The Old School - ISBNLookup.com

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The Barnes & Noble Review
In 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 Byrd

Publishers 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

Library Journal

This first novel by Wolff (The Night in Question) falls into that odd subgenre: the prep-school coming-of-age story. On the surface, it is a plainly wrapped story of an anonymous narrator at an anonymous school in the 1950s who feels a writer's vocation but comes to an ethical crossroads. The school has regular writing competitions whose winners get to meet one of the great authors of the day, including Robert Frost and Ayn Rand (in a hilarious send up of objectivism). The lucky winner of the final contest will meet Ernest Hemingway, and so desperate is the narrator to triumph that he unwittingly falls into the dark waters of plagiarism. This story would be predictable if it did not shift so radically toward the conclusion. Ultimately, Wolff asks readers two probing questions: what is the nature of the narratives with which people represent themselves daily, and how do they run the danger of being undone by those stories if they are not careful? A big novel hidden in the structure of a small one, this work is highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/03.]-David Hellman, San Francisco State Univ. Lib. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-The unnamed narrator of this coming-of-age story set in 1960 is a scholarship student at a prestigious New England prep school that has a tradition of inviting literary stars to the campus. Prior to the visit, the seniors are requested to write a piece to be "judged" by the guest. The winner is given a private meeting with the literary luminary and the story is published in the school paper. The narrator, having missed out on an audience with Robert Frost and Ayn Rand, is determined to meet with Ernest Hemingway. Much of this quiet novel is about writing and love of the written word. Merits of The Fountainhead or "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" are discussed by their authors and the students, and readers glean some information on the writing process and the cult of personality. In his fervent desire to be chosen, the narrator "borrows" an idea and reveals a secret about his heritage that he has carefully hidden. He wins, but the results of his story's publication are disastrous and his life is forever changed. The events and ideas in this thoughtful and thought-provoking novel remain with readers after the story is over and could provide meat for discussion. Teens will identify with the protagonist and internalize ideas on creativity as well as honesty and the importance of seemingly small decisions or occurrences in life.-Susan H. Woodcock, Fairfax County Public Library, Chantilly, VA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A witty but ultimately rather pointless debut novel about life at a New England boarding school. It’s the early 1960s, and our unnamed narrator, like Wolff himself (as wonderfully described in his memoir, This Boy’s Life, 1988), is an outsider working his way carefully through an alien world. A poor boy from Baltimore who won a scholarship to an elite prep school up north, the narrator finds acceptance through literature, continually competing with his wealthier classmates to craft the perfect poem, story, or novel, as well as to win a seat on the editorial board of the school journal. One of the traditions at the school is to invite a famous author to address the students, and afterward to meet privately with the one boy who has written the best imitation of the author’s work. Doddering old Robert Frost passes through, just back from Kennedy’s inauguration. Later on, the boys are harangued by the venomous Ayn Rand. But the visit that arouses the most expectation is that of Ernest Hemingway, revered almost as a god by the young adventure seekers, especially since he’s known to have been a WWI comrade of one of the school’s most enigmatic teachers. The narrator succeeds in having his story chosen by Hemingway—a choice that turns out to have disastrous consequences for the boy and the teacher alike. Wolff writes well page by page, and he manages to evoke the supercharged atmosphere of ambitious teenagers cooped up together, but the narrator’s reminiscences have a distant, lifeless quality, as if he cannot, even years after the fact, make any sense of the catastrophe that he brought upon himself. An odd pastiche that never coheres: storywriter and editor Wolff (Best New American Voices2000, etc.) offers some nice vignettes that add up to considerably less than the sum of their parts. First printing of 40,000; author tour