Phineas and Six Stories

Phineas: Six Stories is a collection of short stories by John Knowles (author of A Separate Peace) published in 1968.

Phineas is the story that Knowles based A Separate Peace on and is actually just like an extremely shortened version of the novel but with a few extra scenes that are actually quite interesting. One, you see when Gene meets Phineas (Finny goes into an immediate talk about how many girls he's slept with) and also you see Gene before meeting Phines (he actually reveres Phineas in the sense of the coolest-kid-in-school, but the relationship is so distanced, that it's weird to see when you know how close they come to be.) The story also ends with Gene going to Finny's house in Boston, which incidentally is also where it began. Gene ends his narration by explaining that of all the things he envies of Phineas, he envies most his honesty in every bit of him, in his thoughts, heart and actions. He needs to confess to cleanse himself as he sees his birthday coming up and the adult world with it. So it's a bit more explicit about Gene's situation than A Separate Peace is, but that's basically all the difference there is between the two aside from length and the fact that the novel continues on after this scene for a long while.

That said, there are five other stories: 'A Turn in the Sun' 'Summer Street' 'The Peeping Tom' 'Martin the Fisherman' and 'Reading the Will'. They're all enjoyable and worth reading, I think, though 'Martin' and 'Summer Street' are a bit on the plainer side. 'A Turn' 'Tom' and 'Reading' all have wonderfully sharp and intriguing characters though that make them gems of stories. 'A Turn' is about a kid called Lawrence whom resembles Gene a lot. He's this loner too strange to be close friends with anyone but not weird enough to become special in the sence that Leper is in A Separate Peace. He tries to establish an identity at Devon School before he disappears forever and this one crazy, spontaneous and pure-luck dive he did into the Devon River early on helps him a bit but that turns out to resemble a miraculous season of fame for an actor that spends then the rest of his life brooding over the uniqueness of that in his career. 'Tom' is about the trial of a Peeping Tom whom you grow to sympathise with during the story. It's heart-breaking to grow more and more acquainted with the guy who eventually moves away from being an insane predator to become a tortured anti-hero, victim to his own strange quirks. A very interesting psychological path. And 'Reading' is about this kid Christopher whom recently lost his father. The strange thing is that the story's not the typical mourning story but a some-what frightening dive into the apparently cold mind of Chris as he obsesses over his inheritance whilst travelling to Egypt to bring his brother an envelope left to him. Chris, having received nothing and stuck in such a lonely situation, slowly grabs hold of your sympathy and the coldness slowly changes from cruel coldness to sad coldness as you get to know Chris' defense mechanisms. So, wonderful, lots of psychology.

All the stories have in common that. You see a character that seems simple and as you read, your opinions change of what you've judged, and meanwhile the characters themselves grow and deepen in their own awareness, making the change for you doubly impressive. I guess that's true for practically all good books, but there is a particular theme of doom and hopelessness that rules these stories that create a nice irony to this perception-shift with the plot. Your perception changes to the better of the character (that is with sympathy) but the motives of the characters remain unaccomplished and his situation bitterly static. The moving psychological elements of the short stories complement the immovable nature of doom and inevitability which is the ultimate curse of all these characters, as well with Gene and Phineas. Lightness being finely rationed in these stories, I loved them, being a prime advocate of sadness myself. If reading short stories for their lightness as compared to novels, you better steer clear of these stories, but for maybe 'Summer'. And speaking of which, last general point: the briefness of these stories and their compilation into one band invites you, obviously, to read one after the another after another in a short amount of time. This is good, I think, because this results in an army of these piercing characters that then meld, considering the greyness left by their short duration of existence, into one blur which creates then less of a person but a mood. All good writers tend to have but one thing to say that they just say over and over again. This mood, the greyness, I think is Know;es' reverberations.

Now considering it's me, this blog is far from finished, but sadly, as I'm procrastinating right now from studying for French exams (yes I do procrastinate by writing essays) I'll have to focus down. LAWRENCE! The winner of the collection, I think. Let's jump in.

The character is the most important aspect of a book. Lawrence is not one of those characters that you have and then immediately you have yourself a book. Those are people like Holmes or Heathcliff, the mysterious, a bit insane, a bit romantic (or extremely if Heathcliff), a bit bad, a bit good, a bit genius, a bit talented, a bit pensive, a bit courageous, a bit artistic and a lot active type. Those are the charismatic. Lawrence's defining characteristic is that he is precisely the opposite; he is the guy that can't manage to attain the dignity of being a total pariah but will never be popular. The mundane blob in the middle. He's not Caliban and not Oliver Twist, he's the third guy from the left while everyone else is watching the characters who actually have lines and a name. It's really pathetic because he's just so nonexistent. So how do you make that interesting? Well, you give him ambition, grant him a moment of glory, allow him an epiphany and a moment with nature, and finally conclude with some kind of irony.

