Old School by Wolff, Tobias Reprint Edition [Paperback(2004)]

by Tobias Wolff

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.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Novels, Classics, Literature, Literary Fiction, Book Club

Paperback

First published November 4, 2003

About the author

Tobias Jonathan Ansell Wolff is a writer of fiction and nonfiction.

He is best known for his short stories and his memoirs, although he has written two novels.

Wolff is the Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University, where he has taught classes in English and creative writing since 1997. He also served as the director of the Creative Writing Program at Stanford from 2000 to 2002.

Reviews

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

VOGLIA DI RICOMINCIARE



Romanzo consigliato da un amico scrittore, che parla molto di scrittori e scrittura.
Parla della vita attraverso la scrittura di letteratura, vuoi poesia o racconto.
Per capire quanto è importante l’aspetto dello scrivere cito la visione ricorrente del protagonista, autentico incubo:
Essere invitato a una festa con moltissimi scrittori e scoprire che, dopo così tanti anni di lavoro, non avevo un posto a tavola.

Mi ha riportato indietro a quel tempo che si suole definire ‘anni verdi’, quando leggere era crescere e formarsi e scoprire e ritrovarsi e identificarsi e assomigliare ed esplorarsi e…


Questo romanzo riporta alla mente il bel film di Peter Weir del 1989, “L’attimo fuggente - Dead Poets Society”.

È affascinante come venga di solito raccontato attraverso un episodio che occupa una porzione ben ridotta dell’intera durata.
Alla quale si arriva attraverso una lunga tortuosa preparazione, e dalla quale si esce con un inaspettato colpo di coda che raccontando una storia apparentemente altra, ripete e rispecchia quella che viene messa al centro di qualsiasi sunto o commento. Una storia nella storia, questo inatteso finale, che è forse il culmine artistico del romanzo, una piccola gemma regalata in uscita.

Pubblicato nel 2003, è un romanzo principalmente ambientato all’epoca in cui J.F. Kennedy divenne presidente.
In un college americano della costa est, stagionalmente si invitano grandi letterati: nell’ordine arriverà il poeta Robert Frost, poi la romanziera e filosofa di origini russe Ayn Rand, e infine il padre di tutti gli scrittori americani del XX secolo, almeno di quelli di racconti, Ernest Hemingway.
Che però non arriverà mai in quanto si suiciderà prima di farlo.


Queste pagine fanno pensare anche al bel film di Gus Van Sant, “Scoprendo Forrester - Finding Forrester”, 2000.

In occasioni di questi inviti e visite, la scuola organizza competizioni tra gli studenti dell’ultimo anno, gara di poesia se l’ospite è un poeta, gara di racconti se l’ospite è un narratore.
Il nostro protagonista io narrante presenta un racconto copiato da una rivista minore, scritto da una studentessa di un altro college.
Lo fa perché non riesce a scrivere nulla di suo, e lo fa perché, leggendo per caso le parole della sua coetanea, si riconosce e rispecchia, si sente tirato in causa, si identifica.
Vince la gara, viene eletto migliore dallo stesso Hemingway, avrà l’onore di passare un’ora a tu per tu col suo idolo.
Però, il plagio viene a galla, il ragazzo viene espulso, ed Hemingway non verrà comunque.


Anche l’esordio alla regia di Mel Gibson, “L’uomo senza volto - The Man Without A Face”, del 1993, racconta un bel rapporto tra allievo e insegnante.

Il tema del falso e dell’inganno è ricorrente nell’opera di Tobias Wolff. Già in precedenza, nel suo romanzo memoir This Boy's Life - Voglia di ricominciare, il giovane Toby falsifica i suoi voti per essere ammesso all’università con una borsa di studio.
Qui, quando la frode viene a galla, il misfatto scoperto, Wolff regala un momento di rara, preziosa intensità.

Wolff conosce le cose che scrive, più di quanto non dica, e questo è un bene. Scrive con precisione e abilità le cose che conosce, scrive dalla sua coscienza; il che alza sempre la posta in gioco.
In realtà il corsivo è una citazione dal libro: è un’intervista a Hemingway pubblicata sul giornalino della scuola, forse vera o forse inventata, e queste sono le parole che il grande scrittore usa per congratularsi col giovane scrittore che ha vinto la gara.


Il film del 1993 diretto da Michael Caton-Jones, con Leonardo DiCaprio (all’epoca 18enne), Robert De Niro ed Ellen Barkin, tratto dal romanzo memoir di Tobias Wolff “Voglia di ricominciare - This Boy’s Life”.

[Jola · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a book! Despite the tranquil title, it's been an engrossing emotional roller coaster, which made me feel dizzy.

The setting of 'Old School' (2003) by Tobias Wolff is an elite boarding school in the United States in 1960–61. The unnamed narrator is one of the students, 'book-drunk boys', obsessed with literature and creative writing: 'one could not live in a world without stories'. The school regularly organizes a competition and the prize is a private audience with a notorious author. The desire to win makes the protagonist choose a road with no return, like in a poem by Robert Frost:
'I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.'


The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania which probably inspired Tobias Wolff. [Image source]

Sandy, one of my favourite Goodreads friends, wrote in her comment that despite some convincing suggestions, 'Old School' somehow hadn't made it to her TBR shelf yet. She added that maybe my recommendation would do the trick.

Truth be told, it's definitely Tobias Wolff who does the trick here. What if he was asked to write down the instructions for it? I doubt if he's willing to share the tricks of the trade in the first place, but let's assume he could come up with something like that:

The Name of the Trick: Old School

Trickiness Level: four stars out of five

Supplies: talent, wisdom, sensitivity to various writing styles, penmanship, ability to stir strong emotions with a few words, irony. Neither a rabbit in a hat nor a lovely assistant needed, although sharing the experience would be enriching for sure. By the way, I think 'Old School', with its ability to provoke fascinating discussions, would make a perfect group read.

Magic effect: an enchanted, shaky reader who can't put the novel down. Not able to stop thinking about it either.

Preparation and secret steps: firstly, you start with quite a prosaic topic and gradually turn it into something harrowing and special. The plot summary won't give you a thrill I guess but the impact of the novel may surprise you. Let's see what it imperceptibly does to you. I was quite astounded when I realized how profoundly invested in the book I got.

Get ready for trick and treat, two in one.


Harry Anderson, 'Boarding School'. [Image source]

Tips and hints to help you perform the trick like Tobias Wolff:

* Give your book a great title.
The first and obvious association is the sophisticated institution portrayed in the novel but 'old school' may refer also to long-established moral values and conventional literary traditions which are sort of mocked here.

* Make a firework display of your writing skills.
Wolff amazed me with his ability to pastiche - not only the style of three visiting writers but also the narrator's and other students'. Each style is very distinctive and individual.

* Follow Anton Chekhov's advice: 'The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.'
Like Henry James, Tobias Wolff doesn't offer easy solutions to the dilemmas his characters face. He invites us to ponder and solve the puzzles on our own.

* Resist the temptation to use words soaked in high-key emotions.
The author's writing style is concise, calm and matter-of-fact, even when he reports on dramatic events.


Mark Draisey Photography, Eton College. [Image source]

* Create unforgettable characters.
I admired Wolff's impressive portrayals with three exceptions. The writers - Robert Frost, Ayn Rand and Ernest Hemingway - seemed to be painted with wide brushstrokes, more like caricatures, not real people. I'm aware that the portraits were supposed to be satirical but in my opinion the author exaggerated a bit.

* Don't be a one-trick pony.
Tobias Wolff provides abundance of food for thought. The writer at work, the process of creation, the role of literature, coming of age, school, being a teacher, making choices, search for truth, the masks we wear, looking for identity, honesty - these are just a few examples of areas covered by this novel which is only 195 pages long. The observation I've made while reading 'Old School', which surprised me most, was a paradox: Wolff made me realize how destructive the process of creation is.

* Entertain your audience.
Personally, I wouldn't call this book hilarious as a few reviewers did, but from time to time Wolff's sense of humour gleams through. Just a little sample: 'Writers are just like everyone else, only worse.'

