What I Was

I wanted to say Jesus, Finn, didn't anyone ever talk to you? But I could imagine that no one had. People around her didn't wait waste words; language was a tool, not a treat. You didn't roll it around on your tongue, revel in it.
I sighed. And yet ... how was it that Finn's silences turned my words into dust? No matter how heartfelt my thoughts, the noises I made when I was with him took on the quality of monkeys jabbering in trees. While his silence had the power to shatter glass.

Above is a passage from What I Was by Meg Rosoff that I sampled yesterday in my teaser but that I wanted to quote in its entirety. In my opinion it demonstrates Rosoff's talent for her writing and her love for language and what often isn't said. What I Was is ultimately a novel about what isn't said, what isn't seen, and what we often want to say but don't.

I read Meg Rosoff's debut Young Adult novel How I Live Now a few years ago and enjoyed it immensely so when I read Nymeth's review last week of What I Was, I requested it from the library and put it to the top of the TMBTLT (too many books too little time - a term stolen from Verity) pile.

I am struck by its resonance and power. It has a twist and one unfortunately that I saw coming (keen eyes and a overactive mind) that changes one's perspective post-reading. It is a book of longing and loneliness and love. I admire how Meg Rosoff addresses her [target] young audience as grown-ups and tackles adult themes that are essentially teenage themes too. I didn't once feel as if I was reading a patronisingly twee book for children or that I was reading "beneath" my own reading abilities; instead I was engaged in an intensely poignant tale for young and old.

I highly recommend this book. It is about the friendship and love between Hilary (the 100 year old narrator who is recalling his youth in the early 1960s) and Finn, the friend he makes when he goes to board at St Oswald's and discovers the hut on the beach where Finn lives alone. Hilary admires Finn and wants to become Finn, or the constructed image that Hilary has in his mind of Finn. The novel is about falling in love with somebody without knowing fully who they are, and whether consequently you are in love with the person or with your perception of the person. Finn represents freedom to Hilary but it is a freedom at a cost.

As a complete aside: I enjoy reading about characters named Finn, as my mum goes by the name Fin and we once had an Irish Setter named Finn (previous owners -friends- were looking for an Irish name and opted for my mum's shortened version.)