Book # 8 -- Old School

Title: Old School

Author: Tobias Wolff

Release Year:

Plot Summary: A young man at a New England prep school tries year in and year out to win the school's writing contest.

Thoughts: This book came highly recommended to me by a good friend who's opinion on books I well respect. It's about a young man who struggles with his writing (which is his true passion). His desire to write so well leads to inner corruption and this plays out throughout the rest of the book and the rest of his life.

There are a couple of levels to this book. The first and most obvious is the actual narrative itself. The story itself starts out strong, but about two thirds of the way through the book gets really boring and starts to wander aimlessly. The next level, the verbage, is fantastic. However, no matter how fantastic the language may be, it gets to be too overbearing. Wolff conveys a sense of perpetual winter and amazing ambience in his novel. Thirdly, the story seems somewhat autobiographical -- and Wolff leaves that up to the reader as to whether or not it may or may not be. But the last few chapters of the book just just kill the book -- they take a (until that point in time) really good novel and pretty much kill it.

I had trouble relating to the main character. I can empathize with writer's block, but not to the extent contained herein. The narrator also seemed like a poor little rich boy to me... one that I felt no empathy towards, especially at the turning point in the book (which I will not reveal here).

Rating (0-10): 6.2

recommendations: For 200 pages, this book read more like 500. It's a laborious read because of all of the fantastic words used but it gets to be too much.