Finished: A Separate Peace (Knowles) Sigh, what a good book, and what a great character Phineas, aka Finny, is! This is definitely one of those books I've had to ponder a bit all day after finishing it this morning. It is just so heart-tugging in many aspects. I'm not sure I'll ever understand WHY Gene purposely rocked the branch so Phineas would fall, but then I'm not a sixteen year old, competitive, enlistment-anticipating, male jumble of emotions. Set in a boy's college prep school, A Separate Peace is beautifully written, bringing quite vivid pictures to the school, the boys, and the unsure time in America during World War II. I loved the relationship between best friends, Gene and Finny, and I could follow Gene's logic when he figured out that Finny might be encouraging him to skip classes, etc., so that he'd not do so well in classes, so as not to be better than Finny. However, then it was so clear how that wasn't the case when Gene suggested it to Phineas and his honest, vibrant nature rang through and he couldn't believe Gene would think something like that. Phineas was so naturally good at sports and at people. He could talk his way into and out of anything, and all the other boys and faculty adored him. Gene found himself jealous of those abilities, even though Gene was the far superior academic student. When Gene and Phineas created their secret society where every member had to jump from a huge tree into the river every night that they met, I had the foreboding feeling of trouble to come. When Finny convinced Gene to go up with him and do a double jump, after convincing Gene to leave his studying for the night, I never dreamed that Gene would be so mad inside that he'd deliberately make Finny fall. :-( I literally read that passage four times to see if Gene really did it on purpose! Finny's leg is shattered and he can never play sports again. The guilt eats Gene up alive to where he finally confesses to Phineas that he jiggled the branch on purpose, but Phineas doesn't want to hear it...or admit it...or know it, because that would mean his best friend wasn't to him what he thought he was, and more importantly, what he still needed him to be. When another student finally forces Phineas to face the truth, he leaves the room in a whirl of emotions and accidentally falls down the marble stairs, rebreaking his leg. He doesn't want to see Gene, but when Gene sneaks in to see him, Finny finally gets Gene to admit that he didn't shake the tree branch out of maliciousness...it was just a momentary anger that made him do it, right?...that he still loved his best friend. Gene agreed wholeheartedly, since it was true, and Finny and Gene were at once all right with each other again. Then, tragically, Finny dies in the surgery to reset his broken leg, and Gene is sucker-punch, heartbroken. It's so very sad. :-( I want to say that maybe all of Gene's complicated feelings about Phineas die with him, but that's not the case since the book opens fifteen years later and Gene is still revisiting the old sites (tree and stairs) that caused him so much pain and loss in his youth. And, what can I say about the character of Phineas? I loved him, and his honesty, and his gumption, and his zest for life, and his ability to forgive, and his mischievousness, and for his unique view on life. I would love to have made Phineas room mates with Quentin Compton from The Sound and the Fury and perhaps some of Finny's joy for life would have rubbed off on Quentin, keeping him from taking his own life at college. Now, how do I go about adjusting my Top 100 Books list to include Rebecca and now A Separate Peace??