Final Club

by Geoffrey Wolff

Book by Wolff, Geoffrey

Genres: Fiction, Novels

370 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though college is supposed to be the time of your life, many people's experiences are decidedly mixed. That is the case with the Nathaniel Clay, the protagonist of this class conscious and intensely personal coming-of-age story that revolves around Princeton in the 1950s. The experience of acceptance and rejection by those with more money and nicer clothes than you is resonant, as are the complicated feelings later in life of this half-mythical place where you spent four years of your life. But like a movie that goes on 20 minutes too long, a dramatic ending that seemingly comes out of nowhere mars an otherwise excellent F. Scott Fitzgerald-like college novel.

[Katie Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't articulate or even formulate in my mind why I liked this book, but I did.

Only two little bits to quote:
"What would it be like to wake up in such a place as [Malta], to make it through the day to dark, to lie down there knowing you would wake there, unbroken cycle,no more to be expected than what you already knew? And not just the poverty of the place. The prison of it. To be stuck anywhere. Seattle, lakeside, in a pretty house. To KNOW that tomorrow would be no more than today."

Isn't that just life. I mean, really. Ugh, right? But would you trade it for chaos and trauma? Can't you still learn something and have value in the quiet?

and mostly unrelated, but thematic for sure:
"This isn't some damned sprint I'm in. This is a long-distance event, and stamina counts, and I can train myself for stamina. What's wrong with this country [this life], it's all finals. Final exams, final heats, final matches, sets, games, points, final words...."

The idea of "indisputable failure" and trying for that or just seeking the journey, not the end may be why I enjoyed this book. Perhaps. A lesson I need help learning.

I think I liked the book because it has made me think. And I'm still thinking. I wish I had someone to discuss it with, actually... maybe that makes it book club fodder (for the right club). At any rate, this is a keeper for my shelf, and not exclusively because I happen to have my hands on a signed first edition. :)

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Public school kid goes to elite college; meets wealthier, more sophisticated classmates who welcome him into their circle; learns to dress preppy, eat and drink well, and fit in among the private school set; joins an eating club; deals with snobbery from the moneyed, square-jawed, parents of his friends in the summers; rows crew and learns to sail; meets, wins, and loses pretty girlfriend; meets, wins, marries, and almost loses a better wife; gains modest success but forever looks backward; works to ensure children won’t feel like outsiders, while placing them in a similar situation; can’t figure out if he’s grateful or angry at the journey. The Gatsby and Fitzgerald allusions would have been much more effective had they not been so constant and explicit. Some great and familiar characters. Skip the last 30 pages.

[Bernadette Frenz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot to process in this book, written by the brother of the author, Tobias Wolff. A story of the main character's (Nathaniel Clay,) years as a student at Princeton, & how they informed his future, incl the choice of his two children to eventually go there. A book about how class's functions in the US, at elite universities. The main character sees himself as an anti Gatsby/Nick Carraway figure, eventually gone astray, who tries to navigate his losses & make them right.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Dinky pulled out with a squeak, like a ride on an amusement park.

'Okay, kids, look sharp. There's Walker-Gordon Dairy. Let me tell you, when the wind blew wrong we used to get a hairy blast of cowness downwind at Pyne Hall. Where I roomed freshman year?' Ginger was staring at him, a remarkable likeness of rapt attention. 'Have you kids heard of Athens?'

'Sure,' said Jake. 'Athens, Greece: it's famous. The Cradle of Democracy.'

'Right. Well, they call Princeton the Athens of New Jersey.'

'Because it's a cradle of democracy?'

Nathaniel pondered the question. He might have invoked James Madison and Woodrow Wilson. John Foster and Allen Dulles. Princeton in the Nation's Service. Wasn't a Continental Congress held in Nassau Hall? Wasn't Princeton - for a day, maybe a week, maybe even longer - the Nation's Capital? Modern times: wasn't crew an entirely democratic endeavor? Row fast, first boat; row slower, second. Wasn't the democratic reality of crew precisely why Booth Tarkington Griggs had quit crew? Wasn't the Final Club an association open to all (within the bounds of merit and fellowship and dinner-jacket ownership)? No, the Final Club wasn't. Nathaniel said: 'No, Jake. Princeton is not a cradle of democracy. They call it the Athens of New Jersey because it's got a lot of culture going for it.'

'Do they call Athens the Princeton of Greece?'

'I guess they must, precious.'

Nathaniel felt anxious coming back here with his kids. Proprietary, avid to have them proud to have a father who lived here four years. But why should his children take pride in such a thing? Their hearts should beat fast because their dad had rest-stopped at an oasis? Because that was Princeton's most telling reality: oasis. Despite discord high and low this year, the past half-decade, Princeton had endured few insults to its tranquility. It would be nice to imagine the University's civility could be thanked, but Nathaniel knew better. This place was governed by smugness, the self-assurance of oasis-dwellers who can just barely see the god-awful desert beyond these date palms and fig trees, who are sure that by the authority vested in having rested here four years their children are obliged to feel pulse-racing pride.

On the other hand: ease up. At such a time in such a world, repose could be a virtue. Nathaniel, quondam Vermonter, could get behind repose. Didn't the entire country, if only it knew it, yearn to hole up in safe ports like Princeton, and watch the sun rise and go down?"

[Brendan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a great novel by any stretch, but one chapter stands out. It is written in the voice of an elementary-aged kid -- the chapter is an essay he wrote for school about his father; his teacher happens to be his mother. Wolff manages the voice flawlessly while guiding the reader through the pitfalls of pre-adolescence and a family on the verge of collapse. A virtuoso performance!

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought Wolff was dead on in his portrait of the hopes and disappointments of college students and the adults they become. While I didn't like the ending, I could understand how it symbolized that real life is happening at college--it is neither completely idyllic nor isolated from the world.

[Andy · Rating 2 out of 5]

From the pacific northwest to Princeton University, 1960. And, a bit, today.