Jill

It’s the start of the Michaelmas term at Oxford University and eighteen year old John Kemp arrives by train from his northern town. Naive and studious; shy and awkward, he’s the first in his family to go to university; the result of an ambitious English master, supportive parents, and a full scholarship.

After suffering the dilemmas of the train he arrives at his college to find that he’s sharing rooms with a boy called Christopher Warner; a vaguely charming, bullyish rogue, who’s already arrived and filled their rooms with friends who are having tea. The noise, the laughter, the smoking, the girls, everything about his situation is excruciating and I thought I might be in for a raucous comedy of class difference and ribaldry . . .

But no. Larkin has to much sympathy for John, and yes he makes social gaffs like buying a lettuce and some radishes for tea when he eventually invites a girl to his room; transforming ‘afternoon tea’ into a more homely ‘high tea’; but when it all goes wrong and riotous boys come instead, he’s let off with just a question ‘- lettuce, John?’ before they devour the lot. Instead, we get an insight into John’s home, life at the grammar school, the master who decides to mentor a promising pupil and the pride everyone takes in him getting to university.

What amazes John most of all about the new kind of people he meets is their ease. They drink and smoke and swear and go to tea shops and pubs and restaurants and sometimes lectures but no one ever seems to worry. And it’s this ‘ease’ that John wants. Spurning the offers of friendship from another scholarship student he gratefully accepts any tiny invitation Christopher and his cronies extend to him, even though he knows there’s no way in to their set. So he invents a sister, the eponymous Jill. And I worried for him and the humiliation of being found out. . .

I won’t say what happens to the story but what I thought was really interesting was the building of a character from a literary point of view. Jill is 15 and at boarding school, she has friends and hobbies, a whole life to write him letters about, so he buys a diary to keep as ‘Jill’ so that he can form her voice; which I thought was a brilliant idea!

Eventually the term comes to a close and although he’s discovered smoking and drinking he’s still very much John and this is important because some of his behaviour is deplorable. Some is unkind and some a bit creepy, but he’s an eighteen year old boy starting out on his own and even if I didn’t always like him, I felt that I recognised him.