John Knowles Books

Ghosts and Other Plays is a seminal series of plays that combine humor with scathing social critique. Ibsen was not afraid to tackle weightier themes and taboos, in order to shock his audience out of their complacency. These plays demonstrate Ibsen's loathing of hyprocrisy, soulless institutions, the mandates of society which cause suffering (ie. Christianity). He has also been perceived as the figurehead for the emancipation of women from their traditional "place." That is not to say Ibsen is of dire seriousness or dry. His plays move quickly, the events in "Ghosts" for ex. occurring in less than a day. Ibsen is a great playwright whose works remain relevant and vital, in a consumerist society where people still remain afraid to defy cultural norms.

Is an interesting book for who is in domaine. For the otherone could be inyeresting not at all.

A typical John Knowles writing. This book contains 6 short stories of different characters, each filled with its own events and plots. I want to note that this book is not completely about Phineas, the character in A Seperate Peace. He's in one of the six stories, alright, but it's just another brief summary of what happend in A Seperate Peace.

The table of contents:

1. A Turn with the Sun
2. Summer Street
3. The Peeping Tom
4. Martin the Fisherman
5. Phineas
6. The Reading of the Will

Here's a description of the 3 main characters involed in 3 out of the 6 short stories listed on the first page:

Phineas: "He was free, fearless, the envy of everyone-and completely unsuspecting of the one who betrayed him."
Christopher: "With his father dead and his mother sole heir to the fortune, there was only Ernie-and he had to travel 5,000 miles to find out that Ernie didn't want him either."
Lawrence: "He was neither grotesque nor courageous enough to make a mark-but for one single act he would always be remembered."

In Phineas; Six Stories, the character Phineas, featured in Knowles other novel A Seperate Peace is again placed in the spolight at his school. This time it is in a sequence of short stories, some involving Phineas's witty charm, others displaying his coveted athletic talents. All stories are examples of Knowles's flawless style of writing. If you enjoyed the Knowles previous books, and you like a book that offers waspy comedy and old prep school charm, this is the book of short stories to read.

"A Stolen Past" shares the same general flavor as Knowles' other books- introspective characters, tragic events- but also contains a good deal of commentary on the writing life. The novel's main character, Allan Pearson, is an aspiring writer who has been taken under the wing of an accomplished author. With this mentor, and through the experience of meeting an exiled family of Russian royalty, he explores his talent and himself. I would definitely recommend this book to any fans of Knowles' other work, particularly those with an interest in writing. This book should not be out of print!!

I read the book, "A Seperate Peace", by John Knowles and it was pretty good. It involves two main boys going through high school during World War II. One of the boys,Phineas, is superior at everything involving sports. The other main character is Gene Forrester. He is great at school but not in sports. These boys are roomed together in their prepatory school named Devon and are best friends. Gene starts thinking that Phineas, a.k.a Finny, is trying to hold back him from doing so great at school so he can be the best at everything. So Gene starts hating Finny and ends up creating a horrible accident that ruins Finny's life forever. It shows that there is always some darkness in the back of Gene's mind but never once was there in Finny's. Gene goes to tell Phineas that he created the accident but Finny doesn't belive him. So Gene drops it and hopes Finny won't try to remember what actually happened that one day and remember the truth. Another character in the book is a boy named Leper Lelliper who is always looking to find the best things in life he can look at slowly and not rush anything. He decides to go look at and take pictures of a beaver dam then go and work on the railroads to help the WWII fighters get through the town. But in his childish life he becomes to be the first person in his and Gene's and Finny's class to enlist in the army. After doing this everybody's life takes a turn. Brinker Hadley, the class president, drops out of all extra curricular activites and becomes lazy. Gene starts working at sports and pitys Finny every chance he can. Phineas starts trying to get his life back in order and trys to do all the things he did before the accident. But then one day Gene recieves a letter from Leper asking for help. The army has done something to Leper and tooken something away from him he can never get back. Gene goes to visit him but can't take it and goes back to Devon, never speaking of what happened. Then one night Brinker Hadley and a bunch of other boys awaken Finny and Gene to take them to a trail. A trial that would change Finny's life and Gene's life forever. The whole story is told by Gene Forrester in a flashback fifteen years ago. The story shows great symbolism with tree. And always has great themes, such as:private war versus public war, Gene's view of life vs. Finny's view of life, and a life of conformity vs. a life of freedom.

