This book had a profound and lasting impact of me. It is a short, exquisitely crafted story narrated by a talented but unconspicuous boy who is jealous of his best friend, Phineas--who is athletic, beautiful, and kind. Phineas stands tall as the prodigy of American prep adolescence. He is simple; he is likeable; he has panache; and he is virtuous. His greatest crime to the narrator, though, is his love. For though the narrator is jealous and resentful that of his authentic golden-boy friend, he cannot even express it because Phineas has always been kind to him. That is an elemental frustration, native to adolescence and loneliness, and no book I have ever read has treated that frustration with more compassion and justice. If novels are supposed to provide beauty and help us understand ourselves, this is perhaps a perfect example; incidentally it is highly entertaining, in the sense of being a fantastic story. Though not as raw or impassioned as "Catcher in the Rye," this book resonates with the same themes and mastery of subject.

This is an American classic? Why? Now I’m not saying that it’s a bad novel. I just don’t see how it’s a particularly great one.

Perhaps, it’s ultimately because the book never worked to make me identify with the situation where the event took place. Instead, the entire conflict felt contrived. We are told of an atmosphere of driven competition in a school where everyone is an enemy and no one a real friend. But except being told so by Gene no one else in the book seems to notice this. I can imagine though that if this culture is something you recognise as being part and parcel of adolescence and school life, then the book would immediately and powerfully resonate.

Me? This relentless fight and struggle that fuels the conflict at the centre of the book never felt real, and so the book’s heart of darkness felt more like an evanescent shadow play rather than the savage fight it is supposed to be. It certainly did not grip me with the power of the classic depictions of innate human savagery that predated it: Heart of Darkness and Lord of the Flies spring to mind. As a result, the last few paragraphs of the novel—their conclusions on human nature—don’t seem to have been earned, and so, don’t convince.

The other possibility, of course, is that this vicious struggle is wholly and only in Gene’s mind. If all there is to the conflict is Gene’s personal hate and envy of goodness and his desire to destroy it—that this is the something “fundamentally ignorant about the human heart”—then I find the novel somewhat repugnant. And not because the hate and envy are repugnant, but because the act of cruelty powered by those emotions is what saves Gene. He is rendered free of hate because he hated Finny.

Yes, that’s “because” not “despite”, because it is through this act that he confronts his own darkness (is prevented from erecting his own Maginot Line) and purges himself of hating other people. He even achieves success later in life.

That notion, to me, is an inherently vile idea. Morally, it works only if we see Finny solely as symbolic and not real—in dying, the Christ-figure washes Gene’s sins away. There is no epiphany in arriving there: Gene has known all along that he acted deliberately. It is Finny’s realisation of Gene’s betrayal that brings about the book’s denouement. Gene himself never does anything to earn his forgiveness. Save for the one time he confesses to Finny and retracts, he subsequently keeps trying to weasel out of admitting it. As for that weepy, blubbering, “I didn’t mean it, it was just something ignorant in me. You believe me, don't you?” That’s supposed to make everything okay? All of which render the concluding paragraphs not simply hollow but repugnant and false.

2 stars - Meh. Just ok.

Normally I love coming of age novels, particularly classics, but I simply could not get into this one. While unable to identify exactly what "went wrong", I never became engaged or interested in the characters or plot; this one just fell flat for me.

It's never a good sign when such a short novel feels so incredibly long. It would have been utterly and completely boring were it not for the interesting quotable snippets scattered sparingly throughout.

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Favorite Quote: It seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart.

First Sentence: I went back to the Devon School not long ago, and found it looking oddly newer than when I was a student there fifteen years before.

Competitors and rivals. Best friends. There is always one who is more outgoing, more apt to take risks. Here we have one who is more comfortable abiding by the rules, the other flagrantly flaunting them. What about the one who is pulled along for the ride? Is he an unwilling participant or simply someone who needs a push? Suspicion and resentment, loyalty and betrayal.

