Title: A Separate Peace
Author: John Knowles
Summary and Review by: Hyacinth S. Faune [-shanz-phenomenon]
Reviewed in Yahoo on: December 3, 2007
A Separate Peace is the 7th book I borrowed from the Caridad Trillo-Elumba Library of English. I just found this book last week due to the super overdue of Wendelle Dedel with this book. As I read the summary at the back cover, I was so amazed and I wanted to read it right away. I was attracted to the plot and I right away borrowed it.
Here are the characters: MAIN ONLY…. (2)
GENE FORRESTER
Gene is the narrator of the novel and appears at two different time periods: as a man in his thirties re-visiting Devon fifteen years after being a student there, and, for most of the novel, as a sixteen and seventeen-year-old student during World War II. The novel is written in the past tense, and we assume that Gene’s narration is triggered by his re-visitation of his old school when he is thirty-two. And although the older narrator seems long past the emotional turmoil that marked his schoolboy days, the events of his years at Devon are told as if they were occurring in the present, as if our narrator were still sixteen years old. The Gene that we encounter for the bulk of the novel is, like many of his classmates, at a liminal stage in his life-the time between boyhood and manhood. This transition is further emphasized by the war, Gene being in the final years of freedom before he can be legally claimed by the world war in progress. Outwardly Gene is one of the top students in his class and a talented athlete. These traits earn him respect on campus and, most importantly, the friendship of Phineas, whom Gene respects more than any of his fellow classmates. But inwardly, Gene is plagued by the darker forces of human nature, forces which prey upon the turbulence of adolescence. Gene’s admiration and love for Finny is counter-balanced and marred by his fierce jealousy of him, by a deep insecurity in himself, and, because of his insecurity, a need to compete with and “defeat” his friend at all costs. Gene’s internal emotional battles are the major source of conflict and tension in the novel.
PHINEAS (Finny)
Finny is Gene’s best friend. He is nonconformist, self-confident, honest, disarming, possessed of a magnetic personality, and the best athlete in the school. He also has a talent for talking his way out of any problem, not by deceit, but rather by his infectious good nature, so much so that teachers simply cannot remain angry with him. In other words, he seems perfect in almost every way. His failing is that he does not realize that he is unique, that he cannot see the flaws in other people: their jealousy, their hatred. His “good natured spirit” is shown in the one game which he creates, in which there are no winners or losers, but just players. At one point he breaks a school swimming record with only Gene present, but refuses to tell anyone, he only wanted to know that he could do it. Gene says that “Finny was too unusual for competition,” and in the same vein, he does not need a last name. This is significant because it makes him more of a symbol- he is too extraordinary for a last name. At the end of the book, Finny dies when bone marrow enters his bloodstream and stops his heart.
…………………………MY REVIEW ABOUT THIS BOOK…………………
The novel begins with the adult Gene Forrester returning to Devon, an exclusive New Hampshire prep school, which Gene had attended in his youth. The sights of Devon, and in particular a large tree and a marble staircase, evoke memories and emotions within Gene. The book then travels back to Gene’s past, immediately introducing a number of characters, including Phineas. Despite their polar personalities, Gene and Phineas (”Finny”) made fast friends at Devon: Gene’s quiet, introverted intellectual personality matches Finny’s more extroverted, carefree, athletic demeanor.
There was a time when Gene and Finny both sneaked out school and went to the beach. Since it was the day before the trigonometry exam of Gene, he wasn’t able to study and flunked the test the next day.
One of Finny’s ideas during Gene’s “Sarcastic Summer” of 1942 is to create a “Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session,” with Gene and himself as charter members. He also creates a game called “Blitz Ball,” (the name being derived from the term blitzkrieg, appropriate as the story is written in a World War II setting). Finny creates a rite of induction by having members jump into the Devon River from a large, high tree. One night, Finny decides that he and Gene should jump together. While on the limb, with Finny about to jump, Gene jostles the limb. There is no elaboration; his actions are bluntly stated and regretted soon after they are committed. As a result of Gene’s act of jealousy, Finny loses his balance, falls from the tree, and severely breaks his leg. It is too late for Gene to realize that he “was not of the same quality” as Finny; that Gene is suspicious and tends to see ulterior motives where there are none, while Finny is pure joy and untroubled innocence. Gene contemplates his action while Finny slowly recovers.
Finny maintains his characteristically upbeat attitude throughout his convalescence. The only time he shows any anger towards Gene is when Gene first tries to confess to knocking Finny off the tree. Finny refuses to believe it, more wounded by that attempted confession in some ways than he was by the act itself. Upon his return, Finny begins to create a fantasy world of sorts around him to avoid facing the war, whose existence he emphatically denies (”Don’t be a sap. There is no war.”). Finny is “the essence of this careless peace.” Because his leg injury prevents him from engaging in sports activity, Finny encourages Gene to build up his own physical strength and athletic skills. He even trains Gene for the possible 1944 Winter Olympics, which ended up being cancelled due to the war.
The action comes to a head when another student, Brinker Hadley, drags Gene and Finny into an assembly room which is known as the “Butt Room” whenre most smokers usually hang- out.and puts them on trial to determine Finny’s “casualty.” They try to force the two to confront the truth of how and why Finny broke his leg. Gene tries to deny everything, knowing that the truth will destroy Finny. Leper Lepellier (once soft and quiet, now mentally imbalanced from his experience in the war) is called in, and he recalls the jump as he saw it, saying the two boys moved “like an engine,” as in one went up and one went down. Finny flees the room in anguish and falls down a nearby flight of stairs, cleanly breaking his already injured leg. Gene tries to go to the infirmary and see Finny, but Finny is furious with him and will not see him. Gene walks around the campus that night as if he were a ghost. The next morning, Gene sees Finny and they reconcile their differences: Gene admits that he made Finny fall, but only because it came from some blind impulse he could not control. Finny accepts this quite easily and forgives him, but Gene is still unsure of his excuse and is not sure if he purposely caused Finny’s fall. Gene leaves and recalls every moment of that day, waiting for Finny to come out of surgery to set the bone, and meets the doctor afterwards. The doctor informs Gene that during the operation some bone marrow from Finny’s leg went through his blood stream and to his heart, killing him. Gene takes the news as a shock, but never cries about Finny; Gene believes that when Finny died, a piece of himself died too, the part of him that was strict and regimented and anti-Finny, and that one does not cry for one’s own death.
Gene reflects that Finny’s death was a result of Gene’s hatred and jealousy towards him. He explains that there is a point in everyone’s life when they realize that there is evil in the world and that they must fight their inner demons to control themselves. It is at that time when one’s innocence is lost forever. Only Phineas was innocent, and although this made him unique, Gene believes it eventually led to his demise.
———————————————————————END
If I would rate this book at the scale of 1-10
I would give it a
9.8!!!!
This book is a must read!
Though there are bad words, I love the story
The story is so touching and moving
Great depth!!!
A masterpiece!!
It talks about the evil deep inside us!
I really had a hard time accepting that Phineas died at the end…
It was as though I was in the story
I love it!!!!
The story is written with wit and style- qualities rare to find these days
Interesting
Beautiful!
Truly a “Gem of Controlled Eloquence”
You must grab a copy!
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