Jill

I've just finished reading Jill, by Philip Larkin. It's set at Oxford University during the second world war, from the perspective of a crushingly socially-awkward boy on a scholarship, who shares a room with the big-man-on-campus.

I bought it because I've always liked Larkin's poetry, and because the blurb on the back said that it "is now regarded by many critics as a classic of its kind." I really enjoyed it. It's very readable, and there's a quietness about it, as well as a sense of something ominous looming just outside the frame. The characters are very finely drawn, and the language emotive, as you would expect from such a wonderful poet. He wrote it when he was 21.