A Separate Peace

Pages: 196 📖

Year Published: 1959 🗓️

Days to Complete: 11 🕰️

Author:

John Knowles's early years were much like the main character's in this book. He was born in West Virginia and attended two years of high school there prior to attending prep school in New Hampshire. After graduation, he served for 8 months in the Air Force toward the end of the second world war. When he returned, he attended Yale University where he contributed to the campus magazine and newspaper. This prompted his post-graduate careers where he continued to write for magazines and newspapers until he published his own short stories and novels for which he received the PEN/Faulkner and Rosenthal Awards. Knowles passed away in 2001.

Learn More about John Knowles

Three words to describe this read:

Transitionary- The story takes place during World War II and while the characters' proximity to the war is removed, its shadow falls on them and impacts them in ways they don't always realize themselves. Life for these boys as well as the country and the world all felt in flux.

Confused- Especially during the beginning of the story, it's unclear whether there is actually a rivalry between the two main characters, Phineas and Gene. The situation becomes a little more clear throughout the story, but by the end, it could still go either way.

Comparative- It was interesting to compare what worried these teenagers in the late 1930s and 40s to what worries teenagers now, not even 100 years later.

Quote:

"So the more things remain the same, the more they change after all -plus c'est la meme chose, plus ca change. Nothing endures, not a tree, not love, not even a death by violence."

Yes, I do love a little surprise French in a book, especially when I can understand what it says, but I also like this quote's comment on mortality.