I read this book in school and I remember it broke my heart.

Most people would list the Catcher In the Rye as the ultimate coming of age story, but I beg to differ. For me, my coming of age book was A Separate Peace. It was required reading - we were not given a choice on reading it. Unlike prior assigned reading books, I actually READ this one.

I wish I could remember more of it.

What I do remember was that I liked it. It's about a boy growing up at a prep school, making friendships and planning futures provided the war ends and that they aren't all drafted when they are of age. During the process the boy builds a friendship with someone much unlike him that gets him into troubles and hijinks and they have times where it is difficult between them, but they grow to be very close. Eventually, this friend goes in for some sort of surgical procedure, something that is supposed to be simple. And like that, he dies on the table of a freak complication. The boy is then forced to look into things beyond his limited scope and he must deal with the fallout of the death.

When I read this, I didn't know that something similar to this would happen to myself later. It's something that while not identical, it does mirror personal experience. It's a sad story, but one worth reading. It's on my shelf at present and I've been meaning to read it again to see if it still is as good as I remember it, but with all of these new books, it's hard to make time for one I've already read. Still, I give it high marks and a personal recommendation.

2024 reads: 145/250

2024 tbr: 63/100

gene, an introverted intellectual, and phineas, a daredevil athlete, are an unlikely match, but friends nonetheless. one summer, something happens at their boarding school that flips their worlds upside down.

i really did not know what to expect going into this, despite having it on my tbr for over three years. i have heard the term “dark academia” used to describe it, though i wouldn’t say that’s completely accurate as typical dark academic themes (perfectionism, elitism, etc.) were not explored. nevertheless, i really enjoyed this book, and especially the afterword written by david levithan. i’d recommend this to anyone looking for a short, yet impactful, classic.

 As I had to do whenever I glimpsed this river, I thought of Phineas. Not of the tree and pain, but of one of his favorite tricks, Phineas in exaltation, balancing on one foot on the prow of a canoe like a river god, his raised arms invoking the air to support him, face transfigured, body a complex set of balances and compensations, each muscle aligned in perfection with all the others to maintain this supreme fantasy of achievement, his skin glowing from immersions, his whole body hanging between river and sky as though he had transcended gravity and might by gently pushing upward with his foot glide a little way higher and remain suspended in space, encompassing all the glory of the summer and offering it to the sky.

i'm so incredibly moved by this story about innocence and tenderness, truth and love, and overwhelming desperation. wow. there's such magic in finding that in a book that's been sitting under your nose your whole life. i'm so envious of the people who were introduced to this in school! what an invaluable treasure.

The most liked 1 star review of this book calls it irrelevant for today's generation, and honestly I get that sentiment. But also, I disagree! If something has an impact on us and we find meaning in it, then it's highly relevant. The first time I read A Separate Peace I was 16 (how perfect) and it made me cry. I was moved by the plot of this book. Now at 21, it captivated me in a different way. Even though I loved it 5 years ago I wasn't expecting much this time around. I should have more faith in my younger self!

This book is a masterpiece. There I said it. The more I think about A Separate Peace, the more I fall in love with it. I love the way it's written; the sentence structure and the symbolism. I highlighted a lot of quotes. This book doesn't have extreme character arc sort of character development, but it does have characters whose actions influence and direct the plot and who affect each other in such fascinating ways. So much to reflect on in this story. The emotions, and this moment, are captured with such delicate brilliance. The whole thing is brilliant.

There was a slight lull in this book, a point that I wasn't sure the point of this time around. Part of me is still shocked that this book touches me with such ferocity. But what do you know, it does.

. . . .

We were careless and wild, and I suppose we could be thought of as a sign of the life the war was being fought to preserve. Anyway, they were more indulgent toward us than at any other time; they snapped at the heels of the seniors, driving and molding and arming them for the war. They noticed our games tolerantly. We reminded them of what peace was like, of lives which were not bound up with destruction.