* Be a magician (not necessarily of Lublin), not just an illusionist.
Albeit the story is overloaded with literary themes, there is nothing artificial about it. 'Old School' has a vintage feel and quality of works by classics. The old masters' touch. What a pity that few people have heard about 'Old School'. I was fortunate enough to read Orsodimondo's splendid review, which urged me to indulge in this outstanding novel.

* Don't reveal how the trick worked.
'Don’t talk about your writing. If you talk about your writing you will touch something you shouldn’t touch and it will fall apart and you will have nothing.'

* Don't miss a trick and let 'Old School' mesmerize you.


Norman Rockwell, 'Boy Reading an Adventure Story'. [Image source]

[Flo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about writing and writers. Golden. It made me reconsider Hemingway. It has the most amusing takedown of Ayn Rand.

[Kristi Siegel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Want to read something funny and literate? Read this memoir.

There are few books that provide this much hilarity, wisdom and grace.

Old School, though categorized as a novel, is a thinly veiled memoir of Tobias Wolff’s own experience as a scholarship boy in an elite prep school. The action largely centers on the boys’ writing competitions. Three times a year, a famous author would visit the school and choose one boy’s writing as the best. As a reward, that boy earned a private audience with the author. In less adept hands, Wolff’s description of the boys’ frenzied, adolescent writing, within the hothouse climate of the school where every action becomes magnified, could have become overly sardonic, sentimental or condescending. Wolff, though, balances parody with compassion, and sentimentality with honesty.

In one of the many sections that made me laugh out loud, Wolff, describes the boys’ adulation of Ernest Hemingway. Wolff’s parody of Hemingway, which also captures the boys’ seriousness about this legendary writer, is pitch perfect:

We even talked like Hemingway characters, though in travesty, as if to deny our discipleship: That is your bed, and it is a good bed, and you must make it and you must make it well. Or: Today is the day of meatloaf. The meatloaf is swell. It is swell but when it is gone the not-having meatloaf will be tragic and the meatloaf man will not come anymore” (14).

In similar fashion, Wolff describes the boys’ various writing efforts. For anyone who remembers his/her own not quite ready for prime time adolescent writing or has read the occasionally overwrought writing of young adults, Wolff’s descriptions ring true. But Wolff doesn’t overdo it. These are bright boys who have talent. Instead, Wolff shows us their slightly angst-ridden writing by taking it down just a notch. It’s not horrible stuff [well, some of it is:], but is unformed, filled with enough adolescent fervor to be hilarious and heartbreaking.

Wolff’s dead-on writing emerges from the first page. There, he explains how the epic 1960 battle between Nixon and Hemingway garnered less attention than the writing competition and the impending arrival of Robert Frost. After dismissing Nixon, as a somewhat tattered “scold,” Wolff captures the way the boys view Kennedy’s mystique in two crisp sentences: “Kennedy, though—here was a warrior, an ironist, terse and unhysterical. He had his clothes under control” (5).

In addition to Wolff’s impeccable writing, for [good:]readers, much of the book’s enjoyment derives from the many descriptions of famous literature. Wolff’s trot through Hemingway’s short stories brought back their humanity and contours so sharply, I felt as though I’d just finished re-reading them.

However, Wolff’s section on Ayn Rand, the second visiting author, proves unforgettable. The protagonist, referred to as “the boy” becomes infatuated with Ayn Rand, and reads The Fountainhead four times. The book’s effect proves unfortunate.

On a vacation break, the boy views his grandfather and (second) wife with bemused pity. Aghast at their provincialism, the boy flees from their house at every opportunity. Armed with cigarettes, the boy walks the “glistening streets in a fury of derision, wet and cold, sneering at everyone except the drunkards and bums who’d at least had the guts not to buy into the sham” (69). Though filled with confidence that his writing will rise above the mundane prattle of the collectivist herd, instead, the boy faints in class and winds up in the infirmary. He wakes to find that he’s missed most of Ayn Rand’s visit, except for her final interview, which he sneaks out to see. There, he sees a different Ayn Rand than the one he’d envisioned. Rather than brave, she is cold, and when Rand looks at the boy, still very sick, he can see her distaste:

…I saw her face…the face she’d turned on me when I sneezed. Her disgust had power. This was no girlish shudder, this was spiritual disgust, and it forced on me a vision of the poor specimen under scrutiny, chapped lips, damp white face, rheumy eyes and all. She made me feel that to be sick was contemptible. (91)

As flat-out funny as the Rand episode is, Wolff treads a fine line. We see what the boy learns, but it is an evolution rather than a hammer blow.

I can’t pin down everything that made this book work so well. It isn’t flawless. At one point, Wolff’s narrative stitching comes undone, and it’s clear that the book—written in seqments—could use more cohesion.

* * *

PROOF: In reference to the comments made on Jon Gruenning’s review of Ex Libris, here is a snippet of what my husband—the highlighter and vocabulary seeker—did to Old School after he thought I'd finished reading it.

[Francisco · Rating 5 out of 5]

I imagined as I was reading this book what a contemporary YA literary agent or editor would say upon receiving Tobias Wolff's story of a young man's experience in a New England preparatory school (one of those that can claim a U.S. president as an alumni but is way too classy to ever mention this fact outright). I see my imaginary literary agent, my imaginary editor, asking where's the conflict, the plot twists, the romance, the Big Ideas, the high stakes? And it saddens me to think that today this book might be deemed a "quiet", a "literary" book worthy, perhaps, of a personalized rejection letter to the effect "this is such high quality, so well written but, unfortunately, I just don't see a market for this now in the Young Adult publishing world although you may want to try an adult publisher where there is greater acceptance for books like this where not much happens." Do you really have to be old (as in over 40) to savor the subtle tension of a literary competition where the prize is a private conversation with Robert Frost or Ernest Hemingway? Do you need be battered by life before you can appreciate that lying about who you are is both hurtful and needed? And does it take years to understand the threads that tie personal integrity to art, to discover the truth about what it is to write with truth? The gifts this book can give can be received by young people. They won't, these gifts, jump into your lap the minute you show up. You may need to be patient, stick around, earn the book's trust before they approach, hesitantly at first, but when they do, they'll stay.

[David Carrasco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recuerdo cuando tenía quince años y pensaba que si algún día me reconocían por algo, tenía que ser por escribir. Que la literatura era ese pasaporte mágico que te abría puertas y te hacía diferente, alguien especial. Solo años después entendí que esa búsqueda estaba llena de máscaras y silencios. Porque la literatura no es un espejo donde buscamos la verdad, sino un escenario donde ensayamos quién queremos ser. Mentimos, nos inventamos, y a veces nos destruimos en el proceso.

Imagina un internado de esos donde todo parece perfecto: orden, tradiciones, miradas de reojo, y un pasillo silencioso por donde caminan chicos con libros bajo el brazo y secretos en la mirada. En uno de esos días anodinos, un anuncio sacude la rutina: va a venir Hemingway. Y de repente, ese lugar se convierte en un tablero de ajedrez donde cada movimiento es una apuesta por ser alguien que importe.

En Vieja escuela de Tobias Wolff, lo que a primera vista parece una novela de formación al uso —joven con ínfulas literarias en un internado masculino que se obsesiona con los escritores famosos que visitan la escuela— se convierte poco a poco en algo más punzante y menos complaciente: una reflexión incómoda sobre la autenticidad, la impostura, y la necesidad —casi biológica— de inventarnos a nosotros mismos para sobrevivir en un mundo que premia más la pose que la verdad.

La historia se sitúa en un internado elitista en Estados Unidos, a principios de los sesenta, donde cada trimestre un escritor famoso visita la escuela: primero Robert Frost, luego Ayn Rand (sí, esa Ayn Rand, la que escribía como si quisiera acabar con cualquier atisbo de compasión), y más tarde, nada menos que Hemingway. Entre visita y visita, los alumnos compiten por un premio: el ganador podrá reunirse a solas con el autor invitado. El protagonista, cuyo nombre nunca se revela —detalle nada gratuito—, es un chico becado que finge pertenecer a un mundo que no es el suyo. Su pasión por la literatura y su necesidad de ser aceptado lo empujan, poco a poco, hacia una decisión que marcará su vida para siempre.

