Customer Reviews

Old School

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As a literature student at Arizona State University nearly twenty-five years ago, I was like one the "book-drunk boys" of Wolff's first novel, OLD SCHOOL, and "Toby" Wolff was my writing instructor. As a teacher, Wolff not only encouraged us to read important writers--Checkhov, Faulkner, Hemingway, Joyce, Fitzgerald--to improve our writing, but he also inspired us with his notion that "one could not live in a world without stories" (p. 131). Fiction, he said, takes us out of ourselves and into other lives. In OLD SCHOOL, Wolff demonstrates his talent for practicing what he teaches.

OLD SCHOOL is written in the form of a fictionalized memoir. Set in the 1960s, Wolff's novel is about a single academic year at an all-male East Coast prep school, in which the narrator and his book-obsessed classmates compete for a private audience with visiting writers, Robert Frost, Ayn Rand, and Ernest Hemingway by writing poetry and stories. Not surprisingly, Wolff's narrator tries to improve his odds by immersing himself in Ayn Rand's FOUNTAINHEAD (which he reads four times) and Hemingway's short stories. In their shameless attempts to win the writing competition, the boys adopt their literary heroes' writing styles. The results reveal that phoney writing can be quite funny.

OLD SCHOOL is not only about immersing oneself in important literature, but it is also about the honesty and self-awareness required to write important literature. In his novel, Wolff employs Frost, Rand, and Hemingway as characters to illustrate his point: although each of these writers is something of a phony in person, each is nevertheless capable of creating something authentic in their writing. OLD SCHOOL may be read as a study of this paradox, and what it means to be a serious writer like Tobias Wolff.

G. Merritt

In this homage to literature, the literary life, and the power of literature to influence a reader's life, Tobias Wolff focuses his attention on a small New England prep school in 1960, a school in which students live and breathe "the writing life." The headmaster has studied with Robert Frost, and the Dean is thought to have been a friend of Ernest Hemingway during World War I. To the boys, the English Department is "a kind of chivalric order," where they practice the "ritual swordplay of their speech."

For these students, the highlights of the school year are the three-times-a-year appearances of literary luminaries. When a writer visits, one boy has the opportunity to have a private audience with him, an honor for which the boys contend in vigorously competitive writing contests. The speaker/narrator, a scholarship student, is desperate to win an audience: "My aspirations were mystical," he says. "I wanted to receive the laying on of hands that had written living stories and poems." As various writers--Robert Frost, Ayn Rand, and finally, everyone's idol, Ernest Hemingway--are scheduled to appear at the school, the reader observes the growth of the boys, especially the speaker, as they are influenced by and react to the contest, to each other, to the visiting writers, and to the writers' speeches. In the contest to meet Hemingway, the novel reaches its peak, and in a shocking way, the speaker's life changes forever.

Wolff's novel is most remarkable for its point of view and for its conciseness. We never know what the speaker looks like or even his name, since it is through his eyes that the entire novel is filtered. He is interested in poems and short stories and philosophy and writing, all of which he talks about in detail, not in the observation of his surroundings. The limited setting of a New England prep school expands as the speaker ages and moves from school to the crueler outside world, and in later chapters, in which we see him as a mature writer, we also see how he uses some of his school experiences in his fiction, some of which appears within this novel.

Old School is a novel which students of writing will treasure--for its revelations of what it means to be a writer, its insights into the thinking of a perceptive teenager who is both idealistic and pragmatic, its irony, and its remarkable narrative voice. The themes are beautifully realized, and not one word is wasted or rings false. Though Wolff says that "No true account can be given of how or why you become a writer," he comes as close here to illustrating that process as in any other novel I've ever read about the writing life. Mary Whipple

