A piercing, magical story about?a life-altering friendship
Toward the end of his life, H looks back on the relationship that has shaped and obsessed him for nearly a century. It began many years earlier at St. Oswalds, a dismal boarding school on the coast of England, where the young H came face- to-face with an almost unbearably beautiful boy living by himself at the edge of the sea.
At first, the mysterious Finn appears to have no pasthis home is an ancient fishermans hut with a woodstove, a case of books, striped blankets, and a cat.
H insinuates his way into Finns life, stalking him with perfect patience until an unlikely friendship is kindled; a confused idyll of ?devotion and longing set against a background of blazing wood fires and fishing expeditions.
Their friendship deepens, offering H both the freedom and the human connection that has always eluded him. But in a world of conformity, can one eccentric idyll be ?allowed to survive?
I just read some reviews and will warn you that too many of them will spoil your experience if you read them before the book.
I'm a sucker for nostalgia and this book has it in spades. It's a beautifully written story set in 1960's England. I guess you could consider it a coming-of-age story, but that's a bit too simple.
It just exceeds 200 pages so it's great if you want something to just fill a weekend. The author has been considered a "Young Adults" author until this newest work, and critics are finally saying that her writing is worth a more consideration than that.
Anyway, I would highly recommend the book. Now, I can't wait to go back and read her previous novels.
In 1962 Hilary, the young narrator of this novel is packed off to St Oswald's boarding school for boys by his parents deep within the inhospitable plains of East Anglia. A school that has a reputation as a veritable hotbed of cultural mediocrity and is notorious for its long history and low standards, there's hope that St. Oswald' will somehow attempt to transform Hilary into a useful member of society.
Still haunted by his "last two educational disasters," Hilary does his best to create an environment where he can feel at ease. Jaded by the petty dealings of his fellow classmates, life at St Oswald's is anything but happy with the young boy considering the school nothing more than a cheap merchant of social status, "content to sell an inflated sense of self-worth to middle-class boys who are ultimately of no particular merit."
Hilary hungers for new experiences far from the bleak halls, the glares of authority and the taunts of his roommates. One afternoon, after stopping for a drink of water while running along the coast, Hilary meets the young Finn, a teenage boy who seems content to live a life like Robinson Crusoe. Self-sufficient and contented, Finn makes his living by hauling boxes at the market and he not only has no parents, but lives alone and doesn't go to school. According to the government, Finn doesn't actually exist.
Living in a small, cozy hut by the edge of the beach, with its floors free of sand, its worn cotton rugs and its crammed bookcases, the place is unassuming, comfortable and intimate, proving to be the perfect safe harbor for Hilary. While Finn's spirit is new and soft, the cottage is warmed by decades of use and almost at once, this eccentric reclusive young boy entrances this reject from St. Oswald's: "It's as though I'd fallen down a rabbit hole into some idealized version of This Boy's Life."
Soon enough, Hilary is becoming ever more obsessed with Finn as he attempts to escape both day and night from the daily rituals of St Oswald's, endeavoring to spend time with his new friend, similarly envious of him and also concerned as Hilary stalks him at the local market, everything he knows about Finn eventually coming to him in fragments, tiny shards to number and label and fit together.
Despite the cold, they walk and fish, lie on the beach and stare at sunlit clouds or stars in the night sky, pulling in the traps, and messing about in boats. Life just seems so idyllic and safe from the strictures of school and adult life. All the time, Hilary seems content to just study Finn the way another boy might study history, determined to memorize his vocabulary, his movements, his clothes, and what he says and does, and mostly what he thought. Most of all he wants to see himself through his eyes to define himself in relation to Finn.
This isn't so much sexual attraction, although there is a great love, but its more a type of vicarious living, the sensation of living inside another person's life. Eventually ignoring the ever-harsher glares of authority and the taunts of his roommates, Hilary becomes more of a risk taker, braving the school's curfew to spend even more time with Finn. The accusations however, begin in whispers with Reese and Barrat and Gibbon.
Particularly, Reese with his psychotic tendencies taking him to places he's rather not go and who "lurks and lingers and buzzes around in Hilary's head," with his sticky friendship and sly questions and the barest suggestions that he knows what is going on. Of course, events eventually come to a disastrous and dreaded climax on the sandy shores of East Anglia as a huge storm tears sown the coast and Finn's hut becomes in danger of being swept into the sea. It is here against the roar of wonder of the ocean that memory, imagination, and reality clash with tragic consequences.
This lovely novel is all about friendship and history and how life can change, for better or for worse, though an event, an idea or the influence of another person. Succumbing to emotions so wonderful and terrible, Finn accepts Hilary's love instinctly, without responsibility or conditions; that's what makes him so special. The final revelation, the surprise twist is indeed unexpected, but it doesn't really change Hilary's reaction to the events of that year even as Hilary freaks out when he discovers Finn, sick with a fever and covered with blood in his own bed.
What I Was is a boy's story with a twist, but the book is also a meditation on history and how we can carry the past with us wherever we go. This story is one of many, or many parts of several different stories, along with the lives that come before us with the huts and houses, the remains of animals and clothing, "the messages of the past left in bones."
Finn and Hilary share a childlike delight in the beauty of the natural world and in the simplicities of daily life and they possess an unshakable integrity that ultimately makes possible their appreciation of nature and of each other. The story's emotional credibility is enhanced by the fact they are both different, yet seem to be drawn together forever even as we watch Hilary drive to recreate what has been destroyed and once shattered by storms and by the passage of life itself. Mike Leonard January 08.
This is an interesting story of contrasts. Hilary is in his fourth school, having been thrown out of three before this, the school really doesn't provide for him. When he comes across Finn, a youth who lives alone on a tidal island this changes his life. Finn doesn't go to school but has learnt as much as is possible with the resources available.
As time goes on the friendship deepens but can they keep their friendship a secret and what are the secrets that both are holding in their hearts?
It's a story of friendship, of finding a place in the world and of assumptions. It's heartwarming and interesting and would bear re-reading well.
