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    A Separate Peace
    A Separate Peace
    A Separate Peace
    Audiobook6 hours

    A Separate Peace

    Written by John Knowles

    Narrated by Spike McClure

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.

    An American classic and great bestseller for over thirty years, A Separate Peace is timeless in its description of adolescence during a period when the entire country was losing its innocence to World War II.

    Set at a boys' boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete.
    What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateFeb 25, 2011
    ISBN9781449853440
    A Separate Peace

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    Reviews for A Separate Peace

    4/5

    129 ratings56 reviews

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    • 4/5
      had to read this in high school and really liked the description of what school was like with the constant fear of war time, as well as the story of friendship and forgiveness.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Wonderfully performed version of a memorable novel that has stayed with me from my high school days.
    • 3/5
      Our class was required to read this book for English class. I believe that if it was not required I probably wouldn't have finished it. Though it does become a bit more interesting near the end, I think the book was quite confusing and dragged on a bit. Overall, it certainly wasn't the worst book I've read but it simply did not keep my interest.
    • 1/5
      I predict this novel will not resonate for future generations of youth, for its subtlety distills into boredom. There are better coming-of-age young adult novels that similarly explore the mystical boundaries of friendship, envy, betrayal, and ultimately, guilt. The basic premise of the story is that a jealous buddy perhaps is responsible for another's treefall. How lame (pun intended). We've got kids today setting each other up for certain failure in real-life scenarios involving warfare, drug deals, gang warfare, rape and unwanted pregnancies...this milkwarm preppie treatment is not the timeless classic I hoped it would be.
    • 4/5
      What I found most interesting about this book was the theme of male friendship and its deep reflection on rivalry, jealousy, betrayal, love and forgiveness. It made think quite a bit about the the relationship between Amir and Hassan from the Kite Runner and the similar themes of friendship and betrayal. I found it a lovely reflective book.
    • 5/5
      On the novel itself: It’s a classic novel; can there be any more to say? Always on lists like “100 books to read before you die”.
      On the audio: I liked the narrator’s voice and felt it was suitable and had the correct tone. However, it was a little slow so I listened to it at 1.2.
    • 4/5
      I love this book. It's a story of friendship, jealousy, choices, and growing up. Perhaps it's time for another visit with Gene and Finny.
    • 4/5
      This was a well-written book with believable characters and events. Though I did enjoy it and relate to it as a removed bystander, I couldn't connect with it on a personal level. I wish the character development had gone further - I would've liked to get to know each character better and get more involved with the book. This would've been a great book if written from Phineas' perspective. 3.75 stars out of 5.
    • 5/5
      A good book about boarding school that everyone can relate to.
    • 4/5
      There is a lot of lovely language in this book, but I found it hard to connect with any of the characters. The whole mood of the book feels slightly overdramatic to me, and even though I understand that this was most likely an intended stylization, I got impatient with it. I'm sure that I would have enjoyed and appreciated it much more if I'd had some interest and/or connection with the characters.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book tremendously, knowing that something was building up, not knowing what, just knowing that it was, and it was going to be big, and it was... liking both the boys, so very different, the friendship between the two being beautiful, and then the dark, the unexpected, happening... and then, a curious, amazing, understanding, forgiveness, and acknowledgement of it. It took courage to write a book like this.
    • 4/5
      Set against the hills of New Hampshire at Devon Prepartory School for boys, Gene and Phinneas are two 17-year old boys, who become the best of friends during a period of world war. Gene is studious and intelligent, while Phinneas is rebellious and vibrant. It seems that the two cannot be separated, until one fateful day in August when their friendship is tested, and the war(s) begin. Knowles sheds light on the turmoil that teenage boys face, when faced with the complexities and mysteries of life.
    • 5/5
