Book Discussion - A Separate Peace by John Knowles

KTC

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Ken had a great idea. That we read and discuss A Separate Peace by John Knowles. I jumped all over it because I thought it was one of the best books ever written. Yes, I'm biased...having loved it since first reading it in Grade 7...and almost yearly since.

I thought I'd start a thread. If you're interested...pick it up at your local bookstore/library. Give it a read--or a re-read. And we can discuss it both as readers and as writers.

If you haven't read it yet, you're in for a treat. Here's a wiki link to the book to give you an idea: A SEPARATE PEACE
 

CaroGirl

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I haven't read it yet but on my weekly library visit on Thursday I'll see if I can get a copy. I can order it if they don't have at my branch.
 

KTC

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Cool! I look forward to your thoughts as a first-time reader.
 

*NeW*WrItEr*

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Ahh we read that over the summer for 10th grade Honors Lit. It was a pretty good book. I enjoyed his description of....I think winter. I can't remember fully as it has been a year since I've read it. It was slightly hard to get into at first since it's told from a guy's point-of-view and I'm a girl, but I liked it for the most part. The ending was sad, but slightly expected. And, during class discussion, one of the class clowns at my school kept asking if the two main characters were gay. But, it was a good book. Not a favorite, but better than The Red Badge of Courage and Profiles in Courage which we read this year.
 

CaroGirl

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Got it! I just have to finish the one I'm reading now (Come, Thou Tortoise) and I'll then start A Separate Peace.

Anyone else joining in?
 

Ken

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Anyone else joining in?

... for what it's worth, I am ;-)
Just picked up the book this morning. Will read a chpt a day, at minimum. So will be done in 12 days, max. I'll take notes along the way on anything that seems especially neat or puzzling. Glad to be participating, and look forward to hearing what others have to say about the book :)
 

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This is one of my favorite novels. I went to high school in New Hampshire and played baseball against Phillips Exeter Academy, which was Knowles' alma mater, and the school he based this story on. Beautiful campus. We lost to them my senior year, but I had read the novel for the first time in English class that year and, although I didn't get the chance to wander the grounds to look for the tree, I thought it was pretty cool to be there.

I've read A Separate Peace a dozen times, but it looks like it's time to pull it off the shelf again.
 

KTC

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I'm starting a re-read today...I read it a couple of weeks ago...but any chance I get is a good one. (-;
 

HelloKiddo

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OH MY GOODNESS! I don't believe it!

For years now I have had a vague memory of a book I read my freshman year of high school but for the bloody life of me I couldn't remember what it was, nor could I recall enough information about it to look it up properly. I wanted to start a thread here and see if anybody had heard of it, but I couldn't for the same reason--didn't recall enough details to describe it well.

So I just looked this book up to see if it looked like one I might want to read and--that's it! That's the book I remember that I've been trying to track down for years!

Well, you can count me in. I'll be heading off to the library ASAP to get a copy of this.

P.S. Thank you to KTC and Ken for starting this thread :)
 

alleycat

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It was one of the book we were required to read (in the ninth grade, I believe). I liked it then and still remember parts of it. A few years ago I watched the movie version.
 

KTC

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That's awesome, Kiddo. I look forward to hearing your take on it. It's so cool that you finally tracked it down. (-;
 

CaroGirl

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I finished it. IMO, this novel is like a diamond. First of all, the prose shines; it's really beautiful and evocative yet economical. Secondly, every time I think about one facet of the story, several other facets open up. The connection of the lives of the boys with the distant war, which is their future, is truly affecting. I loved how the relatively simple story is told against the complex backdrop of war.

There's nothing clumsy or unnecessary here. John Knowles tells his story with obvious knowledge and care. He loves his characters and setting and it shows.

Thanks to KTC for recommending this novel. I know I'll be thinking about it for years to come.

Anyone else with comments they'd like to share?
 

Ken

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... am up to chpt 9. Yep, I agree about this book being a diamond. Thnx for the encouragement to get me rereading it. I'm finding the backdrop of war interesting too. I had no idea the extent of the war had on teens of the era, like their having to fill in for jobs like apple picking and shoveling out railway yards, because so many men were away at war. I knew women filled many of these jobs, but I did not know teens did.

And then on top of that there was the training in high school teens had to do to prepare for being soldiers, along with the psychological effects of becoming prepared to be shipped off at 18 either voluntarily or by draft. Very intense time, in and of itself.

Will weigh in on the story itself in 5-6 days. I've been jotting down notes. I so recommend this book!
 

HelloKiddo

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I'm sorry I dithered so long about posting (shame on me!) Also: KTC, where are you?

I want to say, this book is beautiful. The prose is superficially easy, but the writer in me can appreciate how clean it is. Every word used is the right word--no sloppy word choices here.

This is one of those rare books that almost everybody can appreciate. A 12 year old can read it and enjoy it, but a 50-year-old Harvard English professor can also read and enjoy it.

The symbolism and complex themes are there, if you want them, but they're under the surface. You can read it and see them or you can read it and not see them--it can be enjoyed on every level.

I also have to say I LOVED the POV of Gene. It was just brilliant the way Knowles used him.
 

Ken

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... glad to hear others enjoyed the book, too. One thing that had me wondering a bit was Leper. He has a fairly large part in the novel, and I was wondering why?
 

Amelia

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Ah, I read this for the first time last year and loved it instantly.

I just find it a little interesting that everyone here loved it; I've heard from a lot of people, mainly high-school-aged, that they didn't think it was anything special.