Pero claro, todo esto no valdría nada si Wolff no supiera escribir como escribe. El hombre escribe con una precisión que no abruma pero que rasga. No hay ornamento inútil ni postureo narrativo. Es prosa limpia, elegante, con un ritmo contenido que no necesita alardes para golpear donde duele. El narrador, ya adulto, recuerda aquellos años con una mezcla de vergüenza y lucidez. No hay nostalgia gratuita, sino una especie de examen de conciencia donde el pasado no se idealiza, sino que se interroga. Y es ahí donde Wolff brilla: en esa mirada retrospectiva que no busca redención sino entender por qué somos como somos, y qué precio pagamos por intentar ser lo que no somos.

Y esa mirada contenida se refleja también en cómo está construida la novela. La estructura es aparentemente sencilla, casi episódica, pero cada capítulo funciona como una pieza milimétrica que se encaja para revelar un retrato más amplio: el de una juventud obsesionada con el prestigio, la fama literaria y las máscaras. El hecho de que los autores invitados no sean solo nombres lanzados al azar, sino presencias reales y caricaturizadas a la vez —el Frost ambiguo, la Rand fanática, el Hemingway mitificado hasta el ridículo— da a la novela una dimensión casi teatral. Aquí Wolff se divierte, y se nota. La escena con Ayn Rand es digna de sátira: su dogmatismo choca con el mundo académico con una comicidad que roza lo grotesco, como si Monty Python hubiera pasado por la universidad de Chicago.

Ahora bien, que Wolff se divierta no significa que no esté diciendo cosas muy serias. Vieja escuela habla también del poder del lenguaje para reinventarnos —o destruirnos—. Por eso no sorprende que, en cierto modo, la novela dialogue con Las desventuras del joven Werther de Goethe, con El guardián entre el centeno , incluso con Retrato del artista adolescente de Joyce. Pero si aquellos retrataban la sensibilidad juvenil como una tragedia romántica o una rebelión existencial, Wolff lo hace desde la ironía y la desmitificación. Aquí no hay héroes malditos ni revelaciones místicas: solo un adolescente lleno de contradicciones, movido por la vanidad, el deseo de pertenencia y una necesidad voraz de ser “alguien”.

Pero en esa lucha no está solo: el mundo que lo rodea también tiene sus propias máscaras. Aquí, los personajes secundarios, aunque esbozados con breves pinceladas, tienen una nitidez sorprendente. El director, con su culto casi religioso a la literatura; los compañeros, que oscilan entre la admiración y la competitividad más feroz; y sobre todo, ese sistema educativo que alimenta la ilusión de que la escritura te salva… cuando en realidad muchas veces te traiciona. Como dice el narrador en un momento crucial, “la literatura me había enseñado a mentir bien”. Y esa frase debería estar tallada en mármol en todas las facultades de filología.

Ahí es donde reconocemos al Wolff de siempre. Si has leído las memorias de Wolff ( Vida de este chico , En el ejército del faraón ), reconocerás el tono confesional y la manera tan suya de mezclar ternura y sarcasmo. Pero Vieja escuela no es solo una prolongación de su autobiografía: es una autopsia de la ambición literaria. Una novela sobre lo que estamos dispuestos a sacrificar para que alguien nos mire y diga: “tú escribes bien”.

Y en esa renuncia silenciosa hay ecos de otra novela discreta pero devastadora: Stoner , de John Williams. No tanto por el estilo, sino por la manera en que aborda el fracaso como una forma de sabiduría. Aquí, como en Stoner , el aprendizaje no viene de los éxitos, sino de las torpezas, de los errores cometidos por orgullo o por cobardía. Hay un momento especialmente demoledor cuando el protagonista se da cuenta de que no sabe si admira más a los escritores por lo que escriben o por lo que representan. Esa confusión entre talento y vanidad, entre vocación y vanagloria, recorre toda la novela como un hilo invisible.

Puede que Vieja escuela no grite su grandeza, pero tampoco lo necesita. No hay ambición desmedida, ni épica, ni dramatismo impostado. Lo que hay es algo mucho más raro y valioso en la literatura: la verdad emocional dicha en voz baja. Wolff no busca construir una obra maestra, pero termina rozando esa categoría por la vía más difícil: la de la contención, la lucidez y la ternura sin ñoñería. Es una novela que parece pequeña, sí, pero se queda contigo como una astilla. Es el tipo de libro que uno podría releer a distintas edades y encontrar siempre una nueva grieta por donde asomarse. Por eso el cinco no es por lo que brilla, sino por lo que resiste. Porque dice tanto con tan poco que uno casi se siente leído por ella.

Wolff no necesita quinientas páginas para dejarte pensando en tu adolescencia, en tus ídolos literarios, en tus propias imposturas. Lo hace en apenas doscientas, con una economía de recursos que ya querríamos muchos. Y lo mejor: sin moralinas. Aquí nadie aprende grandes lecciones. Solo se sobrevive. Se escribe. Se sigue.

Porque al final, como decía Orwell, “cada vez que uno escribe, está intentando impresionar a alguien, incluso si ese alguien es uno mismo”. Y Vieja escuela te deja con esa sospecha incómoda de que todos, en algún momento, hemos escrito —o vivido— solo para ganarnos un aplauso. Aunque fuera el nuestro.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine yourself as a young writer at a prestigious boarding school. A prominent member of the faculty has just read your submission for a contest. He is genuinely excited for you. “A marvelous story! Pure magic. No—no—not magic. Alchemy. The dross of self-consciousness transformed into the gold of self-knowledge.” Pretty heady stuff, isn’t it? Old School’s protagonist was at an experiential high point when he heard that one. The truth is there are moments within the book where you could congratulate Wolff for the same achievement. More than once I asked myself whether a passage was so good because of its insights or because of the way it was worded. The answer was typically both.

The story was set in the early 60’s at a prep school for boys somewhere in New England. The narrator, who never gave his name, was on scholarship there. It was an eccentric, bookish place where writers, not athletes, were the heroes (if you can imagine that). The school featured a series of literary competitions where the prize for each was one-on-one time with whatever notable figure was recruited as judge. Robert Frost was the first. The old man passed on our boy’s work in favor of one he misinterpreted as having depth and irony that, in truth, was simple and earnest. (Think of Peter Sellers’ character in Being There.) For the second competition, Ayn Rand was judge. The narrator was seduced by her philosophy of self-interest to the point of obsession, reading The Fountainhead four times. Then he became deliriously ill. He was too sick to write an entry, but thought he could at least go to her talk. As she turned her disgusted face on him after he sneezed, he was quickly disillusioned. “She made me feel that to be sick was contemptible.”

The final competition was the big one. Hemingway, his hero, was the judge. The whole school felt a kinship to the man via stories of friendship with one of the teachers formed during the Great War. The drama really begins as the narrator thinks of what to write. And this is where I stop summarizing because I might give too much away if I don’t. Let’s just say that the truth can have good days and bad days. I’ll also hint to you that class, privilege, and identity come into play, but it’s all by the teaspoon not the trowel-full.

People who would know have called this a thinly veiled memoir. This is a natural form for Wolff who has a great reputation as a memoirist. All I know is the writing seemed exceptionally good. His short stories have always rated well, too. If associations are at all indicative, I’ll mention a wiki factoid: He was on the faculty with Raymond Carver at Syracuse, and students who worked with Wolff while he was there included Jay McInerney, Tom Perrotta, George Saunders, and Alice Sebold.

This was close to a 5-star book for me, but I’m compelled to take one away because the main character’s clash with himself seemed a wee bit contrived. Or maybe it was just inconsistent with the way I’d been viewing him. And since I’ll have you believe I’m a paragon of virtue myself, high standards unmet get a demerit.

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

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3.5 stars (rounded up to 4)

“A true piece of writing is a dangerous thing. It can change your life.”

Old School presents its readers with a concise exploration of the complexities of writing and interpretation. Tobias Wolff exerts exquisite control over his prose, evoking through his sparse yet vivid language the rarefied world in which his unmanned narrator moves in. Wolff brings to life the youth of the days past and their strive for artistic recognition, capturing the various undercurrents that are at play in their exclusive school.