Lawrence doesn't narrate. He's presented immediately in a pathetic desperate light, trying to find glory in every action, and then you learn about that moment of genuine glory. Luck glances on him for a moment with a magnificent dive into the river, which then allows you to see into his confrontations with the popular kids for a bit. This is an interesting look because Lawrence then begins displaying his ambition. How all these bits tie together is that Lawrence's mind is shown to be embittered and conniving through the ambition that is worsened by the moment of glory and rooted in his social awkwardness. He decides to get smart, really smart, in order to be known as the-smart-kid, and then be finally known. He obsesses over lacrosse and watching sports in order to achieve some social conversational points. It's all very frustrating how mathematical he gets about the teenage/high school hierarchy, considering how such hings rarely exist in such vividness as he imagines and considering how his pursuits tend to make him so intense that, ironically, he ends up scaring away potential friends. So you really grow to hate Lawrence a bit, with all his emotional spaz-outs concerning his glorified popularity problems. The good stuff eventually comes though.

At some point (it varies) you start hating Lawrence less as his crude ways become more of a curse than a flaw. This is particularly easy to do, pity him, that is, in the climactic scene (spoiler alert) when he's sitting in the trophy room and he's allowed his epiphany. It's a good one: essentially, tie passes, so don't obsess or fall into a deep depression because nothing lasts, like the trophies that after so many years get moved into storage. He then has his nature moment, seeing sunlight slit through the door, deciding it'll be a good summer, and then walking out of the trophy room feeling totally regenerated. That's a nice moment. You've got to love epiphanies. It's very artistic, the moment. I'll quote it later. So finally you end yp very proud of him. He's grown out of the annoying adolescent phase.

After all, for however much of an idiot Lawrence seems to be, concocting overly drama-queen schemes to get recognised, he hasn't been floundering about; his thoughts are very clear and logical, and very investigative too. Lawrence recognises the futility of the game he plays, so he's not an obsessed drama-queen, but he's a teenager trying to survive his age before escaping into adulthood. This epiphany is him realising that he doesn't have to play the game if he doesn't want to, and especially if he sucks at it. The board'll be cleared soon and he could go find himself and all that which is a real relief after suffering through all those awful tears of mandatory pubescence.

Moving on. The story could end there but we then have the ironic ending. How dare Knowles write a happy ending. Well, he dares not. SPOILER COMING! Really, can't resist. I'm sorry. So Lawrence, that very same day, dies. He jumps into the river and does an even better dive than his first, but then, after floating a while, cramps up and drowns. The thing is, you don't see this happen. Two kids were playing in the river and saw it happen, and couldn't save him. The principal, to whom they are describing all this, receives it with sock and despair. He asks them a bunch of questions, hinting at the doubt of suicide. The boys keep awkwardly answering that they don't know, they don't know. They, embarrassed, even try to make up answers, but then can't go through with it. They admit Lawrence didn't have any close friends, and it's all very sad indeed. The principal makes a tribute for Lawrence. He blows up a picture of him by the pool in uniform (though that swimming stuff really has very little to do with Lawrence) and place this in the trophy room; the very same in which Lawrence realised that trophy rooms are for the conventions of the wishful ones, those who try to preserve things in material that will actually disappear inevitably, with time. There's the irony I mentioned. Classic Knowles; nothing changes concerning Lawrence's situation throughout, despite the psychological change, and when you think that psych change can help him, his fate cuts him short, bringing the promised doom. Don't you just love sadness? I eat this stuff up so ravenously.

So you can have an extra become a lead guy. Sure the Ophelia ending breaks the pattern a bit. He's no nobody any longer. But, well, it's hardly a good thing anyways. And he was just healing. The character is the most important aspect of a book, but this character can be anybody. What's important is that the writer writes him well. He must provoke lots of emotions. Obviously. Anyways, there's a lot of outworn opinions for you. So innovative huh. (sarcasm) But nevertheless, important. RIP Lawrence, Good to see you again Devon, and Devon River.

Read, folks. Read.

Lawrence was neither grotesque enough nor courageous enough for that. He merely inhabited the nether world of the unregarded, where no one bothered him or bothered about him.

Bu now itt was April, and with the season of steam heat dead, Lawrence felt and saw April everywhere. He brought April with hi into the trophy room, its freshness had touched his skin, its scents were in his clothes. This room isb't a chapel at all, he thought with a passung wave of indignation, it is crypt.
Then, right there in the trophy room, he yawned, comfortably. And stretching his legs, to get the feeling of cramp out of them, he strode contentedly toward the door, through which a segment of sunlight poured down. As he stepped into it he felt its warmth on his shoulders. It was going to be a good summer.
Lawrence never knew that he was right in this, because he drowned that night, by the purest accident, in the river which winds between the playing fields.

Lawrence had cut the water almost soundlessly, and then burst up again a moment later, breaking a foaming silver circle on the black surface. Then he twisted over on his back and sank out of sight.
'I believe he enjoyed the water,' said Mr. Kuzak quietly.
'Yeah,; Bead agreed. 'He liked it a lot, I think. That was the one thing he did like. he was good in the water.'
'I don't think he cared,' Bruce remarked suddenly.
The headmaster straightened sharply. 'What do you mean?' Bruce's thoughts doubled over this instinctive statement, to sensor it or deny it, but then, because this was death, and the first he had ever really encountered, he persisted. 'I mean in the dive he just seemed to trust everything, all of a sudden. He looked different, standing up there in the bridge.'
'Happy?' asked the dean in a very low voice.
'Something like that. He wasn't scared, I know that.'