Slim volume, but very worth having if you are interested in the industrial landscape of Northern Ontario in the 1930's - 1950's.

Product is exactly as described, shipping just took a little longer than anticipated. Otherwise a wonderful buying experience!

Needed book for required reading for school. Really enjoyed the read. Would recommend for anyone.

Sixteeen-year-old Devon Academy students Gene and Phineas "Finny" are two among 200 private high school students in attendance at a rural New Hampshire boarding school as the story begins in the summer of '42. WWII is raging on other continents, but the best friends and their classmates are a world away. Serious, studious Gene is amazed and often envious of his friend Finny's spontaneous rule-breaking antics. And even more so by his ability to evade punishment and even obtain a smile (or more) from even the most staid faculty member as he dodges punishment with seemingly logical explanations and excuses for his ever-impulsive behavior. Athletic golden boy Phineas seems almost too good to be true, convincing the most reluctant student to participate in his crazy activities, made-up games and clubs. He even goes so far as to contend that the war is not real. But Gene begins to wonder if there might be a more sinister reason for Finny's follies: preventing him from showing up his friend by winning an award for academics. All it takes is one little well-timed jounce to change both lives forever.

With its perfect descriptions of the surroundings, superb character development, and not entirely predictable plot, A Separate Peace will draw the reader in to a remarkable story of friendships between privileged, intelligent young men at the brink of manhood and involvement in the war. Both a life lesson and clinic on how to write descriptively, this novel is likely to stay with readers for a very long time. Also good, The Dive from Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer, better, and An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser.

Published in 1959, John Knowles' A SEPARATE PEACE is loosely based on the author's experiences while a student at Exter Academy during the 1940s--and tells the story of two students, Phineas and Gene, who strike up an unlikely but intense friendship that leads unexpectedly to tragedy and untimely death. It was extremely well-received by critics and public alike and is considered a minor classic of modern American literature, a frequent fixture on high school and university must-read lit studies lists.

A fairly short work, A SEPARATE PEACE can be easily read from cover to cover in the course of two or three hours--but I wouldn't recommend doing so. Some novels should not be rushed, and this is one of them; Knowles' lyric style requires a certain patience to develop fully in the reader's mind and the almost ghostly manner in which he handles the novel's themes of friendship, rivalry, ethics, and morality requires a fair amount of thought.

Gene, the novel's narrator, returns to Devon Academy, a private school he attended as a teenager during World War II. He hopes the visit will allow him to face the truth of and find meaning in the past--and he vividly recalls his relationship with school friend and roommate Phineas, a gifted athlete and charismatic eccentric whose charm encouraged his fellow students to numerous risky activities. Chief among these are a dangerous dive from a tree branch into the river, a dive that gradually acquires a ritualistic nature and ultimate gives rise to tragedy.

The nature of the tragedy involved drives the action of the novel. Who is morally weak and who is morally strong? How much can Gene--and we--ascribe to accident and circumstance and impulse and how much arises from free will? Who is actually responsible? There are no easy answers.

In both tone and story A SEPARATE PEACE seems to draw from three earlier masterpieces: F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1920 THIS SIDE OF PARADISE and 1925 THE GREAT GATSBY and Evelyn Waugh's 1945 BRIDESHEAD REVISITED. All three of these are lyical in tone; both PARADISE and BRIDESHEAD present young men in academic settings; and PEACE is quite similar in conclusion to GATSBY, both novels ending without a clear moral center and leaving the reader to sort of the meaning of the story in much the same way the characters must.

This was Knowles' first novel, and in some respects his inexperience shows: at certain points, most notably Gene's visit to Leper's Vermont home and the impromptu student court, the construction feels forced and artificial, as if Knowles recognized these moments had to occur for the sake of the story but didn't quite know how to go about writing them. That aside, however, the style of writing is remarkable eloquent, the prose possessing a poetic quality that is remarkably fine. The conclusion never fully resolves the relationship between Gene and Phineas, never fully answers the questions it raises, and as such has a remarkably haunting quality.

I personally A SEPARATE PEACE an often-brilliant piece of writing; I also suspect it is a novel that holds up extremely well to re-reading. At the same time, however, I confess I also found it slightly over-rated. There is a very fine line between narrative vagueness that inspires thought and narrative vagueness that is simply vague, and Knowles too often edges into the latter. Recommended, but perhaps best regarded as a slightly flawed "art" novel.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

A Separate Peace caught my attention right from the first chapter. John Knowles uses simple and clean language that makes reading this novel easy. It is a short novel with an interestingly simple plot that could have been developed into any ending.

