I love a novel based in a boarding school setting. The story can go so many different ways — a mystery (Picnic at Hanging Rock), childish hijinks (St. Malory Towers), horror stories (Never Let Me Go), coming-of-age philosophical novels (The Catcher In The Rye) or even fantasy (Harry Potter Series). The list is endless and as a reader there are endless novels to explore.
As a writer, I can only imagine the joy of writing such a novel. A set of mini-adults cooped in a closed atmosphere, emotions and hormones churning — it’s a life lived in itself with adventures and secrets in every corner.
In Old School, no one dies or hides in the shadows, instead we accompany a 16-year old as he tries to find his inner writer and voice.
“a true piece of writing is a dangerous thing. It can change your life.”
― Tobias Wolff, Old School
Writing Contests & More
The protagonist of this story is a 16-year old studying in what appears to be a premier private boarding school for boys in the US. Narrated in first person, it’s the event and experiences of his last year at school.
The narrator is scholarship student and is of Jewish origins; two facts he tries to hide as he attempts to fit in. He is on the editorial board of the prestigious school paper Troubadour and is part of the literary elite in the school — the only kind of snobbery the school practices.
One of the highlights of the senior year is the practice of inviting 3 renowned authors. Senior year students are invited to submit their work for review by the visiting writer. The writer picks the favorite work and the student then gets the chance to have a rendezvous with the writer himself.
(Sidenote: This is genuinely such a cool concept, and wouldn’t be awesome if this was something that happened everywhere)
These three visits serve as three acts of the novel, each distinctly serving as a commentary on the eminent writers themselves —Robert Frost , Ayn Rand and Ernest Hemingway.
Of note, is Wolff description of Ayn Rand’s visit. He is spot on the first reaction of an naive, impressionable mind on reading ‘The Fountainhead’.I remember the first time I read ‘The Fountainhead” and how just like our hero, I looked down at the whole world with contempt for the next 6 months. I felt so above it all. It has taken some years to probably imbibe some of the theories of objectivism and to realize how right and wrong Ayn Rand was in some of her views — though the world she created were too extreme to be real. Wolff is obviously not a fan of Ayn Rand. I do not know if he has ever met her but his presentation of Ayn Rand was quiet scathing yet funny.
When our narrator’s literary hero , Ernest Hemingway, is scheduled to arrive as the third and last author for the year, the school goes in a writing frenzy. It is a big deal. It’s at this stage where the narrative climaxes and the story takes an unexpected turn.
“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 the 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.”
― Tobias Wolff, Old School
Old Themes But New Storytelling
Now there are lot of cliches that Tobias Wolff could have gone with when he wrote this book — class differences at school, bossy professors, benevolent professors, buried secrets, scandalos affairs, scholarships won and lost, summmer affairs, expulsions …and so on.
But instead he chose a completely different way of storytelling , imbibing all of the above, but in such unique and engaging way that every page was a delight.
The writing is fluid and easy to read. Wolff uses literature as the main theme for this coming of age story. Guaranteed to delight to any booklover, Old School is a tribute to the art of reading and writing.
There are also elements of parody, especially in the pieces of writing submitted by the students. These parodies are inevitable — every student tries to become the writer he is trying to please !
If you if have always wanted to write, then do read this novel. I thoroughly adored this book. Old School is such a lovely story and its likable at so many levels. I know its one of those novels that you will want to re-read several times.
“The life that produces writing can’t be written about. Is is a life carried on without the knowledge even of the writer, below the mind’s business and noise, in deep unlit shafts where phantom messengers struggle toward us, killing one another along the way; and when a few survivors break through to our attention they are received as blandly as waiters bringing more coffee.”
― Tobias Wolff, Old School
