in the early Christian church.
Apparently it's never too early, and it's never too late to be an 
iconoclast.  Larkin's objection,of course is not to images as such, 
but to the phenomenon of institutionalized religion. I'm sympathetic 
with his criticism, but not so dismissive. I think there's more to 
the obsolescence of formal religion than is reflected in this poem.

As I wrote to you, I think it was in my last letter, I've completed
the legal work, which I believe to be unassailable. However, experience
has taught me that for the courts, logic and cogent reasoning is only
a facade, which they will abandon and trash, whenever it suits their
purposes. What those purposes might be, I don't know, but I'll find out.

I have started to put the house in order, a task from which I derive
much satisfaction, but it's hard work. The house is large, and in the
course of forty-six years we have accumulated too much, and discarded
too little. The circumstance that Klemens, Laura and the children use
the house for storage in a very extensive and systematic way, makes it
even more difficult to create order. By my standards the relationships
within the family are tenuous, and the advice that one thing or another
should be thrown out, might seem like a personal affront.  It's safer
to find a storage place than to venture on a discussion.

In the context of deciding what to do next, I reviewed all that I have
written this year, including 79 letters to you, an aggregate of 66297
words, corresponding to about 200 printed pages. From the beginning of
the correspondence in 2005, the statistics are: 215 letters, a total of
196797 words, - imagine  - somewhere between 500 and 700 printed pages.
From all this I conclude that the software which lets me extract such
information with so little effort is sophisticated. About the value,
if any, of the letters themselves, I'm sceptical.  I thought I might
proceed both by adding to my novel and concurrently expanding some of the
topics of the letters into more formal essays. There's no lack of work.  

Margaret and I will be expecting you and Elizabeth and Joanna
a week from tomorrow. We will have food, if you'd like to have
something to eat; we will have beds, if you'd like to stay overnight.
Please feel free to come when it's convenient, and feel free to
leave when it's convenient. There's no need for any explanations.
You probably have our telephone number, but I'll give it again:
617-484-8109.

Stay well, have a safe trip, and give my best to Ned. I'm sorry
he won't be coming with you.

Jochen