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A Stolen Past
A diverse group of people--Allan Prieston, eminent author Reeves Lockhart, and a family of exiled Russian artistocrats--are bound together in a drama shaped by the tensions of the present and the ambiguities of the past
- GenresFiction
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1983
About the author
John Knowles
100 books408 followersJohn Knowles was an American novelist best known for A Separate Peace (1959).
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
March 24, 2016
I enjoyed reading this roman a clef that pays a tribute to Thornton Wilder (thinly disguised as Reeves Lockhart) who was a mentor to Knowles and also a Yalie. The novel is essentially a guide to aspiring novelists, from the advice: "show don't tell" to "destiny aids and helps along those who recognize her, the blind she drags." The book is full of wisdom, well-developed characters, a gripping, thoughtful narrative, and a character named Zinaida, a Russian ex-patriate princess and a Romanov cousin of Anastasia. My friend's daughter married a Russian a few years ago. They named their firstborn Zinaida, a name that was completely unknown to me. Ah!
"...we are all born equally far from the sun; there's a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love."
"...we are all born equally far from the sun; there's a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love."
March 20, 2021
A stolen past shares more then the same initials as John Knowles far more famous book, A Separate Peace. Both are about grown men recalling their days as students and adventures with their roommates/best friends. This time though, the story is much more of a mystery about stolen jewelry than a coming of age tale. It’s a bit outdated with the Anastasia subplot. Also, there,s less emphasis on the friendship between the two young men, though its still explored. This is defiantly my second favorite of Knowles books.
November 6, 2020
This story is kind of vignette of, particularly, the first half of the 20th century with some contrast to the times, circa 1980. I like stories about writers, as well as academia so this struck a chord. In 2007, according to a DNA analysis, it was discovered that Anastasia and her brother, Alexei, were buried in a nearby grave where the rest of the family was entombed, thus disputing the admittance of Princess Naida that she indeed "betrayed" her cousin some years before.
September 24, 2016
Very well written, but a strange book. It didn't have to be told in flashbacks, it could have done without the present altogether, and the steeling of the diamond in the middle of the story was such a plot element that it clashed with all the rest. It is a strange kind of hybrid. Still, the man knows how to write and create amazing characters. Definitely worth your time.
June 16, 2023
(VF : Le passé dérobé)
J’avais adoré Une paix séparée du même auteur, dans lequel un homme adulte revenait sur les années charnières de son existence, à l’université. Ici, le processus est le même : Allan Prieston, célèbre écrivain, revient à Yale après 30 ans, et nous relate l’année de ses 21 ans, marquée par la présence de son ami Gregory et de ses parents, Alexei et Zinaïda, exilés depuis la révolution bolchevique.
Je pense que ce que j’ai le plus aimé dans ce livre, c’est tout l’aspect autour de la Vieille Russie, au travers des récits des proches de la famille impériale russe ayant connu et côtoyé la splendeur de cette empire, avant sa terrible chute. Le passé, comme nous l’indique le titre, tient une place importante dans ce récit, et j’ai vraiment beaucoup aimé la manière dont le poids du passé et des souvenirs étaient abordés, que ce soit dans le récit du personnage principal ou dans la vie d’Alexei et Zinaïda.
Je trouve également que John Knowles, en plus de posséder une magnifique écriture, élégante et limpide, excelle dans l’art de dépeindre et caractériser ses personnages. Ses narrateurs ne sont jamais attachants (même si Allan l’est déjà plus que Gene d’une paix séparée) mais il dépeint avec brio les complexités de la nature humaine et les conséquences désastreuses qu’elles peuvent engendrer.
Ce livre apporte aussi des réflexions sur le métier d’écrivain et le processus d’écriture que j’ai trouvées très intéressantes.
Bref, la vraie question que je me pose et que tout le monde devrait se poser : pourquoi John Knowles ne bénéficie-t-il pas de plus de notoriété en France ? Et pourquoi seulement 2 de ses romans ont été traduits en français ? 🥲 J’aurais adoré découvrir ses autres écrits parce que clairement, même si je trouve le schéma narratif assez semblable entre ses différents livres, c’est définitivement un excellent auteur !
J’avais adoré Une paix séparée du même auteur, dans lequel un homme adulte revenait sur les années charnières de son existence, à l’université. Ici, le processus est le même : Allan Prieston, célèbre écrivain, revient à Yale après 30 ans, et nous relate l’année de ses 21 ans, marquée par la présence de son ami Gregory et de ses parents, Alexei et Zinaïda, exilés depuis la révolution bolchevique.
Je pense que ce que j’ai le plus aimé dans ce livre, c’est tout l’aspect autour de la Vieille Russie, au travers des récits des proches de la famille impériale russe ayant connu et côtoyé la splendeur de cette empire, avant sa terrible chute. Le passé, comme nous l’indique le titre, tient une place importante dans ce récit, et j’ai vraiment beaucoup aimé la manière dont le poids du passé et des souvenirs étaient abordés, que ce soit dans le récit du personnage principal ou dans la vie d’Alexei et Zinaïda.
