This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff is an engaging memoir that takes readers on a journey through the author's childhood in the 1950s. The story follows Toby, a young boy who moves with his free-spirited mother, Rosemary, to Seattle in search of a better life. There, Toby gets involved with the wrong crowd and begins to face various challenges.

One of the most significant relationships in Toby's life is with Dwight, his mother's boyfriend. At first, Toby views Dwight as a short, strange man, but things quickly change. Dwight suggests that they move in together, and Toby soon finds himself in an abusive and manipulative relationship. Tobias Wolff's writing is both accessible and vivid, allowing readers to clearly picture the events and emotions described. He excels at portraying Toby's fears and insecurities, as well as the physical details of the places they live.

However, the structure of the book is a bit odd. Different aspects of Toby's life are presented in separate sections, which sometimes makes the story feel disjointed. For example, the section on "Citizenship in the Home" focuses on his relationship with Dwight, while "Citizenship in the School" describes his school experiences. While this may have been a deliberate choice to avoid distractions, it does give the impression that Toby's life was dominated by his interactions with Dwight.

Despite these flaws, This Boy's Life is a captivating read. The story is filled with interesting characters and events that keep readers engaged from start to finish. Tobias Wolff's ability to create a relatable protagonist and tell an honest story is truly remarkable. Overall, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys quality memoirs or is interested in learning about life in the 1950s. I give it 4/5 stars.

“Hotshot,” he said. “You pull that hotshot stuff around me and I'll snatch you bald-headed, you understand?”
“Yes sir.”
“Your in for a change, mister. You got that. You're in for a whole nother ball game, you understand?”
I braced myself for the next curve.

CRITIQUE:

A Personal Stamp on a Straight Account

Memoirs serve a dual purpose. They not only document the facts of the past but also capture the stories as we remembered or imagined them at the time. Tobias Wolff elaborates on this in the introduction to the 30th edition of his book. He states that while life doesn't occur in a story-like manner, we create stories from it, inevitably leaving a personal mark. This personal stamp distinguishes memoirs from fiction. In fiction, false statements by the narrator or a character reveal something about them. However, in a memoir, such falsehoods are considered deception and are unacceptable, as Wolff believes the writer is obligated to present the truth accurately.

Yet, Wolff's memoir of a poor working-class family contains elements of lying and deception. Tobias, who has changed his name to Jack, resorts to lies to achieve his goals, such as avoiding punishment at school and gaining admission to college.


Ellin Barkin and Leonardo DiCaprio in the film version of this memoir (Source: Takashi Seida)

This Boy's Adoration of His Mother

As Wolff penned this memoir, he was filled with admiration for his mother's courage and gratitude for her loyalty. He also felt anger towards the cruelty and abuse they both endured at the hands of a petty, foolish, and dangerous man. Additionally, he was thankful for the profound friendship they shared.

He describes his mother as glamorous, unconventional, and footloose to the point of recklessness. In a sense, she was like a younger sister who made poor choices in her relationships and marriages. One can imagine Tobias/Jack wondering if she would have been better off had she taken his advice or had a closer relationship with him. Although his mother's husband was his stepfather, Tobias' story often follows the pattern of a classic Oedipus Complex.


Oedipus and Jocasta

The Purpose of This Boy's Memoir

One of Wolff's aims in writing this memoir was to correct his children's perception of their grandmother as proper and a little prim. He wanted them to know the adventurous side of her. Equally important, he hoped to create an informal history for his family and a reservoir of memories for his fiction. Doubtless, he achieved these purposes. From a reader's perspective, he also crafted a memoir that is as lyrical and precise as the best fiction of his contemporaries.



FAKE GRADES (AN HOMAGE):

I pursued my studies at a university outside my home state. I was the first from my secondary school to attend that university, and no one else followed until six years later. Our paths never crossed at either school or university. However, the university compared our applications and academic records to check for any irregularities in our admissions.

Since we had attended the same school, someone in the Admissions Office decided to examine the signature of the Principal on our academic records. Despite the Principal being the same person, it was immediately evident that the two signatures were different. As a result, the second student came under suspicion of fraud.

Before contacting the other student, the university sent copies of our academic records to the school to determine which one was genuine. After examining its records, the school informed the university that the first academic record was not authentic. This was indeed the case, as I had forged the Principal's signature on my fake academic record to boost my grades and secure admission.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, the university chose not to take any action against either me or the other student. In fact, no one believed that the signature on my academic record was false. I had an exemplary academic record at the university after admission, and the administrative staff couldn't fathom that I hadn't earned my place there. Besides, what could they do? Retroactively cancel my admission? Nullify my university grades? Pretend I'd never studied there?

