Nationality: American.
Born: Fairmont, West Virginia, 1926.
Education: Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire, graduated 1945; Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, B.A. 1949.
Career: Reporter, Hartford
Courant, Connecticut, 1950-52; freelance writer, 1952-56; associate editor,
Holiday magazine, Philadelphia, 1956-60. Writer-in-residence, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1963-64, and Princeton University, New Jersey, 1968-69.
Awards: Rosenthal Foundation award, 1961; Faulkner Foundation award, 1961; National Association of Independent Schools award, 1961.
John Knowles writes, in general, not about his home turf but about New England or Europe. Only one novel, Vein of Riches, and that not his best, is about West Virginia, his childhood home. His fictional world is a cultivated, cosmopolitan, somewhat jaded world. He is a fine craftsman, a fine stylist, alert to the infinite resources and nuances of language. Yet, as he says, he is one of the live-around-the-world people, rootless, nomadic, and making a virtue of that rootlessness. He is a connoisseur of different cultures but master of none—or perhaps of one only, the sub-culture of the New England prep school. One defect of this very cosmopolitanism is the feeling of alienation that Knowles feels from his fictional world. As a veteran of many cultures he finds this trait an advantage when he writes graceful travel essays for Holiday magazine. He finds it a disadvantage when he wishes to create for Vein of Riches a thoroughly credible fictional character.
A Separate Peace, his first novel, is also by far his most important. It is a prep school novel about Gene Forrester and his close friend, Finney, and the studied set of ambiguities and ambivalences arising from the intense and complex relationship between the two. Gene, beset by a love-hate attitude toward Finney, causes Finney to suffer a serious injury and still later is the putative cause of his death from a second injury. But Finney's death is preceded by Gene's reconciliation with him, a redemptive act which to some degree assuages his feeling of guilt. Thus, the novel recounts Gene's initiation into manhood and into both worldly and moral maturity. Fifteen years after Finney's death, Gene returns to Devon to conclude the novel by thinking—"Nothing endures, not a tree, not love, not even a death by violence." What does endure is the extraordinary popularity of this novel with prep school and college students.
Knowles's later books display his writing grace but not the inner strength of A Separate Peace. His second novel, Morning in Antibes, has a pot-pourri of comatose characters revolving about the deracinated Nicolas Petrovich Bodine in a kind of latter day The Sun Also Rises; it lacks, however, the Hemingway tone, atmosphere, and taut dialogue. The people are phony and maybe the novel is too. The long passivity of Nick makes him seem to move under water. The novel fails in characterization.
There must have been a traumatic event that happened back when Gene was in school, "Preserved along with it, like stale air in an unopened room, was the well know fear which had surrounded and filled those days, so much of it that I hadn't even known it was there. Because, unfamiliar with the absence of fear and what that was like, I had not been able to identify its presence"(Knowles 1). The last part of the quote leads me to believe that Gene did not realize that the event was traumatic at the time.
ReplyDeleteI think that Gene had some very terrible event happen to him that he had no idea would effect him the way it did or effect him in any way at all,"Because, unfamiliar with the absence of fear and what that was like, I had not been able to identify its presence"(Knowles 1). This quote i think proves as said above.
ReplyDelete"Devon luckily had very little of such weather-the icy clamp of winter, or the radiant New Hampshire summers, were more characteristic of it- but this day it blew wet, moody gusts all around me"(Knowles 2). This quote describes the weather but it also foreshadows the spirit and how events will take a turn for the worst in the fall after a happy summer. It also says at the end the weather was very dark and this foreshadows memories of despair or depression.
ReplyDeleteI think that we will find out some big fact about either Gene or the school or someone at the school because when Gene talks about the stairs he says "It was surprising that i had overlooked that, that cricial fact" (Knowles 3).
ReplyDeleteSomething must have happened to Gene and that we will find out what it was later on in the story. Something has had an effect on him ,"Because, unfamiliar with the absence of fear and what that was like, I had not been able to identify its presence"(Knowles 1). I think that this quote kind of explains why i feel that something has happened to Gene and that maybe it is foreshadowing aas to what actually happened that affected him so much.
