First of all, I love this cover. It’s
from 1959, and it’s so gorgeous and of that time. I think it’s great that
the Google image of this cover was also cracked in the same places that mine
is. I got mine from the dollar bin of used books at our local Hannaford store,
but it could easily have been the version that my parents used. I actually read
this several weeks ago but was too busy to write about it. But it seems like a
perfect time now, on this immaculate fall day when the sun is shining in a blue
sky and the yellow maple leaves are as bright as they’ll ever get and
constantly swirling through the sky on the autumn breeze as they fall…this book
makes me poetic.
I hadn’t read this book since high
school, and I didn’t really have many memories of it except the vague idea of
some boys in a tree, one who breaks a leg, and one who goes to war and comes
back crazy. I wasn’t prepared to
actually love this book and I’m not sure I can fully articulate why I did. But
a big part of it was definitely it being set in New Hampshire. Despite all my
grumbling about the cold, I love New Hampshire and I always had to come back
here. Knowles really captures the beauty of NH and makes me love it even more.
Maybe that’s a gift of people who weren’t born here, like Knowles and Frost,
because they can appreciate it that much more.
I also love that the setting is based on a
real place. Knowles is from West Virginia, but he went to Phillips Exeter
academy as a boy. And even though it’s a place that I’ve never been, except to
drive by, and I never went to boarding school, everything about the landscape
and the seasons and the people that he describes is so familiar that I felt
like the story could have been about me, or my parents if they had grown up
here. It’s easy to love NH on a gorgeous day, and the way Knowles tells it,
every day of that golden summer was gorgeous. It helps me get how they could be
in the midst of war and still be almost oblivious to it.
So there’s
Gene, the narrator. Gene is the guy who represents you and me. Aside from doing
that horrible thing and bouncing Finney out of the tree, or maybe because of it
(I’ll get to that) he’s a pretty average guy. I guess he’s our access to the story-our
window. He’s not a New Englander, but he’s part of the community so he’s both
inside and outside. And for some reason Phineas chooses him for his best
friend. They become so close that Gene actually begins to see the world through
Finney’s eyes, even when he knows better. He accepts Finney’s truths over his
own.
I’ve never known anyone like
Phineas. I don’t know if anyone has, outside of fiction. There’s something so
Peter Pan about him. The way he tries things that no one else would dare, and
succeeds. The way he gets so lost in his own thoughts that he literally doesn’t
hear people when they talk, and yet he lives so much in the moment. Of course,
Finney’s story was heartbreaking, and of course it’s a symbol-for loss of
innocence, coming of age, etc.-but there is something so palpable and real
about him in that moment when he finally admits to all the things that he had
been trying so hard not to acknowledge. When his spirit is finally broken. His literal
fall is also a fall from innocence. And I can’t help but relate to it because
don’t we all try so hard every day to keep down our fears and not let people
know what we know? Don’t we all wear masks to avoid facing dark truths?
What really drove Finney over the edge was not being able to
fight in the war because of his injury, which I’m not sure how I feel about. I
don’t ever want to fight in a war, and I don’t want other people to either. But
Finney was so disappointed that he couldn’t fight that he pretended the war
wasn’t even real, just so he wouldn’t have to face the reality of his own
disability. Or was it just that the situation of the war made his disability
more poignant to him? He demonstrates his patriotism early on, even as he orchestrates
the golden summer for the boys not yet old enough to enlist. But was he really
that brave? What would it have been like for him if he had made it to the war?
We see the contrast of how this generation views war with
the previous generation when the father of one of the students comes to the
school. His attitude toward war is that it is not only a duty, but it’s a life
experience that is necessary and in some ways even pleasurable. This is the
time of your life. Don’t blow it by being afraid or sissy. How much of that is
machismo, and how much of it is selective memory-not allowing yourself to
remember how terrifying and brutal it was, and what you lost? I guess there’s a
necessary bravado involved in facing something terrifying and unknown and
inevitable. I imagine it’s a way of coping, but I wouldn’t really know. There’s
no way of knowing how you would react to something like that until it happens.