I only learned about this later because a former university classmate ended up working there and was among the staff who examined the signatures. When he told me about it over coffee, I continued to uphold the falsehood. I lacked the courage to tell the truth, even to a former friend.

The book "This Boy's Life" by Tobias Wolff is a remarkable memoir that offers a poignant and deeply personal account. The story follows a mother and son, Caroline Wolff and Toby, as they journey from one place to another in search of a stable settlement. Caroline, a loving mother, is determined to find the best place for her son. They eventually move to Seattle, where Caroline meets Dwight Hansen. Believing he would be a good influence on Toby, she marries him. However, her hopes are soon shattered as Dwight reveals his abusive nature, both physically and mentally, towards Toby.

Later, Toby befriends Arthur, who is ambiguously homosexual. When Toby decides to move out and live with his brother Gregory by applying for scholarships, Arthur helps him falsify his grades. After much hard work and determination, Toby manages to get into a high school in Pennsylvania, finally getting a chance to escape his stepfather.

This is one of the most sorrowful books I have ever read. Toby's life is filled with hardships and rejections. He is abandoned by his real father and mistreated by his stepfather. Throughout the story, I couldn't help but feel sorry for Toby and hope that there would be a better way out for him. Nevertheless, his unwavering hope and refusal to give up are truly inspiring. I would highly recommend this book to anyone, as it allows readers to empathize with Toby's experiences and understand the strength of the human spirit in the face of adversity.

Wonderful read!

I really liked the fact that it took place in the PNW. I read this book before I knew there was a movie about it. I was highly satisfied with the book's detail and storyline. There are times when there is extreme frustration and confusion between the side characters. You feel sorry for the mother, angry towards the stepfather, and have both annoyance and pity for the boy.

A lot of it, I could not relate to on a personal level or an era period. However, overall, the age and family situation were understandable. The ending was great! It tied up all the loose ends and left me with a sense of satisfaction. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good story about family, relationships, and growing up.

Back in 2003, I read this. I remembered it fondly. However, I gave it 4 stars because somehow I don't remember the plot very well.

I think the movie that came out ahead of the reading poisoned it somewhat. Maybe seeing the movie first influenced my perception of the story when I read the book. It's possible that the visual interpretation in the movie overshadowed the details and nuances that I might have otherwise picked up on while reading.

Despite not remembering the plot clearly, I still have a positive feeling towards the book. There must have been something about it that made it memorable for me. It could be the writing style, the characters, or the overall atmosphere.

Perhaps I should give it another read to see if I can recall more of the story and appreciate it even more. It might be interesting to compare my current thoughts and feelings with those I had back in 2003.

4.5/5, really liked it.

This rating truly reflects my satisfaction with the product or service. It's not a perfect 5, but it's very close. There were just a few minor aspects that could be improved upon, but overall, it was an excellent experience.

The quality was outstanding, and it met or exceeded my expectations. The features were useful and well-designed, making it a pleasure to use.

The customer service was also top-notch. They were responsive, helpful, and went above and beyond to ensure my satisfaction.

I would highly recommend this to others who are in the market for a similar product or service. It's definitely worth the investment.

I look forward to seeing further improvements and updates in the future.

Have you ever wanted to erase yourself?

No, I don't mean to improve or polish yourself... No. I mean to erase yourself entirely. Completely. Tear out the page, shred the draft that you are and start from zero, with another letter, another name, another life. Tobias Wolff not only desired it, he attempted it. And Life of This Boy is the map of that desperate attempt to flee from oneself when oneself becomes a trap.

This memoir novel - yes, novel, because memory is not a notarial act but a form of storytelling - tells the childhood of Wolff, although the protagonist soon stops being called Tobias and becomes Jack, a premature attempt at self-editing. A boy who travels with his mother from city to city, from failure to failure, with the tenacious - almost ridiculous - hope that the next place will be the good one. What he finds, instead, is a stepfather as vulgar as he is cruel, and a childhood made of escapes, lies and silences. Jack lies because reality doesn't serve him. He forges grades, letters, identities. He doesn't do it to deceive the world. He does it to survive it.