ReplyDeleteIn Gene's school days, a horrible event must have occurred. "Unfamiliar with the absence of fear and what that was like, I had not been able to identify its presence"(Knowles 1). From my understanding of quote, I believe that Gene did not realizing the true effect of how horrible the event really was until after the fact.
ReplyDelete"The tree was not only stripped by the cold season, it seemed weary from age, enfeebled, dry. I was thankful, very thankful that I had seen it" (Knowles 6). This qoute foreshadows the fact that simple things will change (become weak and unfamiliar) very quickly over time from different hardships it has been through.
ReplyDelete"There were a couple of places now which I wanted to see. Both were fearful sites, and that was why I wanted to see them" (Knowles 2). This quote infers that Gene must have witnessed something at both the stairs and the tree, which will be revealed to us later in the book. The events must have been traumatizing for Gene since he describes the sites as fearful. In addition, "The marble must be unusually hard. That seemed very likely, only too likely, although with all my thought about these stairs this exceptional hardness had not occurred to me. It was surprising that I had overlooked that, that crucial fact" (Knowles 3). This passage in the book stuck out to me, marble stairs are obviously hard, so how did Gene overlook it? I believe either a death or some form of painful event took place at the stairs.
ReplyDelete"Nothing endures, not a tree, not love, not even a death by violence" (Knowles 6). In my poinion this means that there is going to be love, and a violent death in the novel. The author is foreshadowing what is going to feel as if they are changing and yet they are remaining the same.
ReplyDelete"I felt myself becoming isolated from everything except the river and the few trees beside it" (Knowles 5). This entire paragraph is focused on describing the river and its surroundings in detail. That fact coupled with the presence of a meaningful similie makes it obvious that the river will be a fundamental part of the story.
ReplyDelete"The tree was not only stripped by the cold season, it seemed weary from age, enfeebled, dry" (Knowles 6). This qoute foreshawdows that things grow older and change with the hardships that they face throughout their life.
ReplyDeleteJohn Knowles wrote, "looking back now across fifteen years, I could see with great clarity the fear I had lived in" (Knowles 2), which i believe to mean that some traumatic event had taken place in the school that we will later find out about.
ReplyDeleteThose of you that noticed the mention of the cold, marble stairs are excellent observers and good at choosing some less obvious foreshadowing examples. Obviously, marble stairs are hard and cold, so the reference seems obvious, that's why it's so tricky!
ReplyDelete"Looking back now across fifteen years, I could see with great clarity the fear I had lived in" (Knowles 2). This quote to me seems to be foreshadowing something that Gene had done at the school even though he had feared it and his instincts told him not to. It also seems like there was a reason he had this fear and that he regrets not following his instincts.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is one of the foreshadowing from the book "I felt fear's echo, and along with that I felt the unhinged, uncontrollable joy whichhad been its accompaniment and opposite face, joy which had broken out sometimes in those days like Northern Lights across black sky"(Knowles 2).
ReplyDeleteWell i think that the French phrase that they say in the first chapter is an excellent example of foreshadowing."So ithe more things remain the same, the more they change after all -plus c'est la même chose, plus ça change. Nothing endures, not a tree, not love, not even a death by violence"(Knowles 6). I believe that the last part there, "not even a daeth by violence" (Knowles 6)is really foreshadowing of a death of someone. It was just forgot over time, like many things in life are.
ReplyDeleteJared Boerst
"There were a couple of places now which I wanted to see. Both were fearful sites, and that was why I wanted to see them" (Knowles 2). I think this quote foreshadows that something big most have happened to Gene at the tree and at the stairs
ReplyDeleteI believe that Gene experienced a terrible event at some point in his life. "Preserved along with it, like stale air in an unopened room, was the well know fear which had surrounded and filled those days. Because, unfamiliar with the absence of fear and what that was like, I had not been able to identify its presence" (Knowles 1). The quote selected from the first chapter helps solidify my thoughts on Gene's life.
ReplyDelete"There were a couple of places now which I wanted to see. Both were fearful sites, and that was why I wanted to see them" (Knowles 2).
ReplyDeleteWhen Gene says this it's an obvious red flag as to events in his past that he was afraid of. I think he either regretted these events or maybe was just scared. Either way, the two sites had made an impact on him and I don't think it was a positive one.