Which brings us to Leper. Poor, gentle, Leper. He tried to
be so brave. He accepted his fate, but he couldn’t handle the reality of it. I
relate a lot to Leper, actually. He’s sort of the weirdo loner. I always had
friends, but, ok, think about this. You know that Gene and Leper are
acquaintances, but at one point in the story, toward the end, it becomes clear
that Gene and Leper were actually best friends, at least until Phineas came
along. I’ve had close friends who “moved on” from me before and I know how that
feels. I think it’s a natural part of relationships, but it still hurts. And
when Gene moved on Leper was left on his own to deal not only with school life,
but with his impending draft. He did his best to face it, but it was too much
for him. So if you’re in the Hating Gene camp, consider his apparent desertion
of Leper as well.
And speaking of Gene-what kind of jerk is he anyway,
knocking Phineas off of the tree branch in the first place? What does it mean?
I think this act in its literal form is the equivalent of that feeling when you
look over the edge of a bridge and think about jumping off. Except you don’t
jump. But the narrator did jump and it was Phineas who fell. Metaphorically, I
think it’s about the dark places that we go in our minds, mostly because we are
afraid, and the consequences of that darkness, and how uncontrollable it is. Bad
things do happen to good people. And we are powerless to stop them, even though
it seems like we should be able to. We should be in control of our own minds
and limbs, just as nations should be able to control their circumstances enough
to avoid war, but they can’t or won’t or just don’t. And there are always
innocent victims.
On that cheery note, I guess I’ll end. But I have to say
this is one of my favorite “war stories”, which I generally cannot stand.
Because it speaks the truth that I feel, which is that war is meaningless,
mindless, and endless, and I can understand losing my mind if I had to face it.
Here are the last few paragraphs of the book. Enjoy if you
wish.
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.
Only
Phineas never was afraid, only Phineas never hated anyone. Other people
experienced this fearful shock somewhere, this sighting of the enemy, and so
began an obsessive labor of defense, began to parry the menace they saw facing
them by developing a particular frame of mind, “You see,” their behavior toward
everything and everyone proclaimed, “I am a humble ant, I am nothing, I am not
worthy of this menace,” or else, like Mr. Ludsbury, “How dare this threaten me,
I am much too good for this sort of handling, I shall rise above this,” or else,
like Quackenbush, strike out at it always and everywhere, or else, like
Brinker, develop a careless general resentment against it, or else, like Leper,
emerge from a protective cloud of vagueness only to meet it, the horror, face
to face, just as he had always feared, and so give up the struggle absolutely.
All of
them, except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot
Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy
who never attacked that way-if he ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the
enemy.
I forget, were they WWI or WWII? I read this in high school too, and remember it only dimly. Probably didn't finish it. The idea that going to war is a positive and necessary experience has a very long history, possibly as far back as Henry V, but it really took off with the Victorians and their stringent beliefs about character building. And it's easy for today's students to forget that these guys' grandparents were Victorians--and if this was WWII, Finney and Gene are our grandparents. Sometimes when I teach, I feel like my students, who were born in 1994 or so, don't have these kinds of markers. Their parents were too young for Woodstock; their grandparents were too young for WWII and probably also Korea. They might have been in the earliest actions in Vietnam, but before the draft. Our grandparents and parents were squarely in those WWII and Vietnam generations. It matters somehow. I can't decide how.
ReplyDeleteYes, WWII, our grandparents' era. I'm reading a translation of The Illiad now, so I'm thinking more about this idea of war and how people approach it. That will probably be my next post. Even Homer showed both sides-the brave warriors who showed no fear and the people who couldn't deal. And what it does to all of us.
ReplyDeleteI hear what you're saying about today's youth not having these markers, but I'm glad if they don't have to. What is hard for me to think about is that most young people aren't really aware of what our service people face because there's no draft so they can pretend that wars aren't happening. Not that I think there should be a draft, but I wish Americans were more aware of the wide world around them. I guess it's partly a consequence of being more geographically isolated and also arrogant and self-centered. Wow, I'm full of cheer today...
I read this in high school too. As I recall our entire class roundly disliked it. I've been meaning to give it another try, especially since reading that it's one of the earliest mainstream books to have homosexual themes (even as subtly as they're in there). I don't remember my teachers ever bringing that up.
ReplyDeleteReplying to your comment, Denise, the same was true when we were growing up, during the Bosnian and Chechnyan conflicts. Those were terrible conflicts, and I was aware of them even though there was no draft. I'd love to give the younger generation the same benefit of the doubt. Of course, my dad was military, so maybe that's why I had awareness of it at all.