And yet, Life of This Boy is not a dark book. Or not only. Because Wolff has that rare talent of talking to you about despair as if he were telling you an anecdote in a bar. There is pain, yes, but also irony, distance, even tenderness. His prose doesn't drag or lament: it advances with an almost monastic restraint. Nothing is superfluous. Nothing creaks. And, above all, nothing is sweetened. Wolff writes as someone who has learned that pain doesn't need decorations to hurt more, only precision.

The structure follows that fragmentary logic of memories. No rigid chronologies or academic narratives. Here memory jumps, forgets, goes back, invents if necessary. Because what Wolff constructs is not a closed account of his childhood, but a constellation of moments that, read together, reveal something greater than a biography: an identity that stumbles, that invents itself, that tries itself out. There are silences that say more than the scenes. Vacuums that hurt more than the blows. And that is not achieved with data, but with literature. And Wolff, no matter how much he writes about his life, is above all a writer.

The portrait he makes of his child self is unsparing, without tricks or cardboard. He doesn't excuse himself, he doesn't beautify himself. The boy he was is sometimes mean, clumsy, cowardly. But always deeply human. And his mother... oh, his mother. One of those characters who breaks your heart without meaning to. As lost as he is, but always betting on hope. Even if it's false. Even if it's the same as always. And Dwight, the stepfather, is one of those villains without epic or grandeur, who precisely for that reason are so disturbing. He doesn't need to do anything spectacular to scare you. Just existing is enough for him.

If it has to be compared to something, Life of This Boy is what we would get if J.D. Salinger and Mary Karr had written a book together. There is something of The Catcher in the Rye here, in that disoriented and defiant juvenile voice. But there are also echoes of The Liars' Club by Mary Karr, with that brutal awareness that remembering is rewriting and that all memory is an act of fiction. Wolff doesn't offer us certainties, he offers us wounds. And he shows them without cleaning them. Without seeking that the reader says 'poor little thing'. On the contrary: many times one wants to shake the protagonist, shout at him 'but why do you do that?'. And that makes him even more real.

The most fascinating thing about this book is that it doesn't seek redemption. There is no great moral lesson. No one becomes a hero. No one 'defeats' their past. Jack grows up. Period. He survives. He learns to tell himself. Which is already quite a lot. And the bravest thing is that Wolff, already an adult, decides not to correct himself in the story. Not to whitewash the boy he was. Not to invent a happy ending. Just to look back and say: this is what I was. And that, in a world obsessed with narratives of overcoming, is an almost offensive act of courage.

The 1993 film, with DiCaprio and De Niro, makes a good attempt to capture the story. DiCaprio gives it his all: that mix of anger and fragility is there. De Niro scares just by entering the scene. But something gets 'lost in translation'; something is lost in the 'translation': not the dubbing one, but the one of taking such a complex novel to the visual language of cinema. Because cinema has a problem with nuances: it has trouble suggesting. And Life of This Boy is made of suggestions, of what is not said, of what is intuited in a dry phrase or a long pause. There are things that simply cannot be translated into images. Because this book is not based on what happens, but on how what happened is told. And that cinema, no matter how good it is, doesn't always know how to do.

Because in the end, we are all narrators of ourselves. We all lie a little when we tell our story. We all try to fit it into a bearable version. And what Wolff does is to strip that process. Not so much to tell us his childhood as to show us how difficult it is to remember it without disguising it. And in that gesture - so literary, so deeply human - lies the greatness of this book.

Life of This Boy doesn't shout at you. It whispers to you. It doesn't say 'look what I suffered'. It asks you: 'and you, what did you do with what you were given?'. There is no redemption, but there is truth. And that truth, told with this honesty, hurts more than any invented tragedy. Because, let's be honest, who hasn't wanted to tell an improved version of themselves at some point? Who hasn't lied a little so that their story seems less sad, less clumsy, less broken?

Well, Wolff doesn't do that. Because the past is an implacable narrator: no matter how much we try to modify it, it always finds a way to impose itself. Wolff didn't manage to escape from his story, but by telling it without disguises, he did something even more valuable: he left us a sincere, brutal and, in the end, universal testimony. And that, in these times of complacent autofiction, is already a form of resistance.

1.5 stars...DNF @ 50%.

This book is just dull as f**k!

This is a remarkably honest recollection.

In the 1950s, a boy named Toby and his divorced mother set off westward in search of adventure and a new life. However, they end up in a town called Concrete, under the control of an abusive and even stupid man who treats them both poorly.

When recalling the boy he once was, the author makes no excuses for him. The boy was a delinquent and a thief, showing no promise of becoming a reasonable man, let alone a writer. I was struck by the lack of self-importance in Wolff's recollections of that younger self. The story is concise and unemotional.