Je trouve également que John Knowles, en plus de posséder une magnifique écriture, élégante et limpide, excelle dans l’art de dépeindre et caractériser ses personnages. Ses narrateurs ne sont jamais attachants (même si Allan l’est déjà plus que Gene d’une paix séparée) mais il dépeint avec brio les complexités de la nature humaine et les conséquences désastreuses qu’elles peuvent engendrer.
Ce livre apporte aussi des réflexions sur le métier d’écrivain et le processus d’écriture que j’ai trouvées très intéressantes.
Bref, la vraie question que je me pose et que tout le monde devrait se poser : pourquoi John Knowles ne bénéficie-t-il pas de plus de notoriété en France ? Et pourquoi seulement 2 de ses romans ont été traduits en français ? 🥲 J’aurais adoré découvrir ses autres écrits parce que clairement, même si je trouve le schéma narratif assez semblable entre ses différents livres, c’est définitivement un excellent auteur !
March 13, 2026
4.5 stars!
First and foremost I love John Knowles and his writing, and this book didn’t disappoint. It was a little mind-warpy: the main character (Alan) attended Yale and recounts his own time as a student there while also keeping threads of the present, but Alan was clearly just sort of a fictional proxy for John himself. And like Alan wrote the fictional version of this novel too. So you really gotta read it through like a triple lens. But it’s cool! Because the reflections that Alan shares from his older life about things he learned from his youth really paint a picture of John and his thinking as he put together this book. Not sure if that makes a lick of sense.
I wish I had been compelled to pay more attention to the Russian royalty stuff towards the beginning, because that’s where to plot shifts to at the end. I didn’t really start caring about the prince & princess till shit got real. But maybe it was meant to sneak up on me idk.
I LOVED THE SYMBOL OF THE TRAIN! oof it was so good.
Kind of a boring ending, but I think that’s sort of the beauty of it. For 1980s (old) Alan, the main plot was just a story of his past, so it makes sense that he’s sort of abstracted from the drama that the first-hand account carries.
Random thoughts:
- Bonus points for Alan (and, by extension, John) being a semi-southerner navigating the weirdnesses of Yale and life in the northeast (heard!).
- Alan complaining about being in New Haven in February and me reading this in New Haven in February made me feel seen bahaha.
- I refuse to believe John Knowles is straight. None of his main characters (which I fear are just John himself in disguise) feel ANY type of way about women.
- Reeves Lockhart reminded me of gilderoy lockhart from Harry Potter (solely because of the name but lowkey also personality) so they’re the same in my head
First and foremost I love John Knowles and his writing, and this book didn’t disappoint. It was a little mind-warpy: the main character (Alan) attended Yale and recounts his own time as a student there while also keeping threads of the present, but Alan was clearly just sort of a fictional proxy for John himself. And like Alan wrote the fictional version of this novel too. So you really gotta read it through like a triple lens. But it’s cool! Because the reflections that Alan shares from his older life about things he learned from his youth really paint a picture of John and his thinking as he put together this book. Not sure if that makes a lick of sense.
I wish I had been compelled to pay more attention to the Russian royalty stuff towards the beginning, because that’s where to plot shifts to at the end. I didn’t really start caring about the prince & princess till shit got real. But maybe it was meant to sneak up on me idk.
I LOVED THE SYMBOL OF THE TRAIN! oof it was so good.
Kind of a boring ending, but I think that’s sort of the beauty of it. For 1980s (old) Alan, the main plot was just a story of his past, so it makes sense that he’s sort of abstracted from the drama that the first-hand account carries.
Random thoughts:
- Bonus points for Alan (and, by extension, John) being a semi-southerner navigating the weirdnesses of Yale and life in the northeast (heard!).
- Alan complaining about being in New Haven in February and me reading this in New Haven in February made me feel seen bahaha.
- I refuse to believe John Knowles is straight. None of his main characters (which I fear are just John himself in disguise) feel ANY type of way about women.
- Reeves Lockhart reminded me of gilderoy lockhart from Harry Potter (solely because of the name but lowkey also personality) so they’re the same in my head
December 8, 2020
I am a big fan of John Knowles and this book has some similarities to "A Separate Peace" but adds a bit of mystery with a Russian emigre family and a celebrated author based on Thornton Wilder. Mix them all together in a post-war NY-New Haven academic setting with a striving young author and there you have it...a wonderful short and special read.
June 13, 2012
I am a creature of habit. It’s not just a fear of change, but a deep-seated love of the same thing over and over. I realized the other day that my favorite cooking blogs are almost identical to each other—muted, rustic pictures of pulses and grains in glass jars and fresh fruit and vegetables on cutting boards are my vision of cooking. Every time I see a black, almost-stiletto pump shoe in the store, I find a reason for its inclusion in my closet. And books shoot to the top of my favorites list when they are written with an elegiac tone and have meaning at the end.
