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A Separate Peace
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Thanks, John, for posting about it.
I found a short summary:
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"This celebrated novel is about the relationship between two boys at a boarding school during World War II. Gene is a brilliant student; Finney is a great athlete. Jealousy between them builds until Gene's internal battle for identity and security leads to a tragedy that changes both of their lives forever."
From: http://www.glencoe.com/sec/literature...
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Well, I got that far. That's a step. Onward and upward! ~~~~~


You mentioned Phineas in a post at the following topic:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/8...

http://www.shmoop.com/intro/literatur...
The link was in a discussion topic called: "A Separate Peace analysis, themes, trivia, audio, video".
Looks like a great dissection of the book!

http://www.glencoe.com/sec/literature...
The Goodreads page on him is also interesting. It's at:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...
It says: "A Separate Peace is based upon Knowles' experiences at Exeter during the summer of 1943. The setting for The Devon School is a thinly veiled fictionalization of Phillips Exeter. The plot should not be taken as autobiographical, although many elements of the novel stem from personal experience."
There's more info there about his friend Gore Vidal who attended Exeter Academy in NH around the same time as Knowles.
Jim, you must relate to all of this, having attended a similar school.



That's got to be tough, having such a fantastic first book. They have so much to live up to. I think that is one of the problems Tennessee Williams had. I've seen too-early, too-big success happen other times in life & it seems to devastate many people.

Right. There's nowhere to go but down.

For instance, Cal Ripken retired from pro baseball & was instrumental in getting a new stadium built in another area of MD. He started a minor league team there & is doing a lot of stuff with kids. That's far better than moaning for the 'Glory Days' (song by Bruce Springstien) for the rest of your life or vegetating away.

That reminds me of Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich who grew old hiding their aged faces from the public. I enjoyed the book, Blue Angel, by Donald Spoto, about the life of Marlene Dietrich. Donald Spoto writes some good biographies.

Books mentioned in this topic
A Separate Peace (other topics)Blue Angel: The Life of Marlene Dietrich (other topics)
Outliers: The Story of Success (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
Tennessee Williams (other topics)Donald Spoto (other topics)
It is an extremely well written book (along the lines of Gatsby--no unnecessary word, no passage that doesn't ring true) that really pulls you in...