Book Review: A SEPARATE PEACE by John Knowles

A Separate Peace by John Knowles
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"It seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart."

This is one of those "Everyone says it's great -- it's in THE CANON so I really must read this someday" books, that was originally published in 1959! But I only got around to reading now.

After reading it, I can easily understand the hype. (I do, however, believe that this is the type of book that is best read as an adult... when one is old enough to have regrets in life, but still young enough to easily recall what it's like to be sweet sixteen, to wake up everyday full of hope and happiness.)

"We reminded them of what peace was like... we were careless and wild, and I suppose we could be thought of as a sign of the life the war was being fought to preserve... we reminded them of what peace was like, of lives which were not bound up with destruction."

Yes, it's about the loss of innocence (get your mind out of the gutter, not THAT kind of loss of innocence!) of a generation as well as of an individual. But it's also about love of country, the purpose of education, and a treatise on the shadows and flames of philia (friendly/ brotherly love).

John Knowles is a beautiful word painter! You can see and smell not just the venue, but the very ATMOSPHERE of the exclusive boarding school where our protagonists spend the last carefree summer of their lives, before being called upon to serve in World War II. And it's almost as if he can slice a human heart open and lay bare all its secrets, so skillfully does he present the chaos and goodness within.

I REALLY liked this book, but as a teacher, I don't think I would recommend it for high school English classes. The subject matter is extremely mature and needs extensive processing, otherwise it might trigger supremely negative emotions.

As for college English classes, I recently read another book with a similar theme on the friendship between 2 school boys, but one I feel is better and more hopeful, more relevant and impactful: Colson Whitehead's THE NICKEL BOYS.

"There was a breath of widening life in the morning air... I wanted to break out crying from stabs of hopeless joy, or intolerable promise, or because these mornings were too full of beauty for me, because I knew of too much hate to be contained in a world like this."

That being said, A SEPARATE PEACE is also a good read, if only to remind us of our younger selves, our gentler and cleaner souls. And also to remind us never to take the sunrise of a beautiful morning for granted.

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