Kelsey279+Knowles+A+Separate+Peace

      __A Separate Peace__               by John Knowles ** ABOUT THE BOOK! **   The book, __A Separate Peace__, is about two boys at a boarding school in New England during World War II. Gene Forrester and Phineas are just two average boys who have many of the same interests but yet the same differences. Gene is the lonely and smart one. Where then you have Phineas, the athlete and daredevil. Both of the boys have amazing qualities, but yet they both envy eachother in one way or another. One day, Phineas decides to jump off a tall tree, to help prepare himself for some of the crazy tasks going on in the war. Once Phinease makes the jump, he tries to convince his other friends to do the same, but none of them will step up. Except for Gene. He makes the jump out of the tree, and after that, the two boys become inseparable. Phineas, aka Finny, is the best athlete on campus. He is always the star athlete and is constantly thinking of new games, such as Blitzkreig Ball. One day Gene and Phineas decide to go to the swimming pool. Phineas, not being a swimmer, tries to break the school record for the 100 Free Style. Phineas ends up breaking the record, but for some reason, he doesn't want to tell anyone about it. Gene Forrester wants to be the head of the class in academics. He thinks that if he's the head of the class, and Finny is the star athlete, then they will be equal. One day when Gene wants to study, Finny keeps trying to convince him to go watch their other friend Leper jump out of the tree. Giving in, Gene shows up to watch Leper, but Leper doesn't jump. So instead, Finny thinks of a great idea, a double jump. Finny and Gene climb up the tree to make the jump into the water together. While up in the tree, Finny loses his balance, and falls. Finny gets really hurt, and won't be able to play sports again. Phineas has to rest at his house for awhile, before going directly back to school. Gene goes to visit Finny, and Gene confesses that it was all his fault. Phineas doesn't buy it though. He knows that Gene had nothing to do with him falling, even if they were on the same tree branch. Gene decides to enlist with Brinker, another one Phineas and Gene's friends. Gene decides to enlist because he feels like without Phineas, he has nothing better to do. But then when Phineas returns back to Devon Boarding School, Gene immediately decides to no longer enlist. Phineas would feel deserted. media type="youtube" key="2A0xrlU0qEU" height="344" width="425" Leper enlists in the army during the winter. Leper leaves, and Finny decides to have a winter carnival. They have a ski jump, cider, a decathatlon, and many prizes. Right before Gene is about to start the decathalon, he gets a telegram from Leper, telling Gene that he escaped from the army. Leper escaped back to his house, so Gene goes to visit him. The army was going to give Leper a Section 8 Discharge, meaning that he's a psycho person. When Leper heard that, he escaped. Leper and Gene start talking, and Gene starts getting really mad at Leper. While they're on their walk, Gene walks away from Leper, leaving him standing alone in the cold. Gene returns to Devon, and Brinker calls a meeting. They bring multiple witnesses from the day at the tree when Finny got hurt, and they try and find out how it happened. Finny gets really upset about the whole meeting, and runs out the door, and falls down the stairs. Finny ended up breaking his leg again, and has to go into surgery. Gene goes to visit him after his Finny's surgery, and the story ends with an excruciating twist. In order to find out, you must READ THE BOOK!   Information on the plot summary was found in the book: Knowles, John. __A Separate Peace__. New York: Scribner, 2003.  ** "OUTSTANDING" QUALITIES ** I believe this novel was put on the Outstanding Books list because it is a story that everybody can relate to in some form. The book talks about the normal struggles that everyday teenagers have to go through, from sports, to academics, to friends. Even if you aren't exactly a teenager anymore, you are still able to relate your life to the ones of these guys going through boarding school together. Being that there is a war, it changes the outlook of the boy's lives. They are constantly thinking about whether or not they're going to be drafted, and that creates suspense, and outstanding quality in a book.
 *   CRITICISM:    **        __A Separate Peace__ was hands-down, an amazing book. In the very beginning of the book, the story starts out really slow, as do other books. For the first two chapters, the book was mainly talking about backround information of the two boys, but in the end it helped you understand the way they thought better. I wish that throughout the book the author would have talked more about how the war affected the boys, more of what exactly was happening during the war. Every detail in the book however, was important to the story in one way or another. This book is a book that is one of those you just can't put down with a **big** twist at the end!


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Literary Information **     Knowles wrote this book indicating that Devon School represented Exeter, the private boarding school that Knowles went to in World War II. On the outside, Devon and Exeter are very much the same. They both have big playing fields and winding rivers. David Hackett, a friend who Knowles met during school, was the model of Phineas. Knowles wrote much of the novel from personal experience, but he claims he is not one of the characters in the book. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Georgia, serif">  ** Recommendation ** I would recommend this book to another who's willing to stick with a good story. Towards the middle of the book, the great adventures that Gene and Finny go through become more interesting, making you want to stick with the story. It's a good book to relate to, every person can find something that they would like about this book. I highly recommend reading A Separate Peace, you will not be disappointed. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Georgia, serif">        <span style="FONT-SIZE: 90%; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia, serif"> John Knowles was born on September 16, 1926, in Fairmont, West Virginia. He was an American novelist, and wrote many different pieces of literature. In 1945, he graduated from the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. Four years later, he graduated from Yale. He won many awards also. He won the William Faulkner Award and the Rosenthal Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Georgia, serif">          <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Georgia, serif">     His most famous work was __A Separate Peace__. The book is based off of Knowles' experience in Exeter, New Hampshire in 1943. Some other important books that he's written are __Morning in Antibes__, and __The Paragon__. Altogether he wrote seven novels, a book on travel, and a collection of short stories. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Georgia, serif">      After attending college, Knowles spent eight months in the Air Force during World War II before going to Yale. Before he started out writing novels, he wrote for the Hartford Courant, and was the assistant editor for Hoilday magazine. After writing his novels, he lectured widely to people at universities about his work. Unfortunately though, in 2001, Knowles died in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. <span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia, serif; TEXT-ALIGN: center">Information regarding the author biography was all found at the following site : <span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia, serif; TEXT-ALIGN: center">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Knowles <span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia, serif; TEXT-ALIGN: center">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON A SEPARATE PEACE CHECK OUT THIS WIKI <span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia, serif; TEXT-ALIGN: center">http://park204.wikispaces.com/Kyle+G+Knowles+A+Separate+Peace
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