Everyone has a moment in history which belongs particularly to him. It is the moment when his emotions achieve their most powerful sway over him, and afterward when you say to this person "the world today" or "life" or "reality" he will assume that you mean this moment, even if it is fifty years past. The world, through his unleashed emotions, imprinted itself upon him, and he carries the stamp of that passing moment forever. For me this moment, four years is a moment in history, was the war. The war was, and is, reality for me. I still instinctively live and think in it's atmosphere.

“The winter loves me,” he retorted, and then, disliking the whimsical sound of that, added, “I mean as much as you can say a season can love. What I mean is, I love winter, and when you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love.” I didn’t think that this was true, my seventeen years of experience had shown this to be much more false than true, but it was like every other thought and belief of Finny’s: it should have been true. So I didn’t argue.

The hard cider began to take charge of us. Or I wonder now whether it wasn’t cider but our own exuberance which intoxicated us, sent restraint flying... It wasn’t the cider which made me surpass myself, it was this liberation we had torn from the gray encroachments of 1943, the escape we had concocted, this afternoon of momentary, illusory, special and separate peace.

They unrolled away impervious to me as though I were a roaming ghost, not only tonight but always, as though I had never played on them a hundred times, as though my feet had never touched them, as though my whole life at Devon had been a dream, or rather that everything at Devon, the playing fields, the gym, the water hole, and all the other buildings and all the people there were intensely real, wildly alive and totally meaningful, and I alone was a dream, a figment which had never really touched anything. I felt that I was not, never had been and never would be a living part of this overpoweringly solid and deeply meaningful world around me.

All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way- if he ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy.

The book cares who is watching. Gene knows you are watching. Move in for an embrace, over the shoulder a good old boy smile. You know how it is, how it was. There we all were...

Confession? I don't place a lot of value in confessionals. If you want to know a person, really know them, it means more to me to take note of what matters to them, what they don't choose to divulge.

Where was I?

I felt as if I were reading someone telling me about a book. The air was stale, the life sucked out. He wastes time foretelling of evil. If I time-traveled to fifteen years ago in Gene's past it might have felt like this. Doomed to witness the events over the shoulder of a person who wants you to believe what they want you to believe. He wastes time telling of wanting to go back. Did he wish it never happened for himself or for Phinny's sake? The self serving voice lies.

I think it was a mistake to tell the events of the story from Gene's will. The moral of the story, that you cannot forgive unless you can forgive yourself, is stated in the text. That's pretty unforgivable in my book to talk down to the reader this much. It is worse still in that it isn't earned. Everything is told, never happening, never felt. Gene doesn't have to face up to what he did, to know himself. It is given to him through another's acceptance. I didn't need Fowles to tell me that Phinny writes letters to all the king's men. I didn't need to be told that he denies there is a war because they won't accept him as a cripple. It is baffling to me that my edition brings up Fowles' William Faulkner award a few times. Faulkner didn't put it into his story that The Sound and the Fury wasn't about a slut who ruins the lives of her brothers. Sure, there are some seemingly heartless readers who take it as such. I love Faulkner for the qualities this book didn't possess. Faulkner trusts the reader. What about the story, what about knowing them, the life that allows to breathe? A Separate Peace doesn't breathe. It doesn't trust you.

There are qualities to types of confessionals that interest me. Someone will tell you what sounds like their whole life story as if there is no time. They take you by the hand. This is where I live. In my life it is this type of person who usually fucks me over after a couple of days. Someone will tell you what they consider to be important. I lived through that. Why are they telling you? Was it important you were a stranger, were they free?

Gene pushes Phineas, his gold star on the chart at the end of the day, off of a tree. His heart says do it. He doesn't know what is in his heart, not always. The ghost that repeats itself doesn't die the same death. What you think you would forgive if it was someone else who did it. Phineas is crippled. Maybe Phineas didn't want his follower to match his sports glory in the academic area. Maybe everything is as Gene says it is.