The two main characters, Gene and Finny, are opposite in what they do but are attracted by the same excitement. Gene is very involved in his schoolwork and academically gifted. Finny is very involved in sports and physical activity. The story revolves around the lives of Gene and Finny and their path through school, life, and the war.

The differences these boys appear to have creates a competitiveness that's very prevalent in most parts of the novel, creating tensions that pull the reader in. Adding the war into the story makes it different from other tension filled novels in the sense that there is an additional fear. The fear of war becomes a reality for the boys when their friend Leper Lepellier gets drafted and sent to war. Knowles helps create a gloomy mood at select times by using dark and sharp words. But when there are happy moments he is very good at creating an ambiance that's warm and heart felt. Heart felt words are mostly used when Finny and Gene are together, like at the beach or when they make up a new game. It is a story that explores the launch into manhood and the difficulties boys deal with during war times. The novel is very realistic and offers a sense into their experiences.

I would recommend this book because you don't have to look deep into the story to find the meaning behind it all. The length is perfect for anyone. The ending was strange in that it didn't feel like it should have been over - there seemed to be an emptiness that never got filled.

Wexford, the aloof, manipulative newspaper editor at a postwar Devon school, is startlingly similar to young Tom Riddle, of Harry Potter fame (they are even the same age) although Mr. Wexford is definitely a more determined sociopath.

His adversary is an noisy and aggressive Nazi sympathizer, and it's hard to say which of the two of them is more repellant. Not that they're boring -- I was completely interested in them the whole time.

The book explores questions about what it's "okay" to think and express, how patriotism plays out in an atmosphere of disillusionment, how well-meaning or even brave impulses can be perverted when there's no good place to act them out.

So, it's interesting, but it's...a real come down from A Separate Peace, where the characters, no matter how awful their mistakes were, were always striving to be good people. Knowles makes it clear there's no such thing as Finny in his postwar world.

The characters were not as engaging and vivid as Knowles was capable of -- disappointing really, but only because we know he's done better.

The structure could have been better as well. You'll notice places where key plot information is given only a few paragraphs befor it becomes relevant. Some of the information could have been placed better.

Also, Knowles may or may not have crossed the line between making subtle points about social class and downright snobbery.

The dialogue is fantastic, though. The classroom scenes are the best. Of course, if you think that prep school is even slightly tiresome as a setting, you should just avoid this one.

I loved A Separate Peace, and I loved this follow-up just as much, if not more. It captures the true impulsive nature of young men. Set in post World War Two America, it is a story about ego and revenge. It has the same tone as Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. I loved every page of it.

Peace Breaks Out by John Knowles, is a novel about life after WWII. The first two chapters were about the days in the war for Pete Hallam and how hard it was after the war was over. After he gets out of the war, he goes back to school and becomes a teacher for High School American History. I liked this book because it shows how much people care for their country and others. Other people that would like this book are ones who would fight for what they believe in and people who like learning about how life was before their time, when people found it more difficult to get back on their feet. This book is about a small-town boy going to serve his country, and react to it after his job was done. I like this book because it includes something different every chapter. I recommend this book to people who like learning about history and how different point of views give you mixed feelings about the war.

Pete Hallam, former Devon student, goes back to his old school after fighting in the war, as a young master. The students are restless, not being able to fight for their country, but are good boys. One of them, however, is a troublemaker; a talented but underhanded fellow. He shares a mutual hatred with one of the other students - an obnoxious German. What happens at Devon this year is the subject of this book. I did not particularly enjoy the read as this novel lacked plot, but it did teach a good lesson.

Going in, I knew this book had to be different than Separate Peace, it of course can not be a clone of it. But to be blunt, it wasn't as good as a separate peace. the plot was simple, like a separate peace, but that book had a much more emotional impact on me. i halfwished the story was about Gene and what he did after he left Devon. There were two small references to Phineas, that I enjoyed. It's a decent read and we get to visit Devon one more time.

The years have been flying by for most people, but not so fast that the theme of boys and war will ever be separated from the novel A SEPARATE PEACE by John Knowles, who attended Phillips Exeter Academy in 1942 to 1944. The Twayne's Masterworks Studies book on the novel by Hallman Bell Bryant, subtitled THE WAR WITHIN, which appeared in 1990, easily identified the theme of the book as the special expectations of boys in time of war. 7,445,000 copies of the Dell-Bantam paperback were in print when this study of the novel appeared. The incidents in the novel retain their significance for many readers because the setting in World War II, with its expectation that students would go on to play some part in the great historical drama that was being played out on a world stage, already seemed strangely out of place when A SEPARATE PEACE was published in 1959.

