Review – A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Title: A Separate Peace
Author: John Knowles
Year Published: 1959
Format: Library Paperback, 204 pp

Summary: An American classic and great bestseller for over thirty years, A Separate Peace is timeless in its description of adolescence during a period when the entire country was losing its innocence to the second world war.

Set at a boys boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.

A bestseller for more than thirty years, A Separate Peace is John Knowles crowning achievement and an undisputed American classic.

My Summary: A brief novel that effectively communicates the sadness experienced from the loss of innocence.  4 stars.

My Thoughts: I generally enjoy coming-of-age stories.  There is something dynamic and nostalgic about those last days of innocence before you start to fully carry the burdens of adulthood.

Some of the descriptions I quite enjoyed as I lived in New England for eight years.  But they could also at times become overly verbose, especially when trying to describe Gene’s feelings and relationship with Finny.  The text got mired down a bit and sometimes lost its effectiveness.  But overall, the reader recognizes the complexity in Gene’s feelings and how he tries to sort through them first to manage his reactions to his jealousy and resentment toward Finny, and later to manage his feelings after his summer and final year at Dover.

Overall, however, the book communicates the sadness we experience when confronted with the idea that a person must indeed lose his or her innocence. It also shows how adults want to help prepare young charges for this difficulty but also to protect them as much as possible.  It is a difficult dichotomy with which to struggle.