| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in A Girl in Winter for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"'A Girl in Winter is a beautifully constructed, funny and profoundly sad book.' Andrew Motion"
Product Description
Philip Larkin's second novel was first published in 1947. This story of Katherine Lind and Robin Fennel, of winter and summer, of war and peace, of exile and holidays, is memorable for its compassionate precision and for the uncommon and unmistakable distinction of its writing.
'A Girl in Winter is a beautifully constructed, funny and profoundly sad book.' Andrew Motion
'One of the finest and most sustained prose poems in the language.' John Bayley
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The review below is actually for "Jill".
"A Girl In Winter" is Larkin's second and final novel, written whilst he was lonely in Wellington, Shropshire, working as a librarian. THis may account for the somewhat disconsolate feel of the novel; it is beautifully written but somewhat cold, as suggested by the title.
In the book, Katherine is working as a provincial librarian. She takes a colleague to the dentist and discovers a letter when she returns home saying that a man from her past will be visiting. The novel then flashes back, explaining how they met through a penfriend scheme at school, and how she was invited to stay one summer. We follow her visit with the Fennels during the summer, and then return to the present, where Katherine meets the young man, Robin, in rather dispiriting circumstances.
I found this book an exceptional read. Larkin's prose is exceptionally good, considering he write this when 21-22, and is highly sympbolic without being obtrusive. It aspires to being allegorical without losing sight of the plot or the characters, as perhaps Joyce's "Ulysses" does. Most of the plot concerns Katherine's various degree of self-deception, as she seeks to understand Robin, his sister Jane and the Fennel family as a whole. In the final section, Katherine's deceptions come to an end and she becomes, as Larkin was to later say, one of the less received. But this entails a painful recognition of the limitations of the self, and of the ability of others to please you.
I much prefer this novel to "Jill" because it has far richer, subtler prose and is less plainly semi-autobiographical. Larkin describes places with, as you'd exepct, great skill and vividness. "A Girl In Winter" is a real gem, an often-overlooked treasure of a novel.
"A Girl In Winter" is Larkin's second and final novel, written whilst he was lonely in Wellington, Shropshire, working as a librarian. THis may account for the somewhat disconsolate feel of the novel; it is beautifully written but somewhat cold, as suggested by the title.
In the book, Katherine is working as a provincial librarian. She takes a colleague to the dentist and discovers a letter when she returns home saying that a man from her past will be visiting. The novel then flashes back, explaining how they met through a penfriend scheme at school, and how she was invited to stay one summer. We follow her visit with the Fennels during the summer, and then return to the present, where Katherine meets the young man, Robin, in rather dispiriting circumstances.
I found this book an exceptional read. Larkin's prose is exceptionally good, considering he write this when 21-22, and is highly sympbolic without being obtrusive. It aspires to being allegorical without losing sight of the plot or the characters, as perhaps Joyce's "Ulysses" does. Most of the plot concerns Katherine's various degree of self-deception, as she seeks to understand Robin, his sister Jane and the Fennel family as a whole. In the final section, Katherine's deceptions come to an end and she becomes, as Larkin was to later say, one of the less received. But this entails a painful recognition of the limitations of the self, and of the ability of others to please you.
I much prefer this novel to "Jill" because it has far richer, subtler prose and is less plainly semi-autobiographical. Larkin describes places with, as you'd exepct, great skill and vividness. "A Girl In Winter" is a real gem, an often-overlooked treasure of a novel.
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The first thing to say about this novel is the perfected beauty of its descriptions. Larkin himself viewed the novels as long poems of a sort, and these chapters of elegant prose back up that claim. Moreover, with so small an output, the book represents something of a booty to people searching for more of Larkin's effortless writing. Several chapters, made up of a page or so of scene-setting, evoke mediations like 'A slight relax of air' and others. Likewise during the more lengthy chapters there are always a store of lengthy descriptions that evoke place with an assured balance between objective and subjective perception. Remembering that Larkin was still in his early twenties at the time of writing, the stately opening of the novel, detailing a winter landscape, points beyond 'The North Ship' towards his mature poetry.