“[T]he almost physical attraction to privilege, the resolve to be near it at any cost: sycophancy, lies, self-suppression, the masking of ambitions and desires, the slow cowardly burn of resentment toward those for whose favor you have falsified yourself. ”

What seems at first to be an idyllic environment reveals itself as a place for competitiveness since, as our narrator himself points out, “if the school had a snobbery it would confess to, this was its pride in being a literary place”. Most students, our protagonist included, guard their writing efforts with suspicion, and are wary of criticism. The winner of the literary contest held by their school is awarded with a one-on-one meeting with famous writers (Robert Frost, Ayn Rand, and Hemingway all make an appearance in Old School).

“I never thought about making connections. My aspirations were mystical. I wanted to receive the laying on of hands that had written living stories and poems, hands that had touched the hands of other writers. I wanted to be anointed.”

The protagonist of this novel has mythologised this 'audience', attributing to this meeting a sense of sublimity and viewing the writers he admires through the eyes of a disciple. Yet, his grappling with his 'voice' and is often influenced by the writing of those he reveres. His desire to win the competition leads to fraying relationships with his roommate, friends, and to a certain extent his relatives.

“For years now I had hidden my family in calculated silences and vague hints and dodges, suggesting another family in its place. The untruth of my position had given me an obscure, chronic sense of embarrassment, yet since I hadn’t outright lied I could still blind myself to its cause. Unacknowledged shame enters the world as anger; I naturally turned mine against the snobbery of others.”

Additionally our narrator is struggling with self-knowledge. Having taken pains to project a certain image of himself, his own class-consciousness alienates him from other students. Soon, his blindsided determination to win tests his already strained relationships and sees him rejecting truth in favour of self-deception.
The narrator's undoing is not easy to read. Yet, his narration retains this ambivalent quality that I found quite enthralling.
In some ways Old School does for a 60s prep school what Teddy Wayne's Apartment does for a 90s creative writing course. Both of these books are deceptively slender, and pack a real emotional punch. Both of narrators are ambition driven and their path to self-discovery is treacherous.
If you are interested in a novel with plenty of insights on writing and authorial intent or for a story that chronicles a boy's troubling self-discovery, look no further.

Some of my favourite quotes

“It had become a fashion at school to draw lines between certain writers, as if to like one meant you couldn’t like the other. ”

“Now they sounded different to me. The very heedlessness of their voices defined the distance that had opened up between us. That easy brimming gaiety already seemed impossibly remote, no longer the true life I would wake to each morning, but a paling dream.”

“Loyalty is a matter of dates, virtue itself is often a matter of seconds.”

Read more reviews on my blog / / / View all my reviews on Goodreads

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, I want to live in this book. This is a bittersweet book about myth...the myth of being innocent, and the myth of what it's like going to a private school. . . a private, cloistered high school. As a big-time literature nerd aficionado, the school in this novel is every bit as magical as Hogwarts: visits from writers like Hemingway, Ayn Rand, Robert Frost, writing contests to actually get to hang out with them...knowing they'd actually read something you'd WRITTEN.

You know, THIS kind of school:




Most of us can only conceive of these schools from the images we've gotten from movies or novels. In fact, the snootiest high school in Indianapolis seems downright gritty compared to this school. My own high school experience had NOTHING in common with what Tobias went through...it's the same as the myth we have of the "college experience:" full of partying, heavy drinking, adventures, and--the part where reality falls down--somehow staying in school and finishing a degree. You can act like Van Wilder as much as you want. For half a semester, before you're back at your parent's house.

Wolff recognizes how easily these myths can be shattered, but he immerses us in this world that's totally divorced from anything most of us have experienced. Well, the ENVIRONMENT is totally different, but we may recognize some of the people: goofy boys (it's a boys' school) acting stupid, energetic, self-absorbed and horny. In other words, acting like high schoolers. Wolff captures the navel-gazing attitude of the writer....which probably wasn't a huge stretch...but makes this young author as flighty and and sexually frustrated as we all were at that age--well, I was, anyway.

In other words, the characters worked, and the setting made me envious for a myth.

My high-school experience [Note: this is where I completely stop talking about the book and start navel gazing] was punctuated with homecoming football games, one of which was called off in mid-game because of a big brawl in the audience. I WAS the author at my school...we didn't have visiting authors. In sophomore year, I shyly asked my English teacher if she'd read some of the poetry I wrote and would tell me whether it was any good or not. I don't have it anymore, but I can recreate the mood and tone for you:

As darkness fills my withered heart,
I miss you every time we're apart.

I miss your lips, the way you smell,
it seems my whole world turns to hell.

When I'm alone, I miss you.

You get the idea. I wrote teenage angsty poetry filled with allusions to greek myths and vampires. I often stole lines verbatim from Nine Inch Nails.

I basically thought I was Brandon Lee from The Crow: jaded and heartbroken, slash super-cool.



Nevermind the fact that my heart wasn't broken by my true love dying, but by my first girlfriend breaking up with me just because we didn't have anything in common other than horniness. Anyway.

I made the teacher slog through page after page of this crapola, and when she finished reading it, she said, "This is TERRIFIC! You're so talented!" And then, she helped me get a few of them published in collections of high schooler poetry...you know, the kind where they publish three poems per page, and sell you the collection for some ridiculous price. The opus I spent many evenings crafting, called "Cassiopeia," was on the same page as some chode's exercise in stupidity called "Pizza." The poem focused on how much the author liked eating it. Reading the poem, I was filled with the sense that I'd been deceived and...well, a sudden craving for pizza.

So, maybe this idea of innocence isn't a myth...we DO grow up with a sense that our uniqueness is going to be recognized and embraced by the world. We're going to be famous poets! Rock stars! Actors and ballerinas! But, we eventually have to initiate plan B, and it's when we do this that we start recognizing the myth. We aren't all here to save the world from Voldemort.

So, as I read this, I wanted to live in this book. I wanted that sense that success was inevitable, that the world was just waiting to recognize my brilliance and toss money and fame at me. Because that's a sense that went away quite a few years ago.

Because life isn't a narrative like that. It's disorganized, and there are billions of main characters. Life is brilliant, even when you go to a BFE public school, even if you can't go to school, whether you have money or not. The myths leave out the car accidents, the necessary part-time jobs, the fact that love is always a murkier and rockier thing than art pretends it is. The myths we create for ourselves usually leave out all of the chaos.

There's nothing wrong with chaos. It's the most natural thing there is.

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Literature In An Old School

Tobias Wolff's carefully-wrought and eloquently written short novel "Old School" (2003) is tinged with self-reflection and irony beneath its apparently simple story. Wolff's novel is set in a nameless New England prep school for boys in 1960, at the time of the Kennedy-Nixon presidential election. The book is a coming-of-age story narrated in the first person by a student, whose name is never given, in his final year at the school. Much of the book is about literature and writing and about feelings towards them.

The narrator comes from a middle-class background while many of his classmates are wealthy. He has a Jewish father and, although he has been raised Catholic and has never practiced Judaism, he is markedly self-conscious and tries to hide what he sees as his religious and class differences from his peers. The narrator's passion, shared with many of his fellow-students, is literature. He is an editor for the school's literary review and studies, writes, and reads assiduously. The book revolves around a "visiting writers" program the school sponsors three times per year. A famous writer visits and lectures at the school. In the process, students may submit a sample of their writing. The writer picks out the best from the competition, and the winning student receives a private meeting. The students compete eagerly for this signal honor. In 1960, the first two visiting writers were Robert Frost and Ayn Rand while the third is scheduled to be Earnest Hemingway who appears to be an idol among the students and many of their teachers.

The narrator recounts Frost's and Rand's appearance at the school and the competition their visits generate. The successful competition entries are also described. For both writers, the entries are tinged with irony given the speaker. The students tend to venerate Frost and to put down Rand. Their appearances and the winning literary entries are double-edged. The narrator is determined to submit a winning entry for Hemingway's appearance. In his efforts, he steps over the line of plagiarism. In the last portions of the book the narrator, after a period of rootlessness and a period of military service in Vietnam succeeds in becoming a writer and reflects on his earlier prep school years.

