A Separate Peace

Rating:
Summary: I never know what to put here
Review: Funny thing. I recently read Remembering the Good Times by Peck and I simply can't resist drawing a similarity between the two books. In fact, because the tone/style is so similar, I was somewhat able to predict the ending of Separate Peace halfway through the book. Nevertheless, it's a wonderful book. It's a story about the friendship between two boys. One is a bit on the envious side and hurts the other, who later on either ignores or forgive his confession. (Some psychological analysis may be inserted here, but I won't go into that.) In any case, I'm personally attracted to the character Phineas, whom the book describes/shows as a very charming fellow. The style in general makes me want to read the rest of John Knowles's books. :)

Rating:
Summary: Old But New
Review: I really liked this book. It's so weird that a book written as early in time as this one can be so relating and interesting to a teenager growing up in 2005. Even though it was written a long time ago it doesn't have the usual slang from that time. It is a very easy book to read and understand. Even though Gene is the one who jounces the limb to make Finny fall off, I feel bad for him throughout the story. It was a spur of the moment thing that he really regrets the further the story goes on. Finny just doesn't want to believe that his friend would ever do something like that and who could blame him this I one of the parts i can relate to. If one of my friends did something to ruin my life and I thought it was an accident I wouldn't want to believe them either. As if it's not hard enough for Gene to realize what an awful thing he has done his has to convince his friend he did it. I would recommend this book to anyone my age or not.

Rating:
Summary: More "vague" than "dark"
Review: What motivates these characters? What do they want? Do they succeed or do they fail? Why or why not? Sometimes ambiguity is a useful literary device, but here, I felt that the characters, their relationship, and the central conflict of the story were more confused than they were deliberately ambiguous.

The plot revolves around an incident between the two central characters, ostensibly friends, in which one may or may not have acted with malice aforethought toward the other. At the first, I didn't feel that the incident itself was especially shocking or egregious. One has this sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop, as the characters grope their way through the aftermath of the incident in a manner that doesn't seem to me to advance their respective understandings of themselves, each other, or their surroundings to any significant degree. They seem static and without clear motivation. Then the other shoe does drop, in a sense, at the very end of the book. The other shoe is more significant in it's import than the initial incident, but it's an act of god and it comes and goes so quickly that that too, leaves the reader confused as to it's impact on the other characters. It feels like it's just there as a way of magnifying significance (or maybe, just ending the book), and not for any other reason.

I don't think the central question of this book is, "Did he or didn't he?" I think it's fairly clear that we are to understand that he acted somewhat deliberately, but not with complete premeditation, nor totally out of hate, and without complete understanding of his own actions, and that's the limit of what there is to know about that. It's not a question with an answer; he doesn't even know himself- that's deliberate ambiguity, and that's fine. I think the central question would be more like "What is the nature of the relationship between these two characters that generates these feelings?" or "Why do we sometimes do malicious things when we don't mean to be malicious people?" But I don't think it's clear by any means, and I don't think the book suggests a lot of answers.

Rating:
Summary: An interesting book
Review: I am reading this book in English 2. It is fairly interesting, and now that i realize that Gene isn't a psycopath, i'm starting to like him. Anyways, i was just wondering AP reader, do you happen to still have that metaphorical analysis? If you do, send me somethin and [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: amazing
Review: John Knowles's A Separate Peace isn't called a classic for nothing. Admittedly, it can get slow at times, but the concepts behind this book are incredibly deep. I never understood how an ordinary guy, Gene, could be driven by such jealousy of his best friend, Finny, until I realized that Gene's jealousy had nothing to do with Finny's athletic ability or popularity or anything; he was jealous of Finny's goodness, and ashamed of how Finny extended nothing but pure, innocent friendship to him and he couldn't accept it. Had I realized this the first time, I would've understood the book a lot better. Because this is told from Gene's point of view, the reader will always be wondering about "the other side of the story", all the parts Gene left out, perhaps because he couldn't understand it himself. I even cried at the end of this book. Anyways, this book is incredible if you will give it the time to develop. It kind of grew on me; I wasn't very interested in the book until halfway through, and each time I read it over it I liked it more and more. All in all, a classic that I would definitely recommend.