Usually, one would expect a story of an unmoored boy to end with redemptive events that would turn his life around. There would be glimpses of the influences that would drive him forward. Of course, in this case, the reader knows that the boy grew up to be a fine writer, as the evidence is on the page. But otherwise, there are no clues about the future turnaround in his life. The memoir ends with this sad boy about to join the army.

Initially, I longed for the follow-up, but as I let the narrative mellow a little, I found myself intrigued by what happened as a result of the early ending.

Since the story ends in adolescence, rather than in the subsequent successes, I find myself remembering the other characters as much as Toby. It becomes the story of a household, a town, and an era. The depictions of his mother and stepfather, Dwight, are impeccably drawn, along with the step-siblings. It was an unhappy household, with the blame squarely on Dwight's shoulders, yet others seemed powerless to break through the barriers he erected. The image of Toby's mother is a powerful one. She is resilient and loyal to her son, yet she longs for a caregiver husband who will be good to both of them. She does not get that. In this sense, she is representative of a period. Her fundamental independence, so evident in moving west, is not enough to make her strike out on her own again to save Toby.

I chose this book after recently reading the New York Times' choices for the top fifty memoirs of the past fifty years, a period when the form became extremely popular: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...

Review: http://cititoriferoce.weebly.com/blog...

This review seems to be about an article or a piece of work related to Tobias Wolff and the life of a boy. However, the information provided is rather limited. It would be interesting to know more details about what exactly is being reviewed.

Perhaps the review could expand on the main points of the article, such as the events in the boy's life, the themes explored, or the writing style of Tobias Wolff. It could also discuss the reviewer's personal thoughts and opinions about the work.

Adding more context and analysis would make the review more engaging and useful for readers who are interested in Tobias Wolff or the subject matter.

Overall, with a bit more expansion and elaboration, this review could become a more comprehensive and informative piece.

This piece of writing has truly earned its place straight into my all-time favorites.

The prose within it is simply remarkable. It is as generous as it can be, offering a wealth of emotions, thoughts, and details that draw the reader in and make them feel as if they are a part of the story.

Moreover, it is incredibly truthful. There is an authenticity to the words that is palpable, making it easy for the reader to connect with the author's experiences and perspectives.

It's rare to come across such writing that combines both generosity and truthfulness in such a seamless way. It leaves a lasting impression and makes me want to revisit it again and again.

I can't recommend this piece highly enough. It is a gem that should be cherished and shared with others.

This memoir would be overwhelmingly sad for me, had I not already read Old School by the same author and know that he becomes a successful author and teacher of literature at Stanford. But if you didn’t know that this child redeems himself in the end, this would be sad, a sad tale indeed.

Tobias’ parents divorced when he was a young boy, and his mother set off looking for a better life, leaving her oldest son with her ex-husband. In 1955 it was hard for a single mother, and life treated Tobias’ mother no better than the next. When the hard-scrabble life started to wear her down, she married a man who turned out to be selfish, mean, manipulative and vindictive.

While the challenges of the everyday events in Tobias’ life make for compelling reading, his honesty about his reactions to those events are what make the book worthy of the Pen Faulkner Award. He falls in with the unruly kids and makes terrible choices. But at the same time there is a bizarre innocence about him that simultaneously disappoints and endears. For instance, after scratching an unmentionable phrase on a bathroom wall, in his fervor to convince others of his innocence, he manages to convince himself as well.

Insight into his the lies he told and why he told them is, for me, the most fascinating aspect of This Boy’s Life. At the same time you want to strangle him for his deceits, his lies are what ultimately save him. He completely fabricates an application to a private boarding school, where he goes on full scholarship; despite the fact that he is a very poor student with nothing to recommend him. He is eventually expelled for poor grades, but while there he engages with a teacher or two who recognize that he is not lazy or stupid, but too far behind academically to keep up.

As the novel comes to a close, Wolff is headed off to war. Yet instead of ending there, the story flashes back to a time when he was, if not happy, at least hopeful.

Readers who enjoyed Rick Bragg’s All Over But the Shoutin’ will appreciate Wolff’s family portrait. It offers a detailed and poignant look into the life of a boy growing up in difficult circumstances. The author’s writing style is engaging and vivid, making it easy for the reader to empathize with Tobias and understand his struggles. Overall, This Boy’s Life is a powerful and moving memoir that will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading.