Reading: Speak Its Name

[white_hart]

I bought this because everyone on my DW reading list seemed to be reading it, and the author, Kathleen Jowitt, is a friend of friends and someone I've recently started following (and who I hope to come to know better, as she seems lovely - I'm not sure how I missed making her acquaintance for so long). And because it sounded like something I'd enjoy.

It was indeed something I enjoyed. It's set at a fictional university in the West of England at some point after mobile phones, laptops, email and Facebook became common, but it reminded me very much of my time st university in the Midlands before any of those things were part of the average student's life. The main characters are all members of various student Christian groups, which is an aspect of student life I was never involved in beyond sharing a house with two members of the CU for a couple of terms, but from the sound of things the way student Christian groups work - the meetings, the rivalries, the campaigns and events, the personalities and the relationship with the Students' Union - isn't entirely dissimilar to the way the political and campaigning groups I was involved with worked. Reading the book felt like a very nostalgic experience in a lot of ways; I was vividly reminded of how it felt to be young and away from home for the first time, taking my first steps towards becoming a truly independent, individual adult, of how serious everything felt, how many possibilties life held, how my whole future depended on the choices I made.

The main thing I loved about the book wasn't the nostalgia, though; it was the characters, who are amazingly vivid and lifelike. It's not a long book, and I read it in a few days, but I felt as though Lydia, Colette, Becky, Peter and Georgia were real people who I'd got to know and become friends with, not just characters in a book I was reading. I was utterly involved in the ups and downs of their lives, desperately wanting everything to turn out well for them, delighted at their triumphs and heartbroken by their sorrows. I was sorry to finish the book and have to leave them behind, and I might have to read it again soon just so I can revist them.

Comments

[nineveh_uk]

I'm looking forward to reading it once I get through my most immediate Must Reads!

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

I have just read it, thanks to your recommendation - it was brilliant, I thought, and I, too, was sorry to have finished it. In fact, I am re-reading it straight away (something I normally avoid doing until it has faded from surface memory) as I can't think what to read next!

[white_hart]

I'm glad you enjoyed it! I followed it with a re-read of Persuasion, which worked perfectly, and is also a huge testament to just how good it is.

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

I'm slightly waiting to re-read Persuasion until a book comes out next year (title unknown just know and I can never remember the author's name - Peter Bowman, I think), which is a history of some ancestors of mine, which is really rather similar, and he has been asked to rewrite the book comparing it and contrasting it with Persuasion..... which is fascinating, really, as it's all the same time period. But you do see why I don't want to re-read Persuasion just yet!!

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, what spoke to me was Lydia's journey from that awful condemnatory sort of Evangelicalism which nearly killed me to a real knowledge of God's love. I'm so glad she found that at 21 - I, alas, didn't find it until I was nearly 40.....