Book recommendation: "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles
Just ended reading it and it's the best boarding school novel I've ever read. Set in 1942, the war is felt through the book, but the main theme is the internal war of Gene, the narrator, against "some ignorance inside me", as he deals with his love-hate relationship with his best friend, Phineas.
"I think we reminded them of what peace was like, we boys of sixteen… 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…"
Some of my favorite quotes [no spoilers, imo]:
"The winter loves me," he retorted, and then, disliking the whimsical sound of that, added, "I mean as much as you can say a season can love. What I mean is, I love winter, and when you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love." I didn't think that this was true, my 17 years of experience had shown this to be much more false than true, but it was like every other thought and belief of Finny's: it should have been true. So I didn't argue.
"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."
"I never killed anybody and I never developed an intense level of hatred for the enemy. Because my war ended before I ever put on a uniform; I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there."
This fan-made trailer is great imo, loved the chosen music:
Click to viewFrom the book preface:
Mr. Knowles conveys the atmosphere of suspended animation in which the boys play out the last year of their lives before they become cannon fodder.
Gene, the scholar, and Finny, the exceptional natural athlete, are room-mates. They are happy in their exclusive friendship, though Finny, the unconscious extrovert, is the dominant partner. But beneath Gene's outward happiness lies a deep unconscious resentment.
[SPOILER] One day Gene convinces himself that his friend with his constant demands on his time and attention, is deliberately trying to sabotage his scholastic career and in a fit of momentary fury, causes Finny to break his leg. From that point the story moves to a tragic close.