For this reason, anyone who likes Larkin's poetry - and particularly his lyrical poems such as 'Here' and 'The Trees' - will find plenty to like in here.
However, from a plot point of view lovers of fiction will frown on some of Larkin's mistakes. Even as a Larkin 'fan', there are plenty of errors in the novel that easily explain why the prose hasn't been afforded the same critical attention as the poetry. Despite the frequent brilliance of the writing (the tentative symbolism at the end of the novel is a fine example), there are enough flaws both in character construction and plot to weary or put off an experienced reader. For instance, the division of the plot into three parts rather crudely commands the material: certain episodes, such as Katherine's taking Miss Green to the dentist, take far too long. We also have the introduction of a main character, Anstey, who is presented as a crucial character and then unexpectedly recedes, appearing again only in hearsay. As lyrical poet (this was early Larkin, of course), you sense that Larkin is more concerned with evoking place than his actual characters, and although Katherine Lind is a neatly drawn and interesting centre, all the others are average at best, clichéd and two-dimensional at the worst.
So buy this novel if you like Larkin's poetry, but if you are a reader primarily of fiction, this may frustrate you - a lot. Larkin clearly had a talent for writing in general, but the attention to character at times unconvincing and superficial.
For this reason, anyone who likes Larkin's poetry - and particularly his lyrical poems such as 'Here' and 'The Trees' - will find plenty to like in here.
However, from a plot point of view lovers of fiction will frown on some of Larkin's mistakes. Even as a Larkin 'fan', there are plenty of errors in the novel that easily explain why the prose hasn't been afforded the same critical attention as the poetry. Despite the frequent brilliance of the writing (the tentative symbolism at the end of the novel is a fine example), there are enough flaws both in character construction and plot to weary or put off an experienced reader. For instance, the division of the plot into three parts rather crudely commands the material: certain episodes, such as Katherine's taking Miss Green to the dentist, take far too long. We also have the introduction of a main character, Anstey, who is presented as a crucial character and then unexpectedly recedes, appearing again only in hearsay. As lyrical poet (this was early Larkin, of course), you sense that Larkin is more concerned with evoking place than his actual characters, and although Katherine Lind is a neatly drawn and interesting centre, all the others are average at best, clichéd and two-dimensional at the worst.
So buy this novel if you like Larkin's poetry, but if you are a reader primarily of fiction, this may frustrate you - a lot. Larkin clearly had a talent for writing in general, but the attention to character at times unconvincing and superficial.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In contrast to the well-crafted "Jill", a long-time favourite of mine, Larkin's second and final novel is unsatisfying and inconclusive. The story centres around Katherine Lind, a European girl who stays with an English family in the 1930s and later moves to England, apparently to escape Nazi persecution, becoming a library assistant during the Second World War. The first and third parts of the story cover her life during the war, while the second, longest section describes her stay in England as a schoolgirl, and the strange, claustrophobic relationship between her and Robin and Jane, the two children of her hosts. The atmosphere of the two different periods is well portrayed; the 1930s country household put me in mind of a middle-class Brideshead, while the wartime section is strongly redolent of the austerity and pessimism of Patrick Hamilton's "Slaves of Solitude".
For most of the book, Katherine is emotionally stunted and introverted. The main issue, to use Orwell's test, is whether she "grows" as a character. Towards the end the narrator certainly claims this:
"She knew, now, that in most lives there had to come a break, when the past dropped away and the maturity it had enclosed for so long stood painfully upright".
I remain to be convinced.
I'm glad to have read the book, but I would not be in a hurry to re-read it. After the quality of effort in "Jill", it looks as if Larkin decided that poetry was more his forte, and I have to feel that he made the right decision.
For most of the book, Katherine is emotionally stunted and introverted. The main issue, to use Orwell's test, is whether she "grows" as a character. Towards the end the narrator certainly claims this:
"She knew, now, that in most lives there had to come a break, when the past dropped away and the maturity it had enclosed for so long stood painfully upright".
I remain to be convinced.
I'm glad to have read the book, but I would not be in a hurry to re-read it. After the quality of effort in "Jill", it looks as if Larkin decided that poetry was more his forte, and I have to feel that he made the right decision.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
