A Girl in Winter [Paperback]

Philip Larkin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 1985

This story of Katherine Lind and Robin Fennel, of winter and summer, of war and peace, of exile and holidays.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This 1947 novel from the late Larkin, who was one of England's most distinguished poets, tells the story of a fateful winter day in the life of a European woman who has fled to England during WW II.

Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

"'A Girl in Winter is a beautifully constructed, funny and profoundly sad book.' Andrew Motion" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Overlook TP (November 15, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879512172
• ISBN-13: 978-0879512170
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,126,930 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Period Piece, November 3, 2001

By 

C. Gombar "christinagombar" (Saunderstown, RI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Girl in Winter (Hardcover)

In the middle of World War II, 22-year old Katherine Lind, a refugee from Europe is frozen in time and tragedy. Her past is gone -- family, friends, college life -- and she is living moment by moment, in a humiliating temporary library job, among the unfriendly aliens, somewhere in England.

Six years before it was summer, and the world was at peace. On a lark, she's decided to take up her British pen pal's invitation to a three week stay in the Oxfordshire countryside. Robin Fennel puzzles and fasicinates her. The middle part of the book takes us back six years, to that idyllic time. Katherine and Robin's relationship does not fit into any standard romantic paradigm. It is all too subtle for that, and I'd love to see this exquisitely written novel turned into one of those wonderfully atmospheric films the British excell at.

Once again, it is good to read a World War II story, free of latter day cliches, and the teary-eyed romanticism typical of its own period. This book is rather more rewarding than Larkin's first effort, Jill, in that the lead character -- he does a wonderful job with a woman, by the way -- is more complex, mature and knowing than the hapless John Kemp of Jill.

There is also a hint towards a happy ending, though the ultimate outcome would depend on both characters surviving the war. A beautiful book and a pleasure.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars this book is on my desert isle list, September 22, 2011

By 

Debra F. Monroe "Debra" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Girl in Winter (Paperback)

This is one of the most exquisitely perfect novels I have ever read. I said so to a friend, a woman, who'd read the infamous Andrew Motion biography of Philip Larkin, and she said: "It must be gruesome on the subject of women." Well, it's told from the point of view of a woman and it's heartbreakingly real, brave, and nuanced. I believed every moment. Its structure is so perfectly rendered, its mood both dark and yet shimmering with light. It's also one of the few books I've read set in England during the war that's willing to depict a sense of desperation and fatalism. So many books set in England during the war were written many years later, with the inevitable airbrushed nostalgia. Not this one. It's a glimpse of a suspended moment in time, the likes of which most of us are lucky to never have experienced. This is one of the best 10 novels I have ever read.