Phineas [Paperback]

John Knowles (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Bantam Books (January 2000)
• ISBN-10: 0553079891
• ISBN-13: 978-0553079890
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,271,156 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

John Knowles, who died in 2001, was a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale University, as well as a recipient of the William Faulkner Award and the Rosenthal Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Six Short Stories, February 19, 2007

By 

Melvin Lin (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Phineas (Paperback)

A typical John Knowles writing. This book contains 6 short stories of different characters, each filled with its own events and plots. I want to note that this book is not completely about Phineas, the character in A Seperate Peace. He's in one of the six stories, alright, but it's just another brief summary of what happend in A Seperate Peace.

The table of contents:

1. A Turn with the Sun
2. Summer Street
3. The Peeping Tom
4. Martin the Fisherman
5. Phineas
6. The Reading of the Will

Here's a description of the 3 main characters involed in 3 out of the 6 short stories listed on the first page:

Phineas: "He was free, fearless, the envy of everyone-and completely unsuspecting of the one who betrayed him."
Christopher: "With his father dead and his mother sole heir to the fortune, there was only Ernie-and he had to travel 5,000 miles to find out that Ernie didn't want him either."
Lawrence: "He was neither grotesque nor courageous enough to make a mark-but for one single act he would always be remembered."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very nice writing - enjoyable stories, March 6, 2009

By 

C. J. Leach (Midwest, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Phineas (Paperback)

John Knowles' "A Separate Peace" has been called 'the perfect novel'. One of the characters in the novel was the remarkable, Phineas (Finney). I started this book thinking that it was likely an expansion on Finney's life before A Separate Peace. I found the opposite -- strangely, this book is a collection of six short stories. One of them, Phineas, is a severe abridgement of A Separate Peace. MUCH is left out, including the matter of Phineas' death.

Notwithstanding, it's an excellent story. So are the other five, as you would expect from Knowles. I won't detail the sories for you, but they are typically the detailed experiences and inner thoughts of various male subjects' often boys. Subjects range from painful boyhood peer relationships, to the town peeping-tom. Knowles has a remakably keen memory for what it was like as a boy. He also has a remarkably keen insight into the human animal and its foibles.

As usual, the writing is faultless. Nice collection, well-constructed and quite readable.

8 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Knowles does it again, August 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Phineas (Paperback)

This book is basically a summary of what happens in "A spearate Peace," providing a bit more background to it.