Skip to main content

A Tree of My Own: The Platypus Reads Part L


This post marks a full fifty literary musings here at "The Platypus of Truth." Since this all started with a wave of nostalgia, it seems apropriate to turn to a book that I read in tenth grade and just finished teaching to my tenth graders: "A Separate Peace."

I attended a New England prep-School, though nothing near as fancy as Philips-Exeter. When I first read this book, it resonated with me on a deep level. I read it once, and never had a chance to pick it up again. It was with a mix of eagerness and trepidation that I put it on this year's reading list for my students. I was worried that the magic would be gone. It wasn't.

I don't particularly agree with Knowles' conclusions about the nature of life, but there are just too many gems in "A Separate Peace" for it to lose its power. Furthermore, it had a marked affect on my students; even though the world of a New England prep-school is as far off from them as Mars. Being from that part of the country myself, I did everything I could to make it work for them, and it did.

If even for a moment, that makes me feel just a little less lonely.
Labels:

Comments

K-W said…
Good to hear you think it's worth re-reading. I could count on one hand the number of books that I truly loved in high school English class, and A Separate Peace that was one of them. I've been wondering if I would still like it now. Sounds like I should pick it up during break.
1:34 AM
James said…
Very much worth it. Again, I think he's off on some things, but it's still a got a lot worth hearing.
4:52 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Platypus Reads Part XXVII

Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...
15 comments
Read more

SNES as Money Well Spent: Platypus Nostalgia

I got my Super Nintendo Entertainment System when I was eleven years old.  That's a couple years after it first came out.  The occasion was a little dramatic: to celebrate the end of a two-and-a-half year course of treatment for cancer.  I had no idea that it would be waiting for me at home after the final doctors visit.  It was a nice spring day, the trees were waving gently in the breeze outside the bay windows.  With a cup of tea resting on the coffee table, I set down to play.  What was that first game?  It was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past .  Around twenty years later, my SNES still works as does that Zelda cartridge.  It's been a long way from boyhood in Southern Connecticut to manhood in North Houston, but I'm still playing. Why am I still playing?  There were stretches when I didn't.  Many times, I've just been too busy.  There were also seasons when it felt embarrassing to still be playing video games....
10 comments
Read more

Seeing Beowulf Through Tolkien: The Platypus Reads Part CXCIX

After spending a few weeks wrestling with Tolkien's interpretation of Beowulf , I found myself sitting down and reading Seamus Heaney's translation of the text during a spare moment.  I came to the place where Beowulf presents Hrothgar with the hilt of the ancient sword that slew Grendel's mother.  Hrothgar looks down at the hilt with its ancient runes and carvings depicting the war between the giants and God and meditates on the fortunes of men.  In a flash of insight, I thought: this is the whole poem! Let me explain.  Tolkien believed that the genuine contribution of the Northern peoples to European culture was the theory of courage.  The Northern heroes, at their best, were men who fought for order against chaos -a battle they knew they were doomed to lose.  If they were true heroes, their souls would join the gods and aid them in the final battle against darkness and its monsters and again go down fighting, spitting in the face of the meaninglessness...
3 comments
Read more