A thing about this book is that I had to pause, as I was just about to give it 3 stars, having more-or-less met my expectations and no more, because I actually don’t agree with, or was impressed by, its themes and what it has to say on school and the coming of age experience. But that doesn’t really matter. I like to think expectation evaluation is the easiest and fairest way to rank things 5 stars, and so “liking” it is more of an X factor question for me that sometimes propels a title into 5 stars from 4, but otherwise is lumped into expectations.

Anyway, this story is about a young man pretty literally waxing nostalgia about his boyhood prep school days, which makes him think on the nature of his selfhood, essentially.

As a teenager he was quite the wanker it turns out. At least when it really counts he is. Knowles compares the moral failings of the main character to the First Fall: Adam and Eve, loss of innocence, and coming-of-age. This makes sense given the historical context of the book when a world war was going on. Even the elites were set to become men by waging war, even though there is a discussion regarding the legitimacy of war and how it’s old men puppeteering, essentially. Yet it’s a life event expected of them, that the protagonist shirks even as he has his fall from innocence well before school ends.

It feels both prescient and antiquated, in my opinion. These themes have been beaten over the head, though they are universal and interesting. No doubt this is why, here in Canada, we were made to read this in English class. I actually read my copy from my school days, now probably 20 years old or so (the spine still intact and the paperback looking mint, too.).

But I really dislike the view of all men having an inner demon to contend with and loss of innocence is a fall, rather than an ascent; a failing of our socialization and puritanical culture, no doubt. And to the inner demon and nature, I’m sure it’s a lovely idea that so much responsibility can be adjudicated to a nebulous ingrained substance etched there at birth that we must contend with. It’s a very western book that acknowledges the military-industrial complex, draws themes from the bible, yet completed ignores the responsibility of the group and the individual to become more ethical than the society that raised them. Chalk it up to original sin.

I hated school and so the nostalgia that permeates the book; this “innocence”, when really, we are most likely the very worst version of ourselves, seems like a wild dichotomy to me. It makes me distrust the narrator and elicits very little sympathy from me. A story of growing up without any real accountability or responsibility, and our main man forever a selfish boy.

It did solidify something for me though: Those who long for high school are highly suspect. Who knows, perhaps I first learned that from this book. For as long as I’ve been an adult I’ve certainly subscribed to that. Perhaps that began 20 odd years ago.