[ZNB]≡ Libro Gratis A Separate Peace John Knowles 9780553280418 Books

A Separate Peace John Knowles 9780553280418 Books

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A Separate Peace John Knowles 9780553280418 Books

In high school, we read "A Separate Peace". Lo, these many years later, it called to me to re-read it. The characters are so beautifully fleshed out. The storyline is perfection. The words flow like the water in the Colorado River. It truly is a novel worth reading and re-reading. It has haunted me these many years because it is profound in message.


Tags : A Separate Peace [John Knowles] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Gene was a lonely, introverted intellectual.  Phineas was a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete.  What happened between them at school one summer  during the early years of World War II is the  subject of A Separate Peace</i>. A  great bestseller for over thirty years--one of the  most starkly moving parables ever written of the  dark forces that brood over the tortured world of  adolescence.,John Knowles,A Separate Peace,Bantam,0553280414,War & Military,Classic fiction,Classics,FICTION Classics,FICTION War & Military,Fiction,Fiction General,Fiction-Classics,Literature - Classics Criticism,LiteratureClassics,Literature: Classics,Literature: Texts,MASS MARKET

A Separate Peace John Knowles 9780553280418 Books Reviews

A Separate Peace belongs to that small group of books that I first read as an adolescent/teenager, that made a deep impact on me, and which have remained favorites that I re-read every few years. I discovered this book totally on my own -- it was never required reading in any of my school classes - and so thankfully I never noticed a Cain/Abel parallel or any homoerotic themes. In fact, I never knew of such assertioins of this book until reading some of the reviews here. Such themes would have completely spoiled the book for me. Instead, I read it -- and still read it - as simply a story about a young man struggling with the love/hate, loyalty/jealousy facets of his relationship with his best friend.

Although A Separate Peace is anything but simple. It is a short but scintillating book, flawlessly written. Every word is perfectly placed, nothing superfluous. Every time I read it (or hear it, as nowadays I listen to an audio version) I am amazed anew at Knowles' ability to craft such a powerful story. I become Gene, and I squirm as my ugliest human traits are revealed. Listening to (or reading) A Separate Peace is like having a scab brutally ripped off, revealing the bloody wound beneath.

This is a truly unforgettable story that has a power few books achieve.
A Separate Peace by John Knowles

The book is set in New Hampshire at The Devon Boarding School. The book is narrated from Gene's Forrester's first person point of view. It opens in 1959 as Gene comes to visit Devon School and reminisces at the tree where he and Phineas started The Suicide Society of The Summer Session.

The story immediately flashbacks to the summer of 1942. Phineas (Finny) and Gene are roommates and best friends. Finny is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Because opposites attract they form a very strong bond. Finny comes up with the idea of jumping from a huge tree in the school property into the river. Even though they were surrounded by classmates, only Finny and Gene jump, thus sealing their friendship with The Suicide Society of The Summer Session.

As they return to their senior year, Genes resents Finny's adventures and sees them as a threat to his academic excellence. When Elwin (Leper) Lepellier decides to join their club, Gene was studying for a test. Forced to go and jump with their new member, Gene decides to make Finny fall off the tree by jouncing the limb Finny was using to jump. Finny falls and breaks up his leg; all of his athletic abilities are curtailed.

Gene tries to confess to Finny, but it is to no avail. Finny is in denial and more determined to be Gene's closest friend. Finny trains Gene to be an athlete in the fictitious 1944 Olympics and Gene helps Finny with his studies.

But Leper had witnesses Gene's act of treason toward Finny and he decides to join the army. Unfortunately, Leper can't take it and cracks up. He's discharged under the Section Eight army rules.

When Leper returns to Devon, his classmates decide to hold at trial against Gene. This time Finny is really hurt. As he runs out of the assembly, he breaks his leg again.

When the school doctor tries to set the leg, Finny just dies.

Written in 1959, this books is not only a war novel, but also a classic coming of age piece. Using the metaphor of the friendship between two boys, we see how war can damage human beings. Just like training camp ruined Leper, envy and rancor ruins the friendship between Gene and Phineas. "...whenever you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love." (Gene p. 111)

"An operating room is a place where the risks are just more formal than in other places. An operating room and a war." (Dr. Stanpole p. 193)

"Why did it have to happen to you boys so soon, here at Devon?" (Dr. Stanpole p. 194)

Gene does enlists in the Navy, but "I never killed anybody and I never developed an intense level of hatred for the enemy. Because my war ended before i was ever put on an uniform; I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there." (p. 204)

"Your war memories will be with you forever, you'll be asked about them a thousand times after the war is over." (Mr. Healy p. 199) Nicely said!
I had never heard of this novel until The Great American Read listed it as one of the top 100 best loved books. The subject matter intrigued me; however, I was disappointed. Finney, the great all American athlete/student fell from tree. Did Gene, his intellectual best friend cause the accident? Neither are sure, and the book doesn't go anywhere. Both are students in a private upscale eastern school and facing the war in Europe following their graduation. There are many 'forks in the road' the book can follow, but no. John Knowles writes well; however, I was disappointed. A friendship that could end with accusations, or feelings of guilt, dissolves! End of story.
Long before the term 'bromance' gained its cachet, long before Middle School depictions of 'mean girls' and female rivalries, Fowles' Separate Peace concerns the relationship between two boys in a privileged prep school before the beginning of WWII, when all would be changed forever. The two roommates are opposites to one another and the best of friends, until a series of tragic events changes each of them. It is a rare book that addresses how two young boys can become both rivals and intimate friends, all the while being educated into a competitive world where men learn to become wary of each other.
Finny and Gene are roommates and best friends, yet sports come more easily to Finny than academics come to Gene. The jealously that arises out of that comparison results in an impulsive action that ends in tragedy.

The book is sometimes interpreted through the lens of repressed homosexuality, though John Knowles in a 1987 interview denied that as his intention. Indeed, the story is stronger when we resist that anachronistic reading. Instead, to the extent that A Separate Peace still speaks to us nearly 60 years later, it is only when read at face value, a tale about rivalry, jealously, and the mixture of nobility and evil that lurks in the human heart. Gene comes back 15 years later to try to come to terms with the enormity of his betrayal, to try to forgive himself. How many of us have stood before our own trees, longing to forgive ourselves for hurts impulsively perpetrated in the past? Knowles holds up a mirror to our own visage, and in so doing, guarantees that a lesson from an otherwise obscure setting and a forgotten time will endure.
In high school, we read "A Separate Peace". Lo, these many years later, it called to me to re-read it. The characters are so beautifully fleshed out. The storyline is perfection. The words flow like the water in the Colorado River. It truly is a novel worth reading and re-reading. It has haunted me these many years because it is profound in message.