      One of the few assigned books in high school that I actually liked. It helped that I was in a school much like the one mentioned. Finny supplied us with several tricks that were perfect for bored, boarding school students, which added to the interest, of course. What drew me most to this book was that it captured the experience so well. I've heard the novel disparaged because it's about a bunch of whiny rich kids. Obviously there's a lot of truth there, but these people miss the point. While privileged, the kids don't realize it. It's as natural to them as water to a fish, so it has to be ignored to see the real story which is the fragile identity of the kids & their struggles with it. We're told the story from Gene's POV as an adult, although he obviously still harbors a lot of insecurities & isn't as accurate as he thinks in his reporting. He's still trying to decide where he stands. During the book, he's best friends with Finny who is as carefree as anyone can be, but he's torn between his friend & the conservative respectability that the school embodies, the expectations of his world. They're pretty much summed up in another school mate, Brinkman. Added to Gene's confusion is his jealousy of Finny, who is a natural athlete. Gene can't measure up to his friend. He doesn't like himself for feeling this way, but the fact remains.Not my normal reading, but I've re-read this a couple of times over the years, getting something a bit different out of it each time. The war time setting dates it a bit, but not too badly.
    • 4/5
      I like how the book started in present day and then went back to a memory Gene had. Overall i liked the book. But, i think the author detalied to much stuff.
    • 3/5
      I did like this book at the time I read it (about the age of the protagonist). I probably won't ever read it again as I am now, many years and book club selections later, sick to death of "coming-of-age" stories. But it is one of those classic books that all high school students should probably read, even though the prep-school experience is more and more foreign to most of them.
    • 1/5
      I read this when I was 15, and while I normally remember books because of how they affect me positively, I remember this book solely as the one that sucked the big one....I just remember thinking, will this never end, because of course, even if I don't like a book, because I'm nuerotic, I have to finish one if I start it, with few exceptions....maybe I should have made one here.
    • 4/5
      ok but i didn't find it the masterpiece that all the hoopla would lead one to believe. maybe because it's so male. i don't (literally) have a lot of time(left) for maleness. it's not my experience and i'm not that interested in learning about it.
    • 3/5
      Long considered a classic for high school readers, A Separate Peace is a story of how one seemingly unconscious decision can change one's life. The narrator, Gene, goes back to the private boarding school of his adolescence and relives the events that unfold when his best friend Phineas, or Finny, falls and breaks his leg. A coming of age novel, this book delves into the complexities of teenage friendships, the consequences of one's actions and the resulting impact those decisions have on one's life. I can't say that I really enjoyed reading this book. Had it not been part of the established curriculum for an English class I was a co-teacher in, I doubt that I would have completed the novel. That having been said, I can see some of its redeeming characteristics for teen readers. The relationship between Phineas and Gene alone could provide much fodder for discussion, as can the circumstances that drove the plot throughout the novel. Perhaps it was the setting of an all boy prep school or the emphasis on description rather than plot action throughout that turned me off, but this just wasn't a book that "spoke" to me. It will be interesting to me if I like it any more when I read it again next year.
    • 3/5
      A coming of age story from the male perspective isn't the type of book that would usually appeal to me. I did enjoy it however because of the interplay between the over-achiever and his angst filled friend. I especially enjoyed the historical perspective of that time and how it might have been to be a young man facing the prospects of being called upon to serve one's country at wartime.
    • 5/5
      I can't fully explain why this was such a favorite of mine in high school. Required reading for two years, and I read it multiple times for fun. I always saw Finny as this beautiful, pure child; and Gene as a nasty and corrupted force (I apparently saw it differently than most of the kids in my class). It's a poetic struggle. I think of that tree branch often. Still a favorite.
    • 4/5
      I read this book back in high school, and for no particular reason I decided to read it again. It was slow at the beginning, but it picked up as Gene remembered his schooldays with his best friend and roommate Phineas. One day, Gene shook the tree in which Phineas was pecariously balanced, and Gene shattered his leg. Neither boy was ever quite the same after that. Interestingly, in the library catalog the subject headings assigned to this book all involve homosexuality. Although there may be a homosexual subtext in Gene and Phineas’s relationship (and even that, I suppose, would be debatable) there’s no actual sexuality expressed in the book. At their elite boarding school, the two young men seem so strangely isolated from the rest of the world.
    • 4/5
