I don't know. It just didn't hold up well for me as an adult listen even though I had some of my students read it year after year. Sara may have hit the nail on the head when she said that it could have ended much, much earlier. In any case, the ties to World War II seem to come out much stronger in an extended listen than in a disjointed read. But at the same time, it seemed that Forrester almost absolved himself of personal responsibility for Phinney's broken leg by comparing this individual act with those acts that he and his classmates will be committing in the war. In many ways, Gene's inability to handle his guilt drives the book and makes for his basic dishonesty with himself. (That really came out in Old School as well. What is it about boarding schools that seems to bring out the worst in late adolescent boys? Finney is irrepressible, as always, but there is also a lack of honesty, and of depth, in his character that doesn't hold up as well as it did when I taught the book. I don't think that it is a book that I would try to teach anymore if I could help it.
Author: Knowles, John
Date Published: 1959
Length: 6hr 35min
Narrator: McClure, Spike
No comments:
Post a Comment