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Overview
The protagonist of Tobias Wolff’s shrewdly—and at times devastatingly—observed first novel is a boy at an elite prep school in 1960. He is an outsider who has learned to mimic the negligent manner of his more privileged classmates. Like many of them, he wants more than anything on earth to become a writer. But to do that he must first learn to tell the truth about himself.
The agency of revelation is the school literary contest, whose winner will be awarded an audience with the most legendary writer of his time. As the fever of competition infects the boy and his classmates, fraying alliances, exposing weaknesses, Old School explores the ensuing deceptions and betrayals with an unblinking eye and a bottomless store of empathy. The result is further evidence that Wolff is an authentic American master.
Synopsis
The protagonist of Tobias Wolff’s shrewdly—and at times devastatingly—observed first novel is a boy at an elite prep school in 1960. He is an outsider who has learned to mimic the negligent manner of his more privileged classmates. Like many of them, he wants more than anything on earth to become a writer. But to do that he must first learn to tell the truth about himself.
The agency of revelation is the school literary contest, whose winner will be awarded an audience with the most legendary writer of his time. As the fever of competition infects the boy and his classmates, fraying alliances, exposing weaknesses, Old School explores the ensuing deceptions and betrayals with an unblinking eye and a bottomless store of empathy. The result is further evidence that Wolff is an authentic American master.
The New York Times
Every reader will be impressed by the former president's expert ear for the undertones and hidden agendas of a political meeting. And clearly someone who spent four years negotiating accords and treaties with the Soviet Union and in the Middle East has no difficulty understanding that a Tory or a rebel may smile and smile and be a villain. —Max Byrd
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewIn Old School, Tobias Wolff, noted short story writer and author of the acclaimed memoir This Boy's Life, offers us a resonant, poignant, and distinguished exploration of the seductive nature and overpowering allure of literature.
A self-conscious, unnamed Jewish youth attends prep school in New England in the early 1960s, where he's one of the top writers in his class. He participates in an annual literary contest judged by celebrity authors -- a contest as aggressively competitive as any high school sport.
Wolff's narrative is gripping, immensely readable, and deceptively simple. Revered literary icons such as Ernest Hemingway and Ayn Rand are authentically portrayed through the eyes of an idealistic boy on the verge of manhood. With immediacy and candor, Wolff gives us a glimpse into the world of a young artist trying to find his own identity within the unknown depths of art. Wolff also shows us the overwhelming attraction of literature for the insecure and the vulnerable.
Old School is a debut novel that offers all the impact of autobiography. It's a bittersweet tale of innocence lost in the wake of disappointment and adult understanding that will leave readers profoundly moved. Tom Piccirilli
The New York Times
Every reader will be impressed by the former president's expert ear for the undertones and hidden agendas of a political meeting. And clearly someone who spent four years negotiating accords and treaties with the Soviet Union and in the Middle East has no difficulty understanding that a Tory or a rebel may smile and smile and be a villain. Max ByrdPublishers Weekly
A scholarship boy at a New England prep school grapples with literary ambition and insecurity in this lucid, deceptively sedate novel, set in the early 1960s and narrated by the unnamed protagonist from the vantage point of adulthood. Each year, the school hosts a number of visiting writers, and the boys in the top form are allowed to compete for a private audience by composing a poem or story. The narrator judges the skills of his competitors, avidly exposing his classmates' weaknesses and calculating their potential ("I knew better than to write George off.... He could win.... Bill was a contender"). His own chances are hurt by his inability to be honest with himself and examine his ambivalent feelings about his Jewish roots. After failing to win audiences with Robert Frost and Ayn Rand, he is determined to be chosen by the last and best guest, legendary Ernest Hemingway. The anxiety of influence afflicts all the boys, but in crafting his final literary offering, the narrator discovers inspiration in imitation, finding his voice in someone else's. The novel's candid, retrospective narration ruefully depicts its protagonist's retreat further and further behind his public facade ("I'd been absorbed so far into my performance that nothing else came naturally"). Beneath its staid trappings, this is a sharply ironic novel, in which love of literature is counterbalanced by bitter disappointment (as one character bluntly puts it, "[Writing] just cuts you off and makes you selfish and doesn't really do any good"). Wolff, an acclaimed short story writer (The Night in Question, etc.) and author of the memoir This Boy's Life, here offers a delicate, pointed meditation on the treacherous charms of art. (Nov. 9) Forecast: This is Wolff's first full-length novel (and his first book in seven years) and as such will likely receive much critical attention. Fans of the author's short stories-regularly published in the New Yorker-should be pleased by his departure from form. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.KLIATT
Old School has the feel of a novel written 30 years ago, another crack at the turmoil of adolescent development in a school setting, like A Separate Peace. Here we seemingly have yet another prep school with a hothouse atmosphere, and what gets the hormones going isn't the big game, a Latin trivia contest, or a dead poets society: it is a writing contest where the winner gets to meet a famous guest writer. How much today's students will get the star worship of long-gone idols such as Robert Frost and Ernest Hemingway is anyone's guess. Perhaps the time period in which it's set, at the start of the '60s, allows moral issues to be set in sharper relief, as authors are freed of the need to include contemporary drugs, cynicism and the omnipresent vulgarity in language and culture. Here we see primarily the pure idealistic lure of doing great things and the ways young people (of course anyone!) can want something too much for their own good. Old School is as readable by 16 to 18-year-olds as earlier school favorites, but really plumbs more subtle territory in its depiction of the attractions and dangers of the writing life and, especially, its philosophical exploration of the meaning of honesty, academic and otherwise. It was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book for good reason. The novel is written with a great ear for language and a deceptive sophistication that creeps up on readers as they race through the scant 195 pages. Wolff, the acclaimed author of the memoir This Boy's Life, has written a wonderful book, but it does read as if it came out of a time vault. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, andadults. 2003, Random House, Vintage, 195p., Ages 15 to adult.—Daniel Levinson