I'm in the library at the moment, stocking up on books for the winter break, so I'll get the library's copy and do a reread. Can't wait to discuss!
 

HelloKiddo

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eta: **SPOILER WARNING**

One thing that had me wondering a bit was Leper. He has a fairly large part in the novel, and I was wondering why?

Sorry I took so long to reply to this Ken. I wanted to look the book over again before I answered, and I've been so busy.

I think the three boys represent the major sacrifices soldiers make for the war. Finny, the brightest and most pure of the group, gave his life; Leper gave his sanity; and Gene will forever live with the guilt and shame of the awful crime he committed.

But they were never major players in the war. They never dealt with the worst of it (seemingly).

I'm not sure if the message here is that war reaches and affects everybody, even those not directly a part of it, or if the point is that war is symbolic of life in general. I seem to see hints of both in the book, but my vote would go for the first.
 
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HelloKiddo

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**SPOILERS**

Adding on a bit to what I wrote last night:

It occurred to me that this really is a story of a war. Gene and Finny are the two MC's because they represent the fundamental evil and sacrifice of war--the killers and those killed.

Gene loses his identity to Finny. They dress alike, Gene does everything Finny says and finds his identity in Finny. That's what happens (I suppose) to soldiers who go off to war. They become one with their identity as a soldier and their country and their platoon until they lose sense of where the man stops and the soldier starts. That's how otherwise normal people commit such evil acts (in theory). Gene doesn't want to kill Finny, and Finny doesn't want to hate him. They only want to be friends.

Leper (sanity) and Brinker (innocence and faith) make lesser sacrifices and commit lesser crimes so they have lesser roles.

Did anybody else take this away from the book?
 

Donald Schneider

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A Separate Peace - Moral Dilemma

An aspect of this venerable novel has always given me pause for thought, but no inner resolution.

At their prep school, the introverted, academically inclined outsider Gene deliberately jostles the tree branch that he and his best friend and roommate Finny, the extroverted, popular and athletically inclined teenager, are standing on, presumably on an impulse bred from jealousy and resentment in conjunction with his apparently ambivalent feelings of love/hate towards his friend; resulting in Finny falling to the ground and shattering his leg, ending the boy's athletic and military ambitions (service in WWII).

Awhile later, the presumably guilt-ridden Gene confesses the truth to Finny. Irrespective of how Finny reacts to this revelation in the novel (refusing at first to believe that his friend is serious), was this the right thing for Gene to do; right for him or right for his victimized friend?

Was it selfish for Gene to force this catharsis in order to unburden himself of the weight of this tremendous guilt even if it risks devastating his friend and wounding him yet again? Should Gene have instead lived privately with the burden of his guilt as a form of self-punishment?

I'd really appreciate some considered input here as I have never been able to come to terms with this seeming moral dilemma. Is honesty always the best policy?

Thanks much.
 

blacbird

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I'd really appreciate some considered input here as I have never been able to come to terms with this seeming moral dilemma. Is honesty always the best policy?

An unanswered question at the center of this great, and now underappreciated novel. The entire point is that the novel doesn't provide a pat answer. Many of the finest novels in literature leave questions like this unanswered: The Count of Monte Cristo, Ethan Frome, Lord Jim . . .

caw
 

Brightdreamer

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At their prep school, the introverted, academically inclined outsider Gene deliberately jostles the tree branch that he and his best friend and roommate Finny, the extroverted, popular and athletically inclined teenager, are standing on, presumably on an impulse bred from jealousy and resentment in conjunction with his apparently ambivalent feelings of love/hate towards his friend; resulting in Finny falling to the ground and shattering his leg, ending the boy's athletic and military ambitions (service in WWII).

It's been a long time since I read it, but I don't recall Finny having any military ambitions; IIRC, he didn't believe something as horrible as the war existed, and continued denying it until

POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT

***

he saw his former friend, who had been driven insane by the demands of military life - a revelation that may have led to his death, as his optimistic idealism is shattered.

***

END SPOILER
 

Donald Schneider

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An unanswered question at the center of this great, and now underappreciated novel. The entire point is that the novel doesn't provide a pat answer. Many of the finest novels in literature leave questions like this unanswered: The Count of Monte Cristo, Ethan Frome, Lord Jim . . .

caw

Blacbird,

Thank you for your reply. It's most appreciated.

Of course this is fiction, and I'm not certain that Mr. Knowles ever addresses the moral consideration that I raise here within the novel. He simply presents his character Gene as confessing without philosophizing about it. I'm not asking what he might have thought; rather, I'm asking you and others. Pretend this were real. Did Gene do the right thing by confessing to his friend what he had done? So I ask you again, what do you think and why?

I think my question might be a bit unnerving to some. Maybe one or more of us had done something ratty to a friend in a pique of anger or jealousy that he or she did not discover on his or her own and kept quiet about it. The past often haunts.
 

Donald Schneider

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Blacbird wrote:

"An unanswered question at the center of this great, and now underappreciated novel...."

A Separate Peace still has an Amazon sales rating of around 250. That's not bad for a novel this old.
 
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Cyia

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It's been years since I read this one, but I don't think Finny had ambitions of any kind. He coasted on his natural ability and was even uncomfortable with how easy things were for him. He couldn't really show off until he was alone, when no one was keeping score and he didn't have to worry about outdoing everyone else. In that way, he was self-aware, but he also had no idea the impact his natural aptitudes had on those around him.