Old School is a small, quietly wonderful book that will not have you on the edge of your seat, laughing out loud, or questioning various societal roles and rules. What it will do is captivate you in its spare fashion, surround you with a shared sense of love for literature, recall to you your poignant coming-of-age moments, fear, conflicts.
Set at an all boy elite prep school and centering on a young character who has manage to hide that he is middle-class and Jewish, the book centers on the annual writing contest where the winner gets to meet the invited writer of merit personally. during these years, the visiting writers are Ayn Rand, Hemingway (who doesn't actually appear), and Robert Frost. The competition is fierce and sparks some questionable acts, all of which are recalled in later years by the narrator. While he and his friends, along with the adult characters (the dean, some teachers, a teacher's wife), are sparsely drawn, the few details are so rich that the book suffers not at all. Rand and Frost make strong guest appearances as characters, captured brilliantly and humorously. Even better perhaps than the characters is their writing--Wolff does a wonderful job of capturing/parodying the adolescent writer and the way in which they tend to mimic established ones--all with a sense of sincerity rather than mockery.
The book is more than a love affair with literature, it delves in its few pages into concepts of honesty, of redemption, of friendship and identity, of shame and healing. But to be honest, even when these themes cropped up, moving as they were, well-handled as they were, they paled in comparison to Wolff's description of boys drinking literature like water and agonizing over writing like an early love affair.
It's a quick read, but one that should be lingered over. Don't toss it down in an afternoon though you could. Spend some time with it, reread some of the better sections, take some trips down memory lane yourself. Strongly recommended.

For the handful of impatient readers out there who have barked at me for recommending 500+ page epic novels such as The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (three years ago) and Middlesex (last year), this book is for you. Weighing in at just under 200 pages, this novel is just as much a heavyweight as much lengthier works of literature that I have sparred with this year. John Updike's The Early Stories, for example, a massive and brilliant collection of some of the best short fiction out there, had me up against the ropes for the better part of two months. In contrast, Old School can be read in the better part of an afternoon. And yet despite its meager size, as quality literature this book could go toe-to-toe for twelve rounds with pretty much any book out there.

First and foremost this is a book for book-lovers, for readers who treasure literature and writing as essential elements of our humanity. It is a book about writers, about famous ones like Ayn Rand and Ernest Hemingway and Robert Frost and about young, aspiring ones at an east coast boarding school in the early 1960s. At this school, students compete for an individual audience with a visiting writer - the student who submits the best short story or poem, judged by the famous writer, wins the prize.

But this book is more than just an ode to great writers and great writing. It is a novel about morals and ethics, and about the gray areas that cloud our judgment. It is a novel about the development of human character, about the differences that separate us and the ties that bond us together. It is at times humorous, at other times tragic, and still at other times triumphant. But throughout, it is undeniably honest and human.

So go ahead - open this book and smell the September leaves as they fall on this school campus. Feel the excitement in the air - the excitement of being young, the excitement of learning, the excitement of growing up and being on the verge of adulthood.

A 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, Old School is without question one of the best books of the past year.

Tobias Wolff's Old School is a remarkable book. It is smart about literature and reading and what those two things mean to us when we are young. Anyone who ever loved a book or a writer will find this novel/memoir dead on right. And this is the thing that will draw people initially to this fine book.

But this book offers so much more. It is also an excellent lens on a world where reading mattered. The 60's were probably the last great age of reading and writing in the US. First class writers like Frost and Hemingway were important. People felt that in order to understand what was happening in the world, they had to read the latest from Saul Bellow or Katherine Anne Porter, from Sylvia Plath or Robert Lowell. Wolff captures that feeling and also the gray regret that that world of books and writers is gone, and gone forever. It is the thing that is beating ceaselessly back into the past at the end of Old School.

Finally, Old School is a moving study of honesty and deception, truth and lies, and the consequences of both. I don't think anyone can finish this novel/memoir without a profound realization that often we will give up the truths that mean the most to us because we fear standing alone with those truths.