There is an index for Hallman Bell Bryant's book on pages 126-129, mostly containing names but also mentioning "onomastics, 112-13" for the book's analysis of the names of the major characters in the novel, Gene Forrester and Finny, the fallen angel Phineas. Gore Vidal appears in the index because:

Brinker Hadley, a minor character who is the typical "big man on campus" type, was based on another classmate of Knowles's, Gore Vidal, who, Knowles recalled, was an "unusual and thriving" person as a schoolboy, although he did not know him very well. (p. 32).

Thirteen of the novel's characters are listed in the index under "minor characters in A SEPARATE PEACE." I was most interested in Elwin Lepellier, who is called Leper throughout the book, and who is on more pages than the thirteen pages given for him in the index. One of my favorite points in A SEPARATE PEACE is when Phineas said:

"And you told me about Leper, that he's gone crazy. That's the word, we might as well admit it. Leper's gone crazy. When I heard that about Leper, then I knew that the war was real, this war and all the wars. If a war can drive somebody crazy, then it's real all right."

Hallman Bell Bryant understands the nature of the game that Phineas and Gene have been playing, a `binge' of the imagination "as cohorts who lived through an intoxicating experience" (p. 99), but he might fall short of Leper's ability in the book to describe his new state of mind:

"I'm no fool, you know. I'm not going to tell you everything and then have it used against me later. You always did take me for a fool, didn't you? But I'm no fool any more. I know when I have information that might be dangerous." He was working himself up to indignation. "Why should I tell you! Just because it happens to suit you!"
"Leper," Brinker pleaded, "Leper, this is very important--"
"So am I," he replied thinly, "I'm important. You've never realized it, but I'm important too. You be the fool," he gazed shrewdly at Brinker, "you do whatever anyone wants whenever they want it. You be the fool now. Bastard."

Not nearly as successful as A SEPARATE PEACE, the novel PEACE BREAKS OUT by John Knowles was published in 1981 and is very briefly summarized in Chapter 9, Final Reflections, of this book. "The nation, having defeated all external enemies, now moves to eliminate all internal foes, real or imagined. Here the enemy is depicted as those who would corrupt the `Devon Spirit,' " (p. 116). Major characters include "A German sympathizer named Hochschwender is a blatant Nazi and racist, and his views make him the enemy of a boy named Wexford, a superpatriotic type who is intolerant of anyone with different views." (p. 117). Overly obvious is "the tendency to correlate outside historical forces and motivation of characters." (p. 118). I liked a certain toughness which the book exhibited as aftereffects of the militarization of society. Comparing it to UNFASHIONABLE OBSERVATIONS, dramatically it is similar to Nietzsche's complaints about the victorious boasts of Germans after their victory over France in the war of 1870. In a sense, war was over, but the mentality could be as deadly as ever for those inclined to dwell on what it all meant.

There are great comic moments in A SEPARATE PEACE which are not totally captured by Hallman Bell Bryant, but his analysis comes very close to showing how great literature comes about. A Hollywood movie version of `A SEPARATE PEACE' from 1972 appears in this book where a change of the setting for key scenes made the action visually more dramatic:

"Instead of having Gene kick Leper out of his chair, he has Gene deliver a vicious blow to Leper's mouth outdoors in the snow where he falls to the ground and curls up in the fetal position, the red blood flowing from his mouth and making a stark contrast with the white snow. Rather than running away, as in the novel, Gene merely stands helplessly over his fallen friend as the camera pulls back, leaving them both diminished and helpless-looking in a setting of cold white bleakness." (p. 94).

"Thus, we never learn what Brinker is feeling ... Larry Peerce, the director, tried to make the atmosphere less horrible and more comic by staging a parade of boys dressed in black who stomped about singing an obscene song." (p. 100).

This could remind some people of basic training, memorizing witty marching ditties, more than the high academic atmosphere preferred by those who should be drawn to elite schooling with athletic games as recreational activities, but the fake parade sounds dramatic enough for the Hollywood version of the novel.

A Separate Peace was difficult for me to understand because it takes a path deep in to a teenager's mind. You see the pains, successes, and problems of the main character's life.