The last book that I read in ‘05 was Tobias Wolff’s Old School.
I should begin by noting that this is not the novelization of the movie starring Will Farrell as Frank the Tank. It is completely different. I came across this book through an BGB reader’s (Len) comment on comments by Shaft and myself regarding Ayn Rand. Len pointed out that Old School (the book) has a nice summation of Ayn Rand’s gestalt. After reading about the book on Amazon, it seemed right up my alley. I picked it up used, and here we are.
The eponymous school is the narrator’s prep school, which is a tradition-steeped east coast boarding school. The WikiPedia biography of the author says that Wolff attended The Hill School, so the events of the book may be somewhat autobiographical (the book is also dedicated to the author’s teachers).* The novel is set in the early 60’s, before all of the national upheaval of that decade takes place. “Old school” may also refer to the status of the authors that are to visit the boarding school that school year: Robert Frost, Ayn Rand, and Ernest Hemingway. What living authors would be a comparable trifecta?
The school has a competative literary journal that is taken very seriously by the students, or at least by the narrator and his boyz. Each guest author selects one of the boys submitted works, and the winner get a private meeting with the author during the visit. The prize is a huge honor, and it weighs heavily on our hero in his Senior year. The book describes the visits by Frost and Rand. Frost defends the use of rhyme and meter in poetry, bristling at the Beats. It is the description of the visit by Rand that is truly dazzling. If you are not a fan of Rand, her bitchy and self-righteous persona and lapdog fans ring so true and beautiful that you want to thank Wolff personally for articulating everything you find revolting about her while not being preachy or self-righteous himself. Thanks, Wolff! Really, the Ayn Rand scene made the book for me on its own. But there’s more.
The last author to visit for the school year is Ernest Hemingway, and it is the audience that the boys have wanted to win all along. This is the real heart of the story and I won’t give away and spoilers on ho wthings turn out.
I really enjoyed this book. Despite its setting, it neatly avoids the boarding school cliches. It also manages to not be Dead Poets’ Society - no O Captain! My Captain! It was a love letter to literature and a time when writing still mattered. To an extent, it is also about teachers who make a difference in students lives, even long after their time in the classroom is done. That theme has been very much on my mind lately, but that is a post for another day. Thanks for the recommendation, Len. If you’ve got any more of these gems up your sleeve, please pass them along.
*Wild Tangent: Why does The Hill School web site suppose that a picture of a bunch of dudes standing in a lake in their underpants in front of onlookers would be a selling point?
Wild Tangent II: I once met a guy in college who by way of introduction said, “I attended The Hill School, perhaps you’ve heard of it”. It was so pretentious that I immeadiately wanted to punch him in the face. But I digress.