Opening this novel, I already knew by the dedication (For My Teachers) that I would love it. I was not disappointed; this book is a paean to the printed page. Reading Old School, I enjoyed total immersion in an atmosphere where love for writing resonates in the strongest, yet purest tones with the capability of transforming people. As a high school English teacher in the public schools, contemplating the idyllic atmosphere of the old boarding school makes me giddy. I am indebted to Tobias Wolff for offering me the chance to experience this world, even vicariously. This sweet, nostalgic book is a treasure, a gem. I inhaled it like nectar.

I've read this book twice already, and will likely read it again. Tobias Wolff is probably my favorite writer, and he is also, in my opinion, the humblest writer around. Humble is a strange word to use, but I think it's true. His prose is distinctly unflashy--very spare and simple. So are his subjects. This is a very quiet book about students and teachers and their love for literature--albeit an awkward, often misguided love. There is no graphic sex, no horrific suicides or car crashes (although there is the palpable thrill of the lie, and the agony of getting caught).

Tobias Wolff chooses small subjects and writes about them with total clarity and total restraint. His words and phrases are carefully chosen: each sentence leads logically to the next; every paragraph begins with a declarative statement and ends with some kind of conclusion. I think this clarity is the reason so many writing students admire him. Wolff is like a magician who does his tricks in the open: you can watch his every move up-close, with your own eyes, and yet you still can't quite figure out how he pulls it off.

Wolff's deceptively simple style also extends to the form of the novel, which is very linear and straightforward. The plot revolves around a writing contest played out in three acts (the three visiting judges: Frost, Rand, and Hemingway). The setup is so basic, and yet the results are complex and surprising. It reminds me of a musical fugue, with a basic substructure rolled out in endless intricacy. And, like a fugue, the novel ends with a beautifully elegant coda, in the form of a prodigal son story. Many reviewers here have maligned this ending, but it fits perfectly into the themes of the novel--the struggle to be "true" to oneself and the world; the shame of ostracism; and the exuberance of being forgiven and welcomed home. What at first it seems like an arbitrary tangent turns out to be a poetic parallel to the boy's own story. And what a lovely last sentence! I had to read it aloud, more than once.

And have I neglected to say how funny this book is? It is! Hilarious! Watch on with utter horror as famous authors--brought to pitch-perfect life by Wolff--take themselves far too seriously in public! Cover your ears while intelligent young students spin out cliché-soaked stories about hunting trips gone awry and alien visitations!

What else can I say? Buy the book. I wouldn't expect everyone to like it. In fact, the first time through I was much less excited about it than I am now. But it is a book that rewards slow, careful reading. If this is your style, I think you will not be disappointed with this (or any other T. Wolff) book.

The most important thing to realize about this novel is that this is a story for people who either write themselves or have at least thought about writing at some moment in their life, which is fortunate because I don't know many avid fiction readers who haven't entertained such a notion at one point.

Point being, Tobias Wolff is a writer's writer, as one of my friends put it. I thoroughly enjoyed the majority of this book about a young man sent to an all boys private school. He has many secrets he keeps, none of which are horrid to an adult but would perhaps be so to a child.

One of the great joys of attending this school is that several times throughout the year a major contemporary writer visits to take a private audience with the winner of a short story competition. The writer chooses the winner himself or herself and all students are free to enter.

Our narrator, of course, desperately wants to meet Robert Frost, then Ayn Rand, and then, finally, his hero, Ernest Hemingway. I thoroughly enjoyed the characterization of these three writers as they made speaking appearances within the novel and all three grossly misunderstood an important aspect of the winning story. I won't reveal whom our narrator gets to meet out of these three influential writers, but I will say that on his quest he finally discovers the most important aspect of any writer who amounts to anything, and that is to be true to yourself.

How he handles this insight is, of course, quite interesting to read and true to life for someone his age.

