A Separate Peace

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written
Review: A separate peace, written by John Knowles, is set in a boarding school in New Hampshire during World War II. This book is a remarkable novel mainly about a unique friendship between the two main characters, Gene and Phineas. Gene is a shy, reserved intellectual, while Phineas is an outgoing, lively athlete. However the disparity between their personalities has a mysterious force that pulls them together. The friendship portrayed by Knowles is amazingly real- they waiver between hate and friends as mini-conflicts arise between them.
The campus of this school was situated out of the reaches of the war; most of the students are not bothered by what¡¦s happening in the outside world. However, as the students neared graduation and the truth slowly unveiled itself, it shattered the tranquility within the campus, and the students were suddenly faced with the shocking reality. A seemingly small incident had progressed into a huge conflict that ultimately was entirely comprised of evil.

This book is well designed and controlled. At critical times in the story, Knowles is careful not to reveal too much, which leaves the reader in suspense with the urge to read on. In my opinion, there isn¡¦t a definite plot (not saying it¡¦s a flaw of the book). In fact, the novel is written somewhat like a diary. Even so, Knowles¡¦ perspective towards the war is timeless, and his masterpiece would appeal to most people who read this touching story.

Rating:
Summary: Still reaching teens... with universal themes
Review: As standard fare for most high school sophomores, this tale of personal growth and the loss of innocence is still taught in high schools around the world because it reaches the reader. Initially the girls in my international classroom wondered what value yet another angst-ridden tale of a bunch of white boys could possible mean for them, and I understood their skepticism. Phineas and Gene represent kids that exist in our lives - the easygoing athlete, the slightly uptight student. That Gene, our narrator, should have the strength and will to return to the place where his own innocence was, essentially lost forever, is to demonstrate that coming to terms with these events in our lives in the right and healthy thing to do. Set in a New England boarding school for boys during WW II, this is a book about exploring the competing sides of one's personality, learning how to admit (own) guilt, the complexities of friendship, the solution of life's inner battles being the acceptance (and even love) of others, and even the broader contrast between positive and negative elements in society (the war is a very appropriate setting here). Conflict is always present in our lives whether we are white boys at a private school in New England or a teenaged Thai girl in an international school in Dhaka. This is a good book for teens to read in their own search for the acceptance of that ubiquitous 'conflict' and how to manage it.

Rating:
Summary: Didn't Grab My Attention
Review: Gene and Finny are best friends who go to a boarding school in New Hampshire. Gene has a lot of jealousy of Finny because he does most thing better than him and is also more popular. The whole story is based upon this tree they have on campus. It is a very sad book.
It did not grab my attention at all. It is a very slow book and not too many exciting parts in the story. I would not recommend this book for people who like exciting books that keep you on the edge of your seat. Also where the story took place was very boring. I would have to give it 3 stars because I have read worse books.

Rating:
Summary: Knowles' classic still holds up
Review: Gene and Phineas are two students who are at Devon school in the summer of 1942. During that time, Phineas, who is an athlete, and Gene, who is an intellectual student, decide to jump from a tree into a river. Phineas, the great athlete, is injured and Gene feels responsible for the accident. Phineas then decides that he is going to train Gene to be the athlete that Phineas was. Gene, in the back of his mind, blames himself for what happened to his friend; in fact, he believes that he caused it on purpose. Relations between the two boys becomes strained, and things begin happening that change their group of friends, and nothing will ever be the same again.

It's a good story, but wordy, capturing the atmosphere at a boy's school during WWII, and the effect that the war has on these young men.

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: 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 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"


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: War and Peace
Review: If there's a hidden meaning in this book, it is so obscure that this reader still hasn't found it. The things that this book did show me were how much the war consumed the youth and adults of the time. Boys in high school were training for the war. PE became a physical conditioning for war. Teachers and parents pushed boys not even out of school yet to join the service. It was understood that they would join the service.

Because one's entire identity and worth rested on his ability to join in the war, those that failed in the effort lost themselves. Most tragic is Phineas (a.k.a. Finny) who was a great athlete who, while horsing around, fell from a tree branch and broke his leg, leaving himself a cripple. And Leper who was a hero when he left the school to join the war, and slinked back as a topic of gossip after he cracked.

If you read this book, you see how war affected different people and the tragedy of young boys changing the course of their lives for a war, something so much larger than them. There's jealousy, suspicion, paranoia, and numb acceptance. A decent read, though seemingly aimless at times. Never boring, however.