by John Knowles, 1960, The Macmillian Company

This was always one of my favorite books and I saw it in my bookcase so I thought I would read it again.

I believe the books hold on me was due to its setting in a prep school. The time of the book is in 1942 and the war is a prominent theme that pervades the book. While the Viet Nam war was cranking up during my prep school days, it wasn’t really a concern of mine until I arrived in college, but the thoughts and feelings of the young boys in the book relating to the ware were similar to mine while I was in college.

The characters in the book seemed very familiar to me as I was in very close contact with my schoolmates while at my high school boarding school. I must say though, with an intervening period of 50 years or more since I last read it, the book didn’t have the same impact as it once did. I guess that’s to be expected as I have had a multitude of other life experiences over time. I felt the same when I read Catcher in the Rye a few weeks ago. Now I apparently tend to take youthful perspectives with a little more skepticism than I once did.

One thing that I observed now was how self-centered the main character, Gene Forester, was. When he visited his friend, Leper, who had enlisted in the army and suffered a nervous breakdown, he had not an ounce of empathy or pity for him. He just wanted to get away from as quickly as possible and put him out of his mind. I guess i didn’t pick up on this when I read the book years ago. Now I didn’t feel much sympathy at all for Gene. I felt rather that Gene wasn’t a particularly good person. It is interesting how time can change one’s perspective.

The book still seems like a great book to me. The writing is great, particularly his descriptions of the surroundings. The characters are believable, and I can relate to the boarding school environment, even though the strength of my connection has waned considerably.