A Separate Peace

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"