(24)ĭon’t you want to run to English class right now? Back to the point: The chemistry between Gene (uptight) and Finny (freewheeling) is natural and easy to understand. We were careless and wild, and I suppose we could be thought of as a sign of the life the war was being fought to preserve. Trick knees and punctured eardrums were minor complaints and not yet disabilities which would separate a few from the fate of the rest. In fact, here’s one on innocence right up front: Happily, there is a lot of direct commentary on the war at the end pulling quotes for a paper is easy. What this means to any student: “you have to write ANOTHER paper on the loss of innocence”. The line at the end of the summary: “what happens…like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys” would have prompted a sigh and eye-roll. When I read this in high school, I focused on the school aspect, on the bonds and bickering that brought Gene and Finny together. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. (Will put this theory to the test when I read Catcher in the Rye in a few weeks.)įrom the back cover: Set at a boys’ boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence.
Like The Great Gatsby, John Knowles’ A Separate Peace was wasted on me in high school.
You’re reading good stuff, even if you won’t realize it for another decade.
For those high school students who hit up my blog to “research” their papers: knock it off.
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