But Gene says that he feels sorry for Leper. Gene doesn't move fast enough to end the scene when he tells the school that Leper ran away from the army. Sure, Gene tells that he isn't like the average boy's academy bully. When A Separate Peace is best we get to hear Leper imply what Gene looked like when he was running with the boys. Hear Gene all for enlisting with Brinker and turning his face when Phinny doesn't like the idea. Give Brinker a nickname, what a joke. What a sissy britches. I was interested in what another character would have said about the events in their school. I was more interested in forgetting about what Gene said altogether and just watching what happened and deciding for myself. Almost, when Gene is called out on what really happened that day on the tree. I won't say fateful because I don't believe it was meant to happen. Perhaps on another day he wouldn't have wanted to stay on top. If Phinny had given him enough attention that day, made him feel special enough. Gene won't say what happened and we know that Brinker and Leper at least suspect what happens. We know that Gene brags about his clever turnaround in the smoking room to evade questions. Was this the life? Was it true that school and life was about being able to be the best without giving a shit about anything? I don't think the boy who scored lower on the most likely to succeed lists cared about looking good in a stupid yearbook photo if he was doing what he loved. Gene's confessional in A Separate Peace as this is what boys are like, this is what lies in their hearts. I don't feel it. I don't feel it just because the book tells me it is so.

I'm also perplexed why this is called a masterpiece when it is said right from the off Gene is telling about events from fifteen years past. Different chapters will contradict the previous one when shouldn't he have known this already? As it had all happened already?

My favorite part was when Leper runs away from the army because his life would be ruined with a discharge on grounds of insanity. He would never be hired for employment. This contradicts the rosy "And Stalin was great and Churchhill was great and Roosevelt was great" cheesey voice narrator from a film. I can just hear the middle-aged actor (the poor girl's Tom Hanks) narrating the events as the secondary actor from a CW tv show looks moony at the heartthrob rolling around the school grounds with his athletic body. Gene talked about his friend's body so much I was thinking I had wondered into a junior high school girl's lavatory. "You have such nice breasts!" "Shut up, you have a great butt. All the boys like your butt." I don't know anything more about those girls than they choose to subscribe to an off the surface world expectation. Blah blah blah all sixteen year old boys live the life. But what about everyone else? There were lots of boys in that school.

I didn't read A Separate Peace in high school because I was in the "dumb kid's" English class. I'm not sure if the book tells you stuff that isn't true because the author thought the readers were young and wouldn't understand unless he connected all of the dots? Or is Gene supposed to be this sociopathic and believes his audience to be suckers? But what for? The important thing, for me, about confessionals is why a person is telling you all of this to begin with. Do they want you to know them? What is being absolved if it as easy as a saint-like school chum forgiving you? I don't think you're a bad guy. Or you could live your life and just try to be human and not fuck anyone over any more than you have to. Openness is worth more to me than any confessional story about the bad thing you did or the bad thing that happened to you. That so much of everyone and everything in his life was based on the boy he thought was higher than him says more to me than the rest of it. That is what I think it would say if it didn't know I was watching. Because he's watching Phinny.

Confession? Confessions mean something to me if they are a means to relate. To be naked about what matters to you, if you care about who you are sharing it with. This book doesn't knows you are watching and it thinks it knows who you are and what you know.

I had to read this book in 11th grade English. I hated it. I had to read it again in college. I still hated it. I don't know why everyone thinks it's so great. Please, explain the appeal to me!

This is a beautiful novel about the friendship of two boys and the time they spent in a boarding school. Outside there is a threatening war, inside the walls there is mostly innocence. As time goes by, feelings change and friendship is something more complex, more difficult.
And then something happens that takes away all innocence...

The book is written in a very clear prose with attention to the right word in the right place... the narrator (how reliable is he) looks back on times long ago and gives his version. I loved the contraposition of the harshness of the war and the sweetnes and innocence of school life and the changing tone in athmosphere. However, there were a few times I felt the plot or characters lacked some coherence, so I give 4 stars