A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Se que es un clásico de la literatura norteamericana, y un life changer of a book, pero al menos no lo fue para mi.
En general me agradó la novela como la posible metáfora que el autor quiere dar a entender, pero no es mi fav.

Two boys in a boarding school growing up together despite their differences

What can I say, this book is simple phenomenal and heartbreaking at the same time. I read this book in high school, had an amazing teacher (thank you Mr. Alfasso!) who broke it down for us and challenged us to think more deeply about it. Reading it years later and the thoughts and feelings came rushing back. A well written story with excellent characters and a deep look into the minds of young boys and human nature. This book remains a favorite of mines and will hold a special place in my heart. I can’t wait to re-read it. A masterful piece of literature.

I put down the book yesterday and cannot stop thinking about A Separate Peace. I find the book worth a write up and gosh it is so well-written that I may make it a re-read.

First, I’m middle class. I’m middle-aged and white woman. I’ve never lived at a prep school. Therefore, the setting was intriguing. I’m discovering that I’m very interested in WWII, so the time period was fascinating. Those two elements would of hooked me anyway, but the story of a friendship gone awry in one boy’s mind and the other boy oblivious (although he lived with the quiet introvert) to tensions. That they are 16 years old and given to peer pressure is a given, but there is nothing raw and dirty. Snowball fights, Blitzball games, Olympics. Who led the way? The oblivious friend, Finny.

This is almost a total ode to Finny and his way of looking at the world. Finny was an athletic charmer and he charmed students, faculty with his incessant talking in such round-a-bout ways that even when he is off-topic he comes back to the original thought and ever so Finny way. You cannot help but like him.

Finny is impulsive and brave. The senior class use a tree to jump off into the river. Finny and his roommate go along with other boys. Finny bravely jumps off into the deep part of the river. This sums up Finny. He asks others to do, but he’ll do it himself, first. The branch is high off the ground and has lots of land under it. You have to leap into the river or come to serious harm.

While that is said there is another story. Young men going to war. They are a year away from enlistment and the US is at fever pitch. War preparation: materials, young men in senior class is pressed into this book. Shoved. Contaminates peace of mind. The boys know they have a little over a year to face possible death at the hands of two possible enemies. As the book comes to a close you read about how they work to stay out of the front lines. They do not want death. Life.

Therefore, Finny constructs his world in NOW and the narrator, roommate, always joins in. Always. The storyteller walked in good shoes threw slush and mud to find the tree. He was forced out of his shell around Finny and even 15 years later Finny goads him to be not careful. His over concentration on Finny’s character is what led to the book to be penned. He had to come gripes with the fact that Finny had no malice while he himself held malice toward Finny. He shook the branch that Finny stood on because he hate Finny and did not trust him. He has to live with ending Finny’s athletic career and later life. After he does this disputable thing he tries once to tell his roommate that he shook the tree limb on purpose, but Finny cannot believe this.

War presses on and comes close. Finally, its their senior year and Finny is still roommates with the boy telling the story. He’s still oblivious to the cruel nature of man, but the storyteller cannot live with himself. And, then Finny creates this grand story about the wars being fake run by rich men all-the-while Finny is applying for places in the forces which turn him down due to his shattered leg. A neighbor boy, Brinker, brings both of them to the auditorium and questions both of them about the incident that left Finny crippled. Other have questions about how someone so good at sport could lose his balance on the limb.

War is dripping. Enlistments are told and flashes of the war are told. So, at the time of questioning war is also the time of questioning how Finny got hurt. John Knowles just intertwines these threads tightly. A vice grip comes to head and Finny curses the puppet court and walks out, but falls.

The boys talk honestly and then you find out Finny died while the leg was being set. Bone marrow clotting.

Devastating. I knew the end was close. I had a few pages, but I miss Finny. His lightness and his inability to hold malice.

You know darkness can be illuminated and I think the narrator of this story is so dark and cold, but with Finny’s closeness he seems less remote and less human.

Worth a re-read.

One of the best books I’ve read in awhile 😀

I remember reading this book in high school and I really liked it and found it moving and poignant. I decided to try it again about 20 years later and it holds up pretty well. I can appreciate and even agree with some of the points in the negative reviews, which is why I didn’t give a full five stars. The language and setting are a bit elitist, and though it is a short novel some of the language is a bit flowery for my taste and could be more concise. Many reviews defend the novel as a character study, but all of the characters are pretty one dimensional. My interpretation is that the “character” under study in this novel is the human race, and each character shows an aspect of humanity. The fact that all of these characters are privileged white teenagers at an elite boarding school is just the setting Knowles was able to use to flesh out his idea.

Some spoilers ahead – Phineas and Gene are the main characters. Phineas is pure of heart and optimistic, charismatic, fearless, and genuine with a natural athleticism. Gene is competitive, bookish, reserved and not very trusting of others. He is also fairly athletic, and the two boys at least physically resemble each other. Both boys assume that they are similar to each other mentally as well. At one point, Gene suspects Phineas of trying to distract him from studies so he will do better than Gene at school. Eventually, Gene is able to glimpse the true character of Phineas, and feels an uncontrollable jealousy and resentment that he can never be as good as Phineas, because they are fundamentally different. Gene’s dark side of his nature overcomes him at a critical point and he does something that hurts Phineas forever in a moment of losing self-control.

The rest of the book is basically Gene trying to come to grips with what he has done and trying to make it up to Phineas and to live with himself. Phineas cannot really comprehend that Gene tried to hurt him, and is in denial until the end of the book. At that time, he amazingly is able to comprehend Gene’s complicated feelings and motivations and there is forgiveness. The backdrop to the story is the country heavily involved in WWII and the inevitability of these boys being drafted or having to enlist the following year. The symbolism is rife throughout the novel. The school sits on two rivers, one clean and clear and the other salty and fetid (symbolizing Phineas and Gene). There is summer vs winter, youth vs old age. A tree over the clear river is where the innocence of boyhood is lost (like the tree of life). The story of Phineas and Gene has some parallels to Cain and Abel in the bible. The struggles of the boys mirror the struggles of the world as it fights in a war against itself.

There is also very insightful psychological observations. We see Phineas and Gene mostly act based on misconceptions in their own minds about each other. At one point they come up with a make-believe world in which the war is not real and Gene trains every day for Olympics that will never happen. Though aware it is madeup, they both get pretty lost in this fictional idea and at times it is more real than reality. This is taken further with a character named Leper (a horrible name), who is sensitive and into nature, and somewhat cowardly. He enlists in the army and is later given a section 8 dismissal. Leper sees things that are not real, but are not much crazier and are somewhat less damaging than the misconceptions and make-believe that Gene and Phineas use just to cope with their own lives. In the end, reality comes to everyone though and no one is allowed to escape from it forever. Really a good book and deserving of its classic status.