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"'The qualities one has learned to value in his poetry are there: control of emotion and language, keen observation, and in particular the very precise expression of half-success, anticipated failure or sadness.' New Statesman; 'Jill is, in a sense, a kind of cryptic literary manifesto. It is a novel about writing, about discovering a literary personality, and about the sorts of consolation that art can provide.' Andrew Motion"
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'It will, I hope, still qualify for the indulgence traditionally extended to juvenilia,' wrote Philip Larkin, almost twenty years after the publication of his first novel. But Jill, with its exact evocation of place - Oxford in 1940 - and astute insight into character, emotions and social nuance, requires no such indulgence. It is a classic of its time, and shows many of the qualities that were later to distinguish Larkin's great, mature poetry.
'Jill is, in a sense, a kind of cryptic manifesto. It is a novel about writing, about discovering a literary personality, and about the sorts of consolation that art can provide.' Andrew Motion
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Although written when he was only 21, this book is a good precursor to the poetry that Larkin is famous for. Beautifully written, sharp, crisp,strangely evocative of a far bygone era. John Kemp, from a middle-class background, is a new student in the world of Oxford where he meets people different and more well off than himself. Struggling to fit in, he invents a school-girl sister named Jill...who becomes more than a figment of his imagination when he encounters Gillian. Lovely read. Highly recommended
Format:Paperback
I remember Philip Larkin as a looming figure, in a literal sense - he was tall, stalking the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull. I was, of course, aware of his poetry but unaware that he had written novels. Discovering 'Jill' was therefore an unexpected pleasure. Larkin, in the foreword to the 1963 reprint of Jill, stated that the novel was in effect an extended short story. Whilst not as rounded a work as some, I think Larkin understated its credentials as a novel. Where Larkin excels is in painting the mood and environs of wartime Oxford and Oxford University in particular. The reader becomes immersed in the physicality of the setting through Larkin's gift for minute observation and description - he distils the essence of the moment. His descriptions of weather are particularly lyrical. His evocation of the awkwardness and apprehension of the youngster from a working class non-university family who finds himself in an alien environment where everyone else seems so very confident in themselves, will evoke sympathetic memories in anyone who experienced the same.
15 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This semi-autobiographical novel of a young, northen man coming up to Oxford displays how easily Philip Larkin, already recognised as a poetic genius, can turn his hand to prose. This beautifuly written book shares with the reader what it was like for a lower-middle class scholar to be immersed in wartime Oxford, with the college bounder as a roommate. Highly recommended.
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