The story is full of foreshadowing and echoes. The students and their teachers are serious -- all too serious -- about literature and the writing life. The reader is invited to share in and respond to this seriousness and perhaps near-obsession with literature. From the many thoughtful reader reviews, it seems that many readers take the narrator and his story at apparent face value as a paean to reading and to high seriousness. This is certainly a strand to the novel, but I think the element of irony and skepticism is equally present. The narrator himself is critical of both the class mystique of the school and of the literary pretensions of the students which show an infatuation too easily developed and which is due at least in part to the rarity of sexual opportunity at the prep school. Both Frost and Rand, especially the latter, are shown to be fallible human beings rather than the avatars the students take them to be. They are each subtly critiqued in the student works they select. The students get on with their educations and lives when the leave the prep school with only a few following a literary career. Among these few is the narrator who is aware of the mystery of literary work and of its possible over-inflation. Adages about writing from the heart and from one's experience, if useful at all, get put into practice in strange ways. Writers and lovers of literature, as well as people who are neither of these things, must get on and live their lives the best they can.

In its style, restraint, and themes "Old School" reminded me of William Maxwell's novel, "So Long, See You Tomorrow" which tells the story of boys in a poor rural area of the Midwest rather than in a prep school. Both books discuss writing, guilt, and memory in a sober way. Readers who see "Old School" as reflecting a love for books and for reading along the lines of the students in the story focus on only part of the picture. This novel is studiedly and thoughtfully ambiguous about writing, its nature, and its value.

Robin Friedman

[Eh?Eh! · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meredith recommends reading This Boy's Life or In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War, parts 1 and 2 of this author's memoirs, instead of this fiction novel if you've never read Hemingway or Rand. That said, I've never read Hemingway or Rand but I've heard of their reputations, and really enjoyed this.


Does anyone remember getting a flier in high school saying you've been so successful that you're chosen to be listed in the Who's Who In American High Schools? I was too naive to recognize a scam when it was directed at me with flattery, and being a quiet nerd starved for recognition of my constant studying I begged the parents to pay the fee. It was a kick to see my name in the book...uh, one line within about a thousand rice paper-thin sheets. Or how about invitations to join honor societies in college, where if you paid a fee you could claim to be a member of Golden Key or Phi Kappa Phi or any set of Greek letters. These all meant well, I'm sure, having monthly meetings, community service events, and sometimes lectures with free pizza for an attendance bribe. Then a little later, I learned of the Order of the Engineer, formed after a tragic bridge collapse in Canada. The steel from that bridge was reforged into rings* and any civil engineer could make a personal vow to remember TEH CHILDREN, wearing a ring on the pinky of the writing hand as a reminder to always work conscientiously.

As I wised up, very slowly, I realized most only wanted the membership fee. Those that weren't money-focused were honor-focused, trying to capture minds at a peak of idealism and carry it forward into a community of do-gooding. The secret ceremonies (one was held in complete darkness with Greek letter code names and we had to vow never to speak of what was spoken, hah) and symbolisms (the ring was placed while holding your hand through a larger display-sized ring - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of...) were used in an attempt to create gravity and impress upon us the importance of their mission statements.

One of the themes of this novel is the living in and loss of idealism. I think. I have trouble understanding this literature/English stuff. These young boys at boarding school view literature, their lit teachers, their school, and authors with an awe and innocence that hurts because you know there will be disillusionment. Let's call it an end of a golden age. I think we want to have a reverence for something, anything. Religion, life, love, knowledge, an abstract that can be projected onto and we can lie to ourselves to make it just so. This fails when the abstracts attach to faliable people or groups or agencies (or book websites) who are revealed to be not quite up to the mistaken mental construct.

I've always linked my readings to my own life and experiences, but maybe this is a mark of an immature reader? The main character, in part of a very funny jab at Ayn Rand, reads The Fountainhead and over-absorbs her message - such a funny section. I see I'm doing the same with this book.


*Aww man! I wikipedia-ed this and learned that it's not true! There was a bridge collapse but the rings are just plain old steel, no special burden of tragedy attached. Another blow.

[Niharika (severely inactive) · Rating 2 out of 5]

The unfortunate thing about reading old contemporary fiction is, you can never escape the inevitability of feeling like you're left out of an inside joke the author and the readers of their time are sharing. The classics have a way of making sense that goes beyond the ages, yes, but then again, not every old book is a classic, are they?

This is one of those books that I can say with confidence I would've never found out about if not for Goodreads and my relentless e-stalking of readers I deem worthy of my obsession on this platform, if I'm being honest. But once I did, I was sure that I had to read it. There's this really obscure internet niche, I doubt you've ever heard of it before, called "Dark Academia," and I happen to be one of its ardent devotees. "Old School" had the promise of being the ideal dark academia book, with an outcast teenage boy in an archaic boarding school narrating the events that follow through. I never managed to finish Dead Poets Society; the overpopularity of certain media tends to make me wary of consuming them for some reason, but this book gave off the same vibes as that classic film.
I can't say that I absolutely adored the author's writing style, and the lack of a clear-cut plot only made my indifference to the goings on of the book all more apparent. To go back to the beginning of my review, a significant part of this novel discusses authors like Ernest Hemingway, Robert Frost, and Ayn Rand, with the author going into lengths to analyse the literary metaphors of their obscure short stories and such, and having read not a single book by any of the authors mentioned, I could hardly manage to follow half the time. For all my appreciation for literature, I've never been very good at studying it from an academic perspective, and for the better part of the novel, I found myself losing the thread of narrative thought. It was all very meandering, the author going on with the notion as though readers have got all the time in the world to enjoy his obsessive ramblings about other renowned authors, and unfortunately, not all of us had the patience to cheer him on. I finished the whole thing, but it took me an entire month, putting me in a terrible reading slump in the process. I did find my dark academia aesthetic in his description of the aforementioned boarding school, so there's that.


PS# I only just found out that this is not an old contemporary lit fic, but historical fiction that came out in the early 2000s. Couldn't tell you from the book lol. My bad.

[Meredith Holley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A review dedicated to and inspired by my friend Eh!, who reads things backwards.

This book is way literary meta. It’s so meta that there are prereq reading requirements for an optimal experience. Everyone knows Robert Frost, right? So, I’m not putting him on the list. But, I require you to read Atlas Shrugged, The Sun Also Rises, and (if you liked The Sun Also Rises, but not if you hated it) A Farewell to Arms before you read Old School. If you don’t care for Hemingway, you’ll probably not care for this book. But, it might still be worth reading for the Atlas Shrugged joke. You might think that sounds like a lot of work, but you should be reading those books anyway, so I don’t know what you’re complaining about. If you don’t want the reading prereqs, This Boy’s Life is just as good and relies a lot less on the meta.

I’m pretty sure Wolff was monitoring my literary preferences through a satellite feed at his office in Stanford while he was writing this. This book is just the definitive description of how I feel about reading and writing and literature and fame, authors I love and authors I hate. Maybe it’s how I feel about everything I consider important in life. I’m convinced that it was written to me. To add to the meta of this book, when I met Wolff some years back, the experience was exactly what he describes of himself meeting authors. There always seems to be a cream pie for me to faceplant into when I meet authors.

I think Tobias Wolff, both his fictional self in this book and his memoir self in others, is a sort of Holden Caulfield, if Holden was born poor and on the West Coast. To me that means that he is lovely and a genius. He’s also probably scrappier than Holden, though I think Holden has his own version of urban scrappiness. Even though Old School is all about boys, and women only appear in weird fun-house-mirror shapes, I still find the characters identifiable. They are boys, but they are not just that – they are writers and students.

I’m a devoted fan of modernism and spare writing, and it strikes me that some of the more clean, modernist writers alive today write memoirs. I’m thinking of Jeannette Walls and Tobias Wolff. Not that two writers make a trend, but I can’t think of any current fiction writers I have read that edit with the skill those two have. I guess, most modernism has a coming-of-age feeling of crushed narcissism and idolatry, and that is something that fills my heart up every time. It’s that laughter and tears recipe like a hearty meal. I absolutely love it.

Anyway, this book basically picks up where This Boy’s Life leaves off in the story of Tobias Wolff’s life, so it might be best to read that one first. I read this first, and I still didn’t guess the end of the other, so I don’t necessarily think it’s terrible to read this one first if you’ve done your necessary literary background reading. Mostly, this book is a tribute to some wonderful authors who have had a hand in shaping American literature. If you don’t know the authors, I’d think reading this would be a little like watching the Oscars without having seen any of the movies up for awards. You can still do it and be entertained by the song and dance, but you don’t have that investment at the moment they announce that Brittany Spears is a better actress than Meryl Streep, or some such.