Rating:
Summary: Good and yet Bad
Review: This book was assigned as an AP English reading. I found the story interesting but since its AP....well they must make it boring in some twisted way of theirs'. We did some metaphorical analysis. Now doesn't that sound like fun? There is a lot of boring and quite convuluted metaphorical material in this little book. Overall it was a good read until the analysis part.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, Mysterious, but sometimes confusing.
Review: I have just finished reading this book. This book was way different than I predicted it to be. I never even had the idea that Finny would die. The most interesting part was when Finny falls from the tree. This book grabs the reader's attention and it just wants you to read on and on. But sometimes this book can get boring and confusing in some parts. The reason for this is because of all the hard vocabulary, and sometimes when they have long conversations so it gets kind of boring. This book also has a lot of history information, because this story takes place during the World War 2. So it is also based on the wartime. I do not really know why this book is called "The Separate Peace". Maybe this book is called this way because of the relationship between Gene, and Finny. Have you ever got into a severe fight and almost killed that person? Well that's what happens in this story, and that is why I really enjoy this book, the relationship between them. I wish they would make a book called,"A Separate Peace 2" that is continued on by a different author because John Knowles past away. I wish, " A Separate Peace 2" would be based on when Gene grows up. Who knows maybe I can write it? Anyway I really enjoyed this book and I highly recommend this book to everyone in this world, and I wish I could see the movie!

Rating:
Summary: The true preppies' handbook and masterpiece
Review: I have read this book twice as a schoolboy and twice as an adult to realise this is a modern masterpiece in American literature.

A story of subtle themes of love (maybe to argue: "A love that dare not say its' name") hate, jealousy, denial and regret with a world war growing closer to the lives of the boys at The Devon School.

Is Finny a guardian angel, a fallen Greek demi-god, brother, or lover in Gene's eyes? Why did and what was the real reason that caused Gene to be apart of the fall of his best friend and roomate? That is the question. You decide.

Readers of different ages will interpret this story in many different ways and, as I, have reread this book at different points in my life to see many aspects of the story not realised before.I believe this will be true to other readers and why it is a masterpiece.

Anyone who attended a prep school would have most likely have read this novel; one could say that this novel is the true preppies' handbook!

Read it again and again and you will see many themes arise as one gets older. For me this time round, at age thirty five, it was love lost.

Rating:
Summary: Very well written but confusing
Review: I think this book is extremely well done but I don't get it? My ninth grade english teacher told us that maybe Finny never existed and that he was probably just a part of Gene. I saw in the section when they describe "A. Hopkins Parker" that no proof of Finny's remarkable athletic accomplishment gets listed on the plaque (as only Gene witnesses it) and that if Finny's name had gone up on the plaque (replacing A. Hopkins) it would have proved Finny had actually really existed. But there's too many times in the book when Gene is talking to others (like Leper Lepellier) about Finny being in the hospital and or in a wheelchair. Here Finny seems to definitely exist. I'm confused.

Rating:
Summary: Very Interesting book...
Review: I really enjoyed this book...even counting the fact that it didn't have any action or romance at all. The author, John Knowles, does an excellent job of portraying the different characters and their personalities. He tells about the friendship between two best friends: Gene and Finny. Both complete opposites. Gene, being the serious type, and Finny, being the happy-go-lucky type of person. Both go to a prestigious all-boys school in New England.
John Knowles portrays the ideas of war, hatred, friendship, and betrayal through his two main characters. Because the book is set during World War II, he demonstrates excellently the ideas going through people's minds if they wouldn't fight in the war.
(...)I just finished reading this book. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes a "philosophical" type of book. It wasn't the greatest book of all time, but it was a good book all around. I loved the way John Knowles portrayed the ideas of WWII through two best friends who lived (actually one) through the war.
This book truly demonstrates the concept of "A war within a war"