The only portion of the novel I found troubling was a hurried ending concerning our narrator and an oddly placed aside on a minor character that took nearly twenty pages. Again, however, since this is a book for writers that I believe teaches us many lessons on craft and introspection, I contemplated this aside and finally came to several conclusions that could serve as an explanation. I decided it was meant to illustrate that even the smallest of lines in a book can influence the entire plot. Either that, or Wolff was fighting tradition by placing the aside in a spot usually reserved for the main character, thus making us reconsider what we consider proper form and impact. Or, finally, Wolff simply wanted us to know the story on this particular character and stuck it in where it would be least distracting.

I literally had a great deal of trouble putting this book down when other duties arose and I can't recommend it highly enough, especially if you are a writer fighting to find yourself.

~Scott William Foley, author of Souls Triumphant

"Old School" is a small, quiet novel with big, bold themes.

An unnamed narrator recounts his senior year at a prestigious, WASPy prep school. Our narrator has managed to affect the carefree insouciance of the WASP moneyed elite even though he is a Jewish/Catholic scholarship student from Seattle. It's the fall of 1960, on the cusp of the election John F Kennedy, and our narrator's worlds-both big and small-are about to change.

The heroes of our narrator and his schoolmates are the recent modern masters of literature of the time: Robert Frost, Fitzgerald, Ayn Rand, and most of all, Ernest Hemingway. Their more tangible heroes are their English teachers who serve as the conduits to these novelists. One teacher-Dean Makepeace-stands out as the greatest of the "masters" as he knew Hemingway in WWI.

Throughout the year, a series of competitions are held which enables one student to spend quality time with a visiting writer (a group which includes, a bit unbelievably, Robert Frost and Ayn Rand). Each student gives his all in an essay to attract the attention of these greats. Our narrator tries and tries...until he eventually tries too hard.

To say much more would ruin the plot. Suffice to note, the author raises large themes such as integrity, honesty, the meaning of heroes, and the authenticity of the written word in a mer 150 pages or so. He could perhaps do a better job of integrating all of the sub-plots; still he leaves the reader with much to think about for a long time.

It seems to me that good old fashioned writing has gone out of favour while crazy novels that read like the drug induced hallucination of some raving lunatic are shoo-ins for book critics' lists these days. So, it is with genuine relief that I found Tobias Wolff's truly excellent "Old School" on the shortlists for the National Book Critics Circle and the Pen/Faulkner Awards this year. Finally, due recognition is given to a conventionally structured but beautifully written novel that comes as a timely reminder that literary excellence isn't about technical pyrotechnics but coherence, integrity and literacy. Truth, courage and integrity are themes that reverberate throughout Wolff's small but emotionally potent novel.

The study of literature is important because it illuminates and holds the mirror to one's soul. This perspective was never more evident than in a 50s New England prep school where only the best minds qualified and competed for the school's most prestigious annual prize each year which included a personal interview with some loftily regarded visiting icon from the literary world. But when the pursuit of enlightenment through an appreciation of truth, art and beauty is cloaked in so much elitism, it comes as no surprise that the subtly corruptive influence of class and privilege or more pointedly the lack thereof can lead - ironically - to the opposite. In the case of Wolff's unnamed narrator, his less than correct social pedigree becomes a secret that finally explodes to ruin his chances of winning a personal interview with the heralded Ernest Hemmingway. As he dons a self-forgetful mask to find acceptance by his peers, his essays become an exercise in emulation - his poems speak of "elks" rather than deers - he strays further and further from his inner self until the eve of the deadline for the submission of his entry, when desperate for inspiration, he stumbles upon a story published by a student in a girl's school magazine.....

The narrator's crime against his school saved him from a lie. He shows no outward sign of guilt or remorse because in his own eyes, he has done no wrong. The story WAS his very own. In truth, he found redemption and just in time. Much later in life, long after the event, he discovers that Dean Makepeace, the school dean who suddenly quit his position at the time the world tumbled about him, did so for much the same reason, to keep his integrity intact.

The study of literature may have lost much of its shine and prestige today. Yet its value - like the gold standard - remains. "Old School" is highly relevant and instructive in our age and is already a modern classic. A real gem of a novel.