[Brett C · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was able to relate to this with some degree—my parents sent to military school for four years when I was younger. I understood the environment of the novel: an all male school, the competitive aspects (academics & physical standards), the sentiment of being part of a Class, mandatory chapel, smoking in the barracks, eating family-style in the mess hall, and the Honor Code, A Cadet Does Not Lie, Cheat, or Steal, nor Tolerate Those Who Do.

Ironically this was a book about books, authors, ideas, and art on the form of writing. The story was a first-person narrative and was told during what I'm assuming was his senior year. The school had writing contests where the winner gets to meet a famous author: Robert Frost, Ayn Rand, Ernest Hemingway. Tobias Wolff reflected greatly from his own experiences and feelings that year to create a lifelike story. The writing style read quickly and I was kept engaged the while time. Some of the imagery I was able to visualize with easy

Frost read to us in the chapel that night. Even at night, weakly lit, the red panes glowed like rubies. The pews cracked as we settled. We sat somberly in place, staring straight ahead or gawking up alinto the heights where the arched ceiling vanished into darkness. The iron chandeliers shed just enough light to cast long, medieval shadows and burnish the bronze memorial plaques, the rich woodwork, the plain gold cross on the altar. pg 45

Overall this was a not a bad book and I'm glad I took the time to read it. I would recommend it as a quick and well thought out story. Thanks!

[Becca Becca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hot damn. I do realize this was on my 'currently-reading' shelf for one long stretch of time, but I must confess, I had only done a cursory read of a few pages.

Well, last night, I visited the land of IKEA (dreadful place that I rarely venture to) and bought myself a reading lamp. Wanting to try out my latest device, I picked up this book and began to read. This was at Midnight (I'm a bit of a night owl). Well, I got so engrossed in this book that I read the entire thing! Finished around 4 in the morning and then had a dream about Hemingway where he was selling me ice cream by the side of the road while confiding to me his darkest secrets (unfortunately, when I awoke, I couldn't remember what these secrets were. boo!)

So, anyway, back to the point, if there was one. This is a great book that captures the mood and spirit of a certain time and of the way it feels to be infatuated with words and literature.

Now I want to put on some oxfords, a cord blazer, grab a pile of Hemingway and Faulkner, and go read in an old musty library somewhere. Delicious!

[Χριστίνα · Rating 4 out of 5]

Είχα αυτό το βιβλίο στα αδιάβαστα της βιβλιοθήκης εδώ και μια δεκαετία. Σε μια προσπάθεια που κάνω αυτόν τον καιρό να μικρύνω τη λίστα αυτών των βιβλίων, αποφάσισα να το ξεκινήσω...και δεν το άφησα από τα χέρια μου. Οι σελίδες κυλούσαν αβίαστα, καθώς η γραφή του Wolff με συνεπήρε. Η αιχμηρή γραφή, το πλούσιο λεξιλόγιο, το black χιούμορ, οι άπειρες βιβλιοφιλικές αναφορές ήταν κάποια από τα στοιχεία που έκαναν το βιβλίο αυτό απολαυστικό.
Ουσιαστικά, πρόκειται για την ιστορία ενός νεαρού μαθητή, ο οποίος έχει όνειρο να γίνει συγγραφέας (όπως και πολλοί άλλοι συμμαθητές του), σε ένα σχολείο αρρένων κάπου στο μακρινό 1961 και ο οποίος έχει συγγραφική "εμμονή" με τον Ernest Hemingway. Το ένα αστεράκι το αφαιρώ γιατί προς το τέλος έκανε μια μικρή κοιλιά, σε σχέση με το υπόλοιπο εξαιρετικό βιβλίο. Παρ'όλα αυτά, το διασκέδασα πάρα πολύ!

[Roberta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hey tu, leggi questo libro!
Più o meno la mia recensione può fermarsi qui, perché recensire criticamente un romanzo debole è sempre più facile di recensire un capolavoro. E questo romanzo di Wolff, per me, è un capolavoro.
Ambiente: la scuola bene, quella con la divisa, quella per ragazzi ricchi o meritevoli vincitori di borsa di studio. La scuola wasp, con le funzioni religiose obbligatorie, gli sport di squadra, il giornale d'istituto e i professori ben connessi nel mondo della letteratura.
Una scuola da Attimo Fuggente, con un preside che spinge i ragazzi non solo a leggere, ma a creare letteratura. Lo fa attraverso incontri con scrittori, tra cui la controversa Ayn Rand e l'inarrivabile Hemingway. Ogni scrittore in visita legge i racconti dei ragazzi e sceglie il più meritevole, che vince una sessione privata con l'autore stesso. La competizione esiste, ma non sembra intaccare più di tanto i ragazzi. Anche l'errore fatto dal nostro protagonista sembra più un omaggio alla bellezza appena scoperta che un intenzionale tentativo di infrangere il codice d'onore della scuola. Ma da lì, quando l'idillio si rompe e il narratore deve riemergere nel mondo reale, la storia si chiude velocemente. Se il racconto dentro alla scuola ha un che di tattile, di morbido, di luci soffuse, il mondo post-scuola è invece rumoroso, spigoloso, veloce come un quadro futurista.
Passano gli anni e tutto cambia, anche la scuola. Non c'è un giudizio di merito sui tempi passati contro i tempi presenti, semmai mi è sembrato più un togliere il filtro rosato che ammantava l'adolescenza lontana.

Un mezza stella la dedico tutta alla bibliografia finale: il romanzo cita molte opere, alcune nemmeno tradotte in Italia. Un grazie speciale va al traduttore, che ha specificato tutto in un'appendice che sembra essere un piano di lettura di letteratura americana.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

At a boys’ boarding school, literary rivalries develop as pupils compete in a short story contest. The prize: an audience with one of a series of visiting writers, Hemingway chief among them. Old School feels like a less intense, lower-stakes version of A Separate Peace. The sequence in which our protagonist gets obsessed with, then ultimately discards, the work of Ayn Rand is really funny.

[Elham Asgari · Rating 4 out of 5]

چقدر دنیای این رمان برام دل‌انگیز و شیرین بود. به نظرم همه‌ی ویژگی‌های یک رمان خوب رو داشت. هرچند فصل آخر وصله‌ی نچسبی بود و می‌تونست بهتر تموم بشه:

«آن زندگی را که باعث نوشتن می‌شود نمی‌توان روی کاغذ آورد. آن زندگی بی‌آن که خود نویسنده بداند به پیش می‌رود. فارغ از اشتغالات فکری و هیاهو، در گودال‌هایی عمیق و تاریک که خاطرات شبح‌وار به‌خاطر ما در آن‌جا نبرد می‌کنند، یکدیگر را از پا درمی‌آورند و در پایان که چندتاشان باقی می‌مانند در پیش چشم ما ظاهر می‌شوند، اما با همان برخورد بی‌اعتنایی مواجه می‌شوند که پیشخدمت‌ها هنگام آوردن فنجانی قهوه‌ی اضافه. توضیح مشخصی نمی‌شود داد که چه‌طور و چرا کسی نویسنده می‌شود، همان‌طور که از زمان مشخصی هم نمی‌شود حرف زد؛ این همون وقتیه که من نویسنده شدم.»

[Hana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this one up at the library on a whim and was hooked with the first chapter. It's a short, and I gather semi-autobiographical, novel about an elite boys prep school somewhere in New England. The protagonist is a scholarship boy from who fits in with his peers mostly by allowing people to think he's something that he isn't. The lies are more in omission, rather than commission. But gradually he lives the lies until they become him.

This is also a book about books--poetry, novels, writing and reading--learning to read literature and learning how to write. So of course I loved that part, although I am neither a fan of Hemingway, nor of Ayn Rand. There is particularly wonderful moment when a short story opens the protagonist's eye's to the truth about himself and the story becomes his own story.

The ending felt a bit rushed and hovered on the edge of triteness, but a clever finale brought home the message about personal truth and misplaced pride.

Content rating: PG. Some very mild making out at dances and quotes from Ayn Rand. Otherwise a clean read.

[Stef Smulders · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first this seems to be 'just' a straightforward, well-written and enjoyable memoir but then you notice that the author has woven in several themes and motifs, in very subtle way. Truth, honesty, loyalty, self knowledge are touched upon in each of the chapters as the story itself continues. There is the tension about the narrators Jewishness, and class difference that stirrs underneath the surface. The novel is about writing and writers as well, discussing and portraying Ayn Rand, Hemingway, Frost.

[Sara (Sbarbine_che_leggono) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un inno alla letteratura, oltre che un romanzo di formazione. L'ho apprezzato in entrambe le declinazioni, anche se forse ho sentito più netta la presenza della prima.

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 5 out of 5]

OLD SCHOOL is written in the form of a fictionalized memoir of a student at an elite, circa 1960s, prep school full of "book-drunk" boys. Through a series of student writing competitions to win the prize of a private audience with a well know author, the reader of this book is treated to a profile of Carl Sandburg, Ayn Rand, and Earnest Hemingway. Along the way we are taught a lesson in how ambition disguised as passion for writing can lead to unfortunate outcomes. There is a hilarious bit of humor inserted in the story when Ayn Rand misinterprets a student's essay written in support of vegetarianism to be instead an invective against big government. I don't think the author thinks highly of Ayn Rand. At the end of the book the narrator is an adult reflecting on his school days. "Memory," he says, "is a dream to begin with, and what I had was a dream of memory, not to be put to the test." From his memories he distills a story of failed expectations and, in the end, redemptive self awareness.

I am sufficiently "book-drunk" myself to appreciate this vicarious immersion into literature. I'm also human enough to identify with a story of failure to achieve the grandiose plans of youthful dreams. Reflecting back on ones past life and coming to peace with the many what-could-have-been's is, I suppose, part of achieving inner peace. And that is what happens in this book. The final words of the books are, "His Father when he saw him coming ran to meet him." Anyone familiar with the Christian New Testament will recognize where that came from. So the overall message of the book is one of forgiveness, both the giving and the receiving.

Frankly, the title turned me off. Neither of the words "old" nor "school" (as in elite eastern prep) have much appeal to me. I would have never read this book if it hadn't been selected as a community-wide "Big Read" book. However, once I started the book it kept my attention.

Writers such as Wolff obviously enjoy writing about students who are intelligent and love to read and write because implicitly, they are writing about themselves. Some day I hope to find a book about a young person who hates to read and write and who doesn't have the advantage of being a gifted student. Such a book would be truly a story of overcoming life's challenges and obstacles. Alas, in spite of my own apparent feelings of jealousy of gifted writers such as Wolff hinting at their own youthful talent, I have to acknowledge that this book is skillfully written. The narration crawls up the trunk of the story line while taking frequent excursions out the numerous branches along the way toward a big surprising thud. Then it's a matter of reflection on what sort of person the story's narrator must be to have lived that life.

The following review is from the 2006 PageADay Book Lover's Calendar:
The Critics Rave
“Not a word is wasted in this spare, brilliant novel.”­ - People
“An elegant ode to writers, and to writing, from one of our most exquisite storytellers.” ­Esquire
“Wolff displays exceptional skill in capturing the small sights and sensations that evoke the whole rarefied world he’s taking us back to.”­ - The Atlantic Monthly
Tobias Wolff is acclaimed for his short stories and two memoirs, This Boy’s Life and In Pharaoh’s Army. Old School is his tour de force first novel, the story of a writing contest set in an elite prep school in the early 1960s and how it causes the life of a boy there to unravel.
OLD SCHOOL, by Tobias Wolff (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003)

[Nad Gandia]

Yo creo que el cuento es como una forma diferente de la novela como de la poesía, y las mejores historias parece que sea tal vez más cerca en espíritu a la poesía que a la novela.”

Mi primera novela de Wolff, aunque habría preferido, como he dicho muchas veces, empezar por sus cuentos. Me ha parecido una buena novela, con una buena estructura y un narrador que puede desconcertar en algunos puntos, a medio paso entre la autobiografía, la metaliteratura y la ficción. A través de la novela descubrimos críticas literarias muy bien estructuradas, no solo de su época, sino del propio autor, como un medio donde poder desenvolverse, a través de la ficción, y conseguir un efecto curioso. Un efecto que me encanta, por cierto.
Conozco a Wolff por Carver, pero también pro formar de lo que se suele denominar realismo sucio, no entiendo mucho esta etiqueta a rasgos generales, pero la mayoría de escritores de este estilo tienen como referencia a Hemingway, un escritor que no solo ha influenciado en la literatura en general, sino de un estilo directo, austero, sin florituras ni apenas simbolismos. Aunque, Wolff si utiliza el simbolismo como un medio de justificación para el libro. Una escuela, alumnos obsesionados con triunfar en el mundo de la literatura, pero que al final, debido a un plagio, el fracaso es inminente, al menos para nuestro narrador, que resulta ser el plagiador. Un malabarismo literario muy recomendado, tengo unas ganas increíbles de leer sus cuentos, y su gran novela, “La vida de este chico” que si tiene elementos de autoficción y semibiográficos. Os recomiendo una serie documental que sé encuentra en “Filmin” sobre Hemingway, en él sale Wolff dando su opinión sobre varios aspectos de la literatura y vida de Hemingway.

[Jonathan K (Max Outlier) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A gift from a neighbor, I decided to read it based on the review quotes on the back cover, many heralding it as a 'tour de force" and "achieves a real profundity". It does indeed pay homage to the art of story, but not without some strong opinions, of which one in particular stood out. A fan of Ayn Rand's books, as well as 'objectivism', the theme that drives both "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead", he makes her look like the anti-christ. Regardless, a story focused on writers and the skill/pit falls of writing, this one pales in comparison to others I've read. Rather than belabor the subject, I'll beg off further insights or opinions for now.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

So this was beautifully written and set in my absolute favorite sort of boarding school setting, but what I REALLY loved about it was Wolff's ability to connect the experience of being a young reader. The relationships that the boys in the book have with literature makes me feel so nostalgic for the first time I read Salinger or Vonnegut and I just fell totally, utterly in love with an author.

[Donna Kirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

At Donald Hall's house, he talked quite a bit about formalism and style in literary traditions. He told me that a person can't really move into the contemporary unless they have read pre-1800's writing and beyond. In Charles Simic's classes, he taught a more delicate, elegant modern aesthetic. his approach was more arachnid, mysterious, dark and removed. his writing is about the hidden and therefore, he admires any approach used to unleash what one can usually only whisper about. while Billy Collins wrote to me about the meat and potatos of prose and the birds that are poetry. each man took a seperate approach to his literary style that i wanted to understand because i felt like they were different ways to speak the truth. i was curious about truth, what was my truth, how to use my voice in society; what is that voice, what is a voice? Kierkegaard, who I read and reviewed in 2009, said that a poet is an “unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music.... And people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon' - that is, 'May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.” This mirrors an essay I wrote in 2005 called Poetic Injustice, Learning to Undo the Poetic to Find the Truth of Suffering.

I understand the stereotype often listed of the poet whose drive to write started from this place of suffering. the critique is that eventually, the sweetness of their own words, they way the describe this pain through poetry is so fine that it masks the horror that they actually feel, trapping it behind a veil that sounds romantic and stirring. Pain, underneath it all becomes, unconsciously, the muse the muse that drives your work. Without that pain, there is no poem and this is eventually intuited by the writer. Being tortured becomes romanticized because when the poet is tortured, the poet writes. This discourages the poet from seeking health or offering hope. This falls in line with what Plato warned: Be careful of the poet, they can make anything seem beautiful but is that beauty Just? What he meant by justice was: is it good for you? good for others?

Well....What if you don't want to feel pain to appreciate beauty? What if life is hard enough, you feel plenty of pain every time you watch the news, worry about sending your kids to school, how your mother is doing, etc. What if you want to heal from past hurts? What if you want to find a voice to promote that healing process? What if you want that voice to be strong, interesting, nuanced enough to assure people you are not close-minded, friendly without being corny, smart without being condescending. What if after healing, you want to write poetry that can comment on both pain or beauty? what if you want that poetry to have depth not because it hides your pain but because you came to understand and empathize with those who suffer and in subtle ways want to share the lessons you found.


On the way to the airport on two separate occasions Billy Collins told me to remember that poetry is a bird. He says this because during his early twenties, he attempted suicide and he found that poetry was an antidote to suffering. I studied this idea for a while and found ways to implement it into my life (which sounds vague but I don't want to go into detail right now). but while Donald and I shared a cigarette ("80 sucks," he said. "Don't tell anyone I bummed a smoke from you," I said)...he told me that structure provides freedom. For Charles Simic's class, I wrote an essay called No Ideas But In Things, Formalism in Postmodern Art to challenge some of the ideas of the formalists. Charles Simic took offense to some of the angles I was working on while using Robert Bly as the voice to work out these angles and he wrote a poem about Robert Bly, honesty and suffering. Simic was kind enought to give me his Kenneth Koch book and drove me to the airport to meet Billy Collins for the first time. I still wonder about it all, though. Donald Hall talked about Robert Frost quite a bit. Because I have failed to find a voice that works as evidenced by feeling still alienated, I turn once again to the formalists. Those who play by the rules. I couldn't help but quote this passage from Tobias Wolff's book.


Quoted from the text:

"Your work sir," Mr. Ramsey said, "follows a certain tradition. Not the tradition of Whitman, that most American of poets, but a more constrained, shall we say formal tradition, as in that last poem you read, "Stopping in the Woods." I wonder--"

" 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,' " Frost said. He put both hands on the pulpit and peered at Ramsey.

"Yes, sir. Now that particular poem is not unusual in your work for being written in stanza form, with iambic lines connected by rhyme."

"Good for you," Frost said. "They must be teaching you boys something here."

There was a great eruption of laughter, more caustic than jolly. Mr. Ramsey waited it out as Frost looked slyly around the chapel, the lord of misrule. He was not displeased by the havoc his mistake had caused, you could see that, and you had to wonder if it was a mistake at all. Finally he said, "You had a question?"

"Yes, sir. The question is whether such a rigidly formal arrangement of language is adequate to express the modern consciousness. That is, should form give way to more spontaneous modes of expression, even at the cost of a certain disorder?"

"Modern consciousness," Frost said. "What's that?"

"Ah! Good question, sir. Well--very roughly speaking, I would describe it as the mind's response to industrialization, the saturation of propaganda of governments and advertisers, two world wars, the concentration camps, the dimming of faith by science, and of course the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. Surely these things have had an effect on us. Surely they have changed our thinking."

"Surely nothing." Frost stared down at Mr. Ramsey.

If this had been Last Judgement, Mr. Ramsey and his modern conciousness would've been in for a hot time of it. He couldn't have looked more alone, standing there.

"Don't tell me about science," Frost said. "I'm something of a scientist myself. Bet you didn't know that. Botany. You boys know what tropism is, it's what makes a plant grow toward the light. Everything aspires to the light. You don't have to chase down a fly to get rid of it--you just darken the room, leave a crack of light in a window, and out he goes. Works every time. We all have that instinct, that aspiration. Science can't--what was your word? dim?--science can't dim that. All science can do is turn out the false lights so that the true can get us home."

Mr. Ramsey began to say something, but Frost kept going.

"So, don't tell me about science, and don't tell me about war. I lost my nearest friend in the one they call the Great War. So did Achilles lose his friend in war, and Homer did no injustice to his grief by writing about it in dactylic hexameters. There've always been wars, and they've always been as foul as we could make them. It is very fine and pleasant to think of ourselves as the most put upon folk in history--but then everyone has thought that from the beginning. It makes a grand excuse for all manner of laziness. But about my friend. I wrote a poem for him. I still write poems for him. Would you honor your own friend by putting words down anyhow, just as they come to you--with no thought for the sound they make, the meaning of their sound, the sound of their meaning? Would that give a true account of the loss?"

Frost had been looking right at Mr. Ramsey as he spoke. Now he broke off and let his eyes roam over the room.

"I am thinking of Achilles' grief, he said. That famous, terrible, grief. Let me tell you something boys. Such grief can only be told in form. Maybe it only really exists in form. Form is everything. Without it you've got nothing but a stubbed-toe cry--sincere, maybe, for what it's worth, but with no depth or carry. No echo. You may have a grievance but you do not have grief, and grievances are for petitions, not poetry. Does that answer you question?"

"I'm not sure, but thank you for having a go at it. "

[Ned · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I reshuffled my book piles during our endless house renovations, this one somehow emerged. This at a time when I’m contemplating retirement, becoming a grandfather again, and enjoying a weekend on a cold water lake in southern Missouri. This book was a delight, set in the year of my birth, in an east coast boarding school, where our insecure secretly-on-scholarship boy from the northwest US comes of age. The boys he hangs with are obsessed with becoming writers, tortured by a secret fear that they are not good enough or that their stories have all already been told, as they compete for a slot to meet the famous visiting writers slated. One is to be chosen for a personal audience, starting with the aging Robert Frost, then with Ayn Rand and finally, all the boys’ hero, Ernest Hemingway himself. Our protagonist is also harboring a secret himself, which adds another interesting element to his struggle. This book is about the writing process itself, and just how difficult the act of creation is to the artist, as the flood of ideas become constrained, then overly diluted, and back again into a pathway that is desperately hoped to be fresh, original and interesting. Our boy is the editor of the school newspaper, so he’s in the thick of the battle and closely monitors the products of his peers, often enviously but always respectfully and honestly. In the heat of creative genius, he becomes an inadvertent plagiarist, wins the big prize and is then reduced soundly to disrepute, ultimately leaving he school in disgrace. This was a trigger for me, having endured some similar scholastic shenanigans before ultimately surviving and getting an advanced degree (which has served a long career well).

Wolff’s writing is superb, he is a writer’s writer (or such I imagine, not being one myself). His descriptions of the personalities of Robert Frost and Ayn Rand are both revealing, fresh and hilarious. He clearly knows these subjects. But the best is his account of old Ernie, whom the boys in school never to a person idolize as the king (this was 1960, at the end and probably height of his powers and just before his demise). In fact, the boys’ behavior often mimic Nick Adams, the main Hemingway character who is seen as a real manifestation of their hero. Our protagonist has a dalliance with Ayn Rand before that, and becomes disillusioned upon re-reading her and when she arrives at school and her caustic personality and callous disregard of the boys is revealed. The big prize, a meeting with the aging Big Poppy, is won by our protagonist after inspiration from a prior school newsletter (to become his undoing), and when he is exposed it coincides with the announcement that their hero has committed the final act up there in Ketchum Idaho. Our boy learns from his headmaster of the back and forth letters with Hemingway as he prepared to visit, and this was my favorite part of the book: Hemingway excoriates all manner of writer (from James Joyce to Faulkner, to his more well known adversary, F. Scott Fitzgerald). The man’s ego is on full display, and it is so in character from what I’ve read of the man, that Wolff’s depiction took on a level of reality that was simply delightful and fresh.

Overall this book hits many cylinders for me: Coming of age, being away from a difficult home life for the first time, the clamor, sights and smells of the male dorm on campus, the frustration of trying to say something meaningful in words, the heat of competition and the idolizing of a small list of revered writers. I’ll always associate this book with my time catching trout on the lake with my grandsons, and the joy of fresh wriggling fish, the overhang of Hemingway’s influence, the time of cool fall colors just beginning to turn, and the smell of my own mortality as the final years set in and the remaining time seems uncertain and fleeting. Yet, pure joy in the moment, punctuated by pangs and pinholes of that unknown to come.

[piperitapitta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un anno a scuola





Se solo Tobias Wolf avesse avuto il coraggio di iniziare a narrare dal momento in cui (un attimo prima di essere accusato di plagio) entra nell'ufficio del preside, questo breve romanzo autobiografico sarebbe potuto diventare letteratura, anziché essere solo un buon memoir.
Ma l'intento di Wolff, probabilmente, conosciuto per essere un talentuoso autore di racconti, non era quello, e così, alternando a momenti di interesse momenti in cui la noia prende il sopravvento, Wolff finisce per rivelarsi un buon narratore, ma nulla più.



Qui una bella recensione.

[Tom Mooney · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sublime 60s-set novel about life for a group of sweet-but-pretentious literary boys at a privileged US private school, which can't help but remind you of Dead Poet's Society. I thought it was subtle, very well written and wholly enjoyable.