Those I have loved

It is one of Kenneth Tynan’s most-quoted observations. After seeing the first night of Look Back in Anger at the Royal Court Theatre in May 1956, the mustard-keen young critic could not contain his enthusiasm for John Osborne’s play. ‘I could never love anybody,’ he wrote, ‘who did not want to see Look Back in Anger.’ On reflection it says rather more about Tynan’s eagerness to be recognised than about the play’s merits, but the phrase has entered the language.

From this distance Look Back in Anger does not look particularly lovable. It was important, certainly, in the sense that there were English plays before, and after, and they were not the same. Tynan was the first man to spot Osborne’s talent, and wanted others to know it. He loved the idea of the play, what it represented, so we can forgive his enthusiasm. But really it is Tynan’s tribute to himself.

The old show-off had a point, though. There are works of art so rich that one could not easily love anybody who did not love them. Yet they are not always the obvious works. Some masterpieces — King Lear, say, or the Missa Solemnis — compel viewers and listeners to keep their distance. Beethoven, in particular, is self-consciously great, in a way that Mozart and Schubert are not. But there is no point claiming that you could not love anybody who did not love Mozart or Schubert. Everybody loves them, or should. Wagner, in this context, is best avoided.

In literature one may be in awe of The Brothers Karamazov, but one loves Fathers and Sons. Indeed, of all novelists, Turgenev may be the most lovable. One may admire Thomas Mann, but one loves Stefan Zweig. Doktor Faustus is the work of a genius, but a cold genius. Beware of Pity goes straight to the heart.