This is all lead up to my great recent surprise: despite having every marker to appeal to me, A Stolen Past is nowhere near the top of my book list. That the book felt only mediocre to me is all the more astonishing in view of my immense love for A Separate Peace , John Knowles’s far more famous magnum opus.
A Stolen Past places middle-aged,successful author, Allan Prieston, at Yale thirty years after some disturbing relationship during his 1950’s college years. Young Allan has been fascinated by visits with his roommate’s family of exiled Russian royalty, whose only future income is to be the sale of the priceless diamond they keep in a house safe. His observation of their personal failings (the father’s inability to publish his writing; the mother’s refusal to recognize the woman she believes is her cousin, the Princess Anastasia; and the son’s desperate attempts to marry an heiress) and familial decay (when the diamond on which they depended is stolen) inspires his first serious writing. Middle-aged Allan parallels his story of the Trouvenskoy family with his developing understanding of what it means to be a writer.
The book, as the convoluted plot might suggest, is a mess. The plot has so many elements that by the time I finished sorting out each individual’s story of failure or success, it seemed like there should have been a meaningful, cohesive ending. Knowles is so technically adept that the ending almost seems to have pulled it off by wrapping everything into a multifaceted definition of success vs. failure. But, as Knowles has the writer-mentor say in the book, you should never mistake the obvious for the profound.
Even a pseudo-meaningful ending could be tolerable if the rest of the book were stronger. In terms of characters, there is nobody particularly likeable, and their development is weak-to-nonexistent. The only thing unambiguously laudable is Knowles’s writing, which remains eloquent and economical. And this, no matter how much I am in the habit of rewarding it in books, is not enough for me to claim to have enjoyed the book.
This is all lead up to my great recent surprise: despite having every marker to appeal to me, A Stolen Past is nowhere near the top of my book list. That the book felt only mediocre to me is all the more astonishing in view of my immense love for A Separate Peace , John Knowles’s far more famous magnum opus.
A Stolen Past places middle-aged,successful author, Allan Prieston, at Yale thirty years after some disturbing relationship during his 1950’s college years. Young Allan has been fascinated by visits with his roommate’s family of exiled Russian royalty, whose only future income is to be the sale of the priceless diamond they keep in a house safe. His observation of their personal failings (the father’s inability to publish his writing; the mother’s refusal to recognize the woman she believes is her cousin, the Princess Anastasia; and the son’s desperate attempts to marry an heiress) and familial decay (when the diamond on which they depended is stolen) inspires his first serious writing. Middle-aged Allan parallels his story of the Trouvenskoy family with his developing understanding of what it means to be a writer.
The book, as the convoluted plot might suggest, is a mess. The plot has so many elements that by the time I finished sorting out each individual’s story of failure or success, it seemed like there should have been a meaningful, cohesive ending. Knowles is so technically adept that the ending almost seems to have pulled it off by wrapping everything into a multifaceted definition of success vs. failure. But, as Knowles has the writer-mentor say in the book, you should never mistake the obvious for the profound.
Even a pseudo-meaningful ending could be tolerable if the rest of the book were stronger. In terms of characters, there is nobody particularly likeable, and their development is weak-to-nonexistent. The only thing unambiguously laudable is Knowles’s writing, which remains eloquent and economical. And this, no matter how much I am in the habit of rewarding it in books, is not enough for me to claim to have enjoyed the book.
February 29, 2020
John Knowles is a master of literature.
It baffles me that he isn't more respected and widely read. Sure, 'A Separate Peace' is massively read, but he offers so much more than just that one fateful novel.
This novel was the third novel of his that I've read and I was once again mystified by his literary techniques; his imagery is unparalleled.
Being that I just received four more of his out-of-print novel, it won't be long until I delve once again into the wonderfully-crafted writing of Knowles.
He keeps me inspired to pursue writing. Read him.
It baffles me that he isn't more respected and widely read. Sure, 'A Separate Peace' is massively read, but he offers so much more than just that one fateful novel.
This novel was the third novel of his that I've read and I was once again mystified by his literary techniques; his imagery is unparalleled.
Being that I just received four more of his out-of-print novel, it won't be long until I delve once again into the wonderfully-crafted writing of Knowles.
He keeps me inspired to pursue writing. Read him.
August 6, 2020
Having loved A Separate Peace, I anticipated this would be well written. It was. Very enjoyable.
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February 15, 2011http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/7...
I own a copy and bookcrossed a copy.
I own a copy and bookcrossed a copy.
April 1, 2013
I liked this book throughout most of my reading, but the denouement felt slapped-together and unsatisfying.
March 27, 2017
A very well written book, which I read over the course of a week, while reading two other books. I kept wanting to return to it, with it's fascinating portrayal of emigre Russian aristocrats and their potential for high drama.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews