Julian Gough - Juno & Juliet (three)
After I first read Juno & Juliet in 2002 I went out and bought 13 copies of it and gave to all my friends for Christmas. It was the single greatest and most enjoyable novel I had ever read, an experience that was fuelled by my falling in love with Ireland and passing through Galway the preceding spring. Reading J&J took me back to this beautiful country, to good times spent and the sense of freedom experienced by the narrator echoed my the memory of my own.
Partly to do some lighter reading and partly because a friend recently reacted with less than complete enthusiasm to the book I decided to reread it last week. I had a nagging fear that my love for the book had not been fuelled by circumstance, but rather conjured by it. Critically I furrowed my brow and tried my best to dislike the text, to set myself above it and ridicule the ludicrous events and situations. I failed miserably.
The tale of the twin sisters arriving as first-year students to Galway, to a stage where life is a carousel of new freedoms and new duties, populated by a cast of unexpected people with undisclosed agendas, was a terribly enjoyable experience even as a reread. I do not deny however that my appreciation is inextricably to my persona, and that the main character Juliet is caught in the emotional currents of life, pulled down at times, in just the way I have myself been. Many will recognise themselves also in the student life, not only in the hunger for experience and the intoxicated dance, but in the weight of exams, the push of papers and the pull of economic difficulties. The novel is in a way trivial and carefree, but not for someone who is caught in the middle of it. Junos relationship between her and her sister will be familiar to anyone who has struggled with the strange weight of adolescent existence while close ones seem to float, weightless, on top of it, freely enjoying the scenery. Slowly Juno grows out of her heart and into her body, with its limitations, imperfections and fluids, through which we all in the end must live out our lives. For it is through this vessel we can experience the world and staying stuck inside would give you a lonely ride.
Julian writes with such mischievous joy and I absolutely love the language he uses, an intensely poetic prose in which he reinvents old metaphors as easily as he paints fresh new ones. Like a mad cook, mixing the new with the old and maintaining simplicity and flavour. Mixed in between the almost painful beauty is mixed a generous portion of humour, like life at its best. The book describes love – no, more than love, living – with a truer voice than any I can say I have read. Words like pearls on a string, passing with the grace of sand in a time glass, make the book a very easy and light reading experience.
Warmly recommended.
Partly to do some lighter reading and partly because a friend recently reacted with less than complete enthusiasm to the book I decided to reread it last week. I had a nagging fear that my love for the book had not been fuelled by circumstance, but rather conjured by it. Critically I furrowed my brow and tried my best to dislike the text, to set myself above it and ridicule the ludicrous events and situations. I failed miserably.
The tale of the twin sisters arriving as first-year students to Galway, to a stage where life is a carousel of new freedoms and new duties, populated by a cast of unexpected people with undisclosed agendas, was a terribly enjoyable experience even as a reread. I do not deny however that my appreciation is inextricably to my persona, and that the main character Juliet is caught in the emotional currents of life, pulled down at times, in just the way I have myself been. Many will recognise themselves also in the student life, not only in the hunger for experience and the intoxicated dance, but in the weight of exams, the push of papers and the pull of economic difficulties. The novel is in a way trivial and carefree, but not for someone who is caught in the middle of it. Junos relationship between her and her sister will be familiar to anyone who has struggled with the strange weight of adolescent existence while close ones seem to float, weightless, on top of it, freely enjoying the scenery. Slowly Juno grows out of her heart and into her body, with its limitations, imperfections and fluids, through which we all in the end must live out our lives. For it is through this vessel we can experience the world and staying stuck inside would give you a lonely ride.
Julian writes with such mischievous joy and I absolutely love the language he uses, an intensely poetic prose in which he reinvents old metaphors as easily as he paints fresh new ones. Like a mad cook, mixing the new with the old and maintaining simplicity and flavour. Mixed in between the almost painful beauty is mixed a generous portion of humour, like life at its best. The book describes love – no, more than love, living – with a truer voice than any I can say I have read. Words like pearls on a string, passing with the grace of sand in a time glass, make the book a very easy and light reading experience.
Warmly recommended.
posted by PerOskar at 9:18 AM
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