R&R: Classics-- John Knowles

A Separate Peace is summarized really well in Amazon.com.

“The volatile world of male adolescence provides the backdrop for John Knowles' engrossing tale of love, hate, war, and peace. Sharing a room at Devon, an exclusive New England prep school, in the summer prior to World War II, Gene and Phineas form a complex bond of friendship that draws out both the best and worst characteristics of each boy and leads ultimately to violence, a confession, and the betrayal of trust…

…the perspective of a teenager tormented by feelings he doesn't want to understand to the reflective musing of a man looking back at the formative experience of his youth provide both the story and the setting with an immediacy that quickly engages…”


A Separate Peace
Written May 30, 2010

Read May 30, 2010

Two things about this novel stood out to me. One, Knowles’ ability to illustrate the complexity of the relationship between two friends. Both Gene and Phineas are so human, so “fluid” (always changing), that their interactions are always the opposite of what you expect.

All throughout the novel the question remained: Are they friends? Are they enemies? Are they neither? Their relationship is too complicated to be described by a single word.

Gene hates “Finny,” he loves him, he watches over him, he feels betrayed by him. Like an onion, there is layer after layer after layer, and even at the end of the book I can’t summarize their friendship, or confine it to a little box.

The second thing that stood out was the way Knowles showed the complexity of human nature. Told from Gene’s first person point of view, we see hints of darkness, of the capability to do more evil than any mind has ever imagined. And then we see joy, and the wild freedom of youth.

We see innocence, but not the snow-white purity of a child. Instead, it is the bravado and fearlessness of those untouched by the horror they cannot understand. We see the power of denial, the power of the mind to delude itself, and we see dependency— both its beauty and its dangers.

The single event of Finny’s fall out of the tree is crucial to the plot, and yet it is not the center of the novel. Gene struggles with himself, and Knowles never states it straight out whether he intended to jostle Finny. “A Separate Peace” is not about the story of a boy who has committed a sin and his resulting struggles. It is more of an exploration of human nature.


I was uneasy after reading this book—haunted by a ghost of what could be. A Separate Peace is no easy read—no novel or story. It’s a complicated study of humanity and our capacity for both evil and good. A truly thought-provoking read.