A Separate Peace by John Knowles Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of A Separate Peace
Book Review: A Separate Peace
Summary: 3 Stars
When I first read this book back in High School, I can remember how some in my class said they'd rather read something else while I actually enjoyed the work. This book is Knowles's masterpiece. Yes there are times when you'd rather put the book down and watch TV but those moments are few and far between. The characters are well developed, the plot is strenuously executed but in the end you feel better for reading it because you came through this journey into adulthood and friendship with the narrator.
Knowles crafts his story as a flashback to 1942 when War was declared and the boys of Devon School were making the tough choices that would define their lives. And in 1942 this meant either going to College or going into the military and fighting in WWII. This coming of age story is ideal for High School students which is the reason why it is widely required in most School Districts and Parochial School systems because it speaks of the end of innocence and realism of adulthood.
If you are an adult and wish to read or re-read this classic I recommend coming to it not as a schmaltzy read but as a serious work or fiction you'll find yourself connecting with the characters and the situations.
I do not completely recommend this novel but do think it is a good read.
Book Review: A great seller
Summary: 5 Stars
Product is exactly as described, shipping just took a little longer than anticipated. Otherwise a wonderful buying experience!Book Review: Brideshead Revisited again
Summary: 3 Stars
"A Separate Peace" is considered to be an American classic, and I cannot deny the fact that it is extremely well written, but the simple truth remains that I just didn't enjoy it. In fact, it reminded me very much of Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited", another book which I feel more or less the same about.
Both "Brideshead Revisited" and "A Separate Peace" are told from the point of view of a character revisiting a location (Brideshead, in the case of "Brideshead Revisited" and the Devon School, in the case of "A Separate Peace") years after his first visit there and reflecting on his time there; in both cases the main character (Charles in "Brideshead" and Gene in "Peace") had an intense friendship with a unique character (Sebastian/Phinneas) who was "not meant for the real world"; and both books detail the decline of the unique friend, while the more serious protagonist moves on with his life.
Both books begin with several chapters detailing the best parts of the friendship between these characters, and I enjoyed both of these sections immensely. While reading the first 70 pages of "A Separate Peace", I thought this was going to become one of my favourite books of all time. I really wish that Waugh and Knowles had continued these "fun" sections for the entire duration of their books. Unfortunately, in both cases, events transpire to change things (Sebastian's expulsion from Oxford, and Phinneas's accident), and after that, the books are just dreary and depressing. I can understand that both authors had messages to put forward through these depressing scenes, but they are just not the sort of things that I enjoy reading. I won't spoil the ending of either book, but I will say that I found the ending of "A Separate Peace" to be very contrived and after reading it, I just wanted to throw my copy of the book at the wall.
Overall, I give "A Separate Peace" 4 stars for the quality of the writing (minus one star for the convenient ending), but 2 stars for my personal entertainment value. This gives an average rating of 3 stars.
Book Review: Great book!
Summary: 5 Stars
Needed book for required reading for school. Really enjoyed the read. Would recommend for anyone.Book Review: Rereading a novel 20 years later
Summary: 4 Stars
When I first read this book in high school, I "got" some of it, and liked it a great deal. I loved the quote at the end, about imagined Maginaw (did I spell that right?) lines, enemies we imagine, fights that are all in our heads. Wow, high school and even college age is full of these complex relationships. Not like now (haha)...
What I got re-reading this last year was the richness and intricacies of our relationships with key people in our lives. I thought that the question was not did he/didn't he, clearly he did, but are all of these confusing relationships with others so entirely meshed with our own view and relationship with ourselves? I thought the relationship between the boys was as complex, rich, multifaceted, and many-at-once as you could hope for.
I have also noted that at times of political unrest, authors turn to the setting of boarding school as a microcosm of innocence and fraternaty; I can't remember it now, but there was a similarly set book on the best seller list late last year, and many others. I had missed, on first reading, the import of the war as backdrop in A Separate Peace, with war the mover of lives and the ender of innocence. As a separte theme, an interesting one. Care to plot novels set at boarding school against periods of unrest? Me either.
That said, I still really love how the book makes me think about things, and how it so simply paints intricate relationships that we all recognize and experience but could never describe so eloquently as we are shown here.
And, I'm still trying to talk my kids into naming our next pet Phineas.
More A Separate Peace reviews:
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