      Re-read [A Separate Peace] by [[John Knowles]], the tale of two 16-year-old boys away at a New Hampshire boarding school during the summer of 1942 and the following academic year, and the effects of adolescent competition and World War II upon them and several of their classmates. Gene is the introverted scholar, once aiming to be at the top of his class, while his best friend Finny, a poor student at best (all Ds), is a handsome extrovert and natural athlete. In a picque of jealousy, Gene causes Finny to fall from a high tree ("The tree was tremendous, an irate, steely black steeple, beside the river"), which pretty much puts an end to Finny's athletic ambitions, his ability to join the military, and eventually, his life. Other characters are recognizable from high school days - the class leader/politician, the crew team manager, the sensitive naturalist. Over the course of the year, in one way or another, the distant war manages to mangle them all. For all practical purposes, there are no women characters, just passing references to maids and cleaning women, some of the boys' mothers, the headmaster and instructors' wives, and a night nurse ("Miss Windbag"). Also unusual for the age group, no apparent interest in girls, dating, sex, or sexual orientation. Not sure what this means, but it doesn't seem very realistic.Among the most enjoyable aspects of this book are the beautiful descriptions of nature: the four seasons, fresh and salt water streams, a bicycle camping trip to an ocean beach, snow fall, and especially the trees. The novel is set at a time before Dutch Elm Disease took hold, destroying so many American trees, and there are beautiful descriptions of elm trees; for example: "Between the buildings, elms curved so high that you ceased to remember their height until you looked above the familiar trunks and the lowest umbrellas of leaves and took in the lofty complex they held high above, branches and branches of branches, a world of branches with an infinity of leaves. They too seemed permanent and never-changing, an untouched, unreachable world high in space, like ornamental towers and spires of a great church, too high to be enjoyed, too high for anything, great and remote and never useful."
    • 3/5
      A story of two friends during their last year in a private boarding school in 1942. This was a good story but it didn't really do much to set itself apart from other similar stories.
    • 2/5
      This book was pre-e-e-e-ty boring. Not going to read it again.
    • 5/5
       Gene and Finny, opposites in personality, nonetheless become best friends at Devon, a private school both attend during WWII. Finny is a golden boy--an athletic star of stunning capabilities and poise who can do no wrong. Gene, a talented student who works hard has clay feet and can feel envy for and irritation about Finny, particularly if he feels Finny is proposing a course of action that will diminish his capacity to achieve his academic ambitions. This incident happens during the summer school session, when Finny established a "Super Suicide Society." Finny climbs a tree and goes out to the end before jumping off into a pool. In a fatal moment of anger and envy, Gene shakes the branch, causing Finny to fall and become a cripple whose career in athletics (he dreamed of the Olympics) is over. Gene is subsequently confronted by a group of students about Finny's accident, since they know Finny has flawless balance. Gene avers his part in the tragedy and Finny, shocked, falls down the marble flight of steps and breaks his bones, causing the infection of his blood marrow and death.
    • 5/5
      This is one of my favorite books. The bond between Gene and Phineas struck a chord with me when I read it in high school, since I was a quiet introvert who had a best friend who was more outgoing (although not to the extreme of Phineas). How that relationship changes and Gene changes affected me strongly at that time, and watching a film version of the book (with an excellent soundtrack) only increased how much the book (and its ending) moved me.
    • 3/5
      Man, I slogged through this book convinced it would become more engaging. I've read worse, but just don't get why this is considered a classic. Other reviewers will encapsulate the story. It didn't do anything for ME.
    • 3/5
      This is a perfectly solid novel. The style is often lyrical, eloquent, is perceptive about the the workings of envy and insecurities of the teen years. I appreciated the emotional restraint that keeps the elegiacal tone from seeping too much into sentimentality. So I'm not sure what leaves me so unmoved by it, feeling this is a good, but not particularly profound novel that makes me wonder why it's earned such classic status. (Other than it's the perfect high school book with adolescent subjects--and relatively short.) It's told by Gene Forrester, looking back on events of around fifteen years ago at Devon, a New England Prep school. In the summer of 1942, a "brief burst of animosity, lasting only a second, a part of a second" on his part leads to tragedy. Knowles tries to connect up this brief moment to the war raging on outside the confines of the school. Knowles tells us "wars were made... by something ignorant in the human heart." Maybe it's that I resist that sentiment, particularly coming from Gene, that the story and its antiwar sentiments seems too predictable to me. Or maybe that I just feel Gene gets off too easy--both in terms of his friend Phineas' forgiveness and his own self-forgiveness which turns his impulsive act into a portal to epiphany.
    • 4/5
      Even though this was assigned, it was a beautiful and heart-rending piece of love and loss and friendship and the choices we make. i adore it.
    • 3/5
      One of the better "young adult, coming-of-age" novels that can appeal to adults as well as teens. At its core, A Separate Peace is simply about friendship.