Contrary to the idea we may already have of Philip Larkin, as the grumpy reclusive poet-librarian, this novel was written by a 21-year-old Larkin as a student at Oxford University, which is likewise the setting of Jill, his first published novel. Originally, Jill was published by Fortune Press, a publishing house which then specialised in producing gay erotic fiction, But disappointingly this is not the long lost homoerotic fiction of Philip Larkin; that would have made for an even better BBOC.
Jill is the story of an Oxford fresher during the first year of World War II, offering the reader a rich account of academia in wartime Britain. The novel follows John Kemp’s obsession with his fictitious sister named Jill and also his relationship with his roommate Christopher.
In an attempt to convince Christopher his life is interesting, John counterfeits letters from his fake sister and leaves them around their room. This obsession is then transferred to a girl in her mid-teens that happens to look a bit like his imaginings of her.
Larkin’s protagonist depicts the true spirit of the British nation: embarrassment and confusion. John Kemp is awkward, sometimes to a humorous effect, and sometimes he comes off as just plain weird.
His first arrival at University and first interactions with his peers, invites us to a situation all too familiar for some students today, a scene of sitting dazed and confused, clutching cups of tea. But whatever happens, we can be comforted by the fact that you didn’t make such a mess of things as our protagonist here (providing you didn’t start your year by stalking young girls).
Worryingly, although some of the actions of John Kemp make him seem something of a psychopath, he remains an endearing character. His constant obsessions about his fictitious younger sister and the stalking of a girl in her mid-teens are all pretty strange, but it’s really a story of an outsider struggling to find his own identity at University.
Jill invites its readers into a familiar life of a famous student town of cyclists and coffee shops. For all of John’s myriad oddities he is a character with sympathetic traits. In picking up this book the reader will be taken into the odd world of John Kemp and follow him through the friendships and challenges of his new life. Failing that, it is one for the Oxford reject to read and whimsically dream about what could have been.