James Harpur entered a boys boarding school in the 1970s and survived to tell the tale. His sequence of poems is a searingly honest and compelling account of his five-year journey, from leaving home for the first time and sleeping in a dormitory in which enemies appear like shadows, to his sadness at his parents separation and the death of a father figure from a bomb.
An introvert in an extraverted world, Harpur took refuge in Homer and the magical world of Troy, and found that school could be a haven, and even fun: a sex education lesson that backfired; a rare sighting of girls at a dance; a scary ride on his brother’s illegal motorbike; a surreal trip to Covent Garden. Powerful, poignant and humorous, The Examined Life re-creates a ‘vale of soul-making’ that, with its tragedy and comedy, heroes and villains, is like a microcosm of life itself.
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