A Separate Peace

I'm a little behind. On life, really. But I'm right on top of nursing, so it looks like I'm accomplishing New Years Resolution Number One. And I haven't descended into the depths of TV, but I have descended into the depths of Kristin Lavransdatter. I'm almost done with the eleven hundred page tome, so I should probably post on the book I finished about a month ago.

A Separate Peace is a classic, and I read it in high school. A lot of the books we read in high school focus on struggling with the darker side of mankind--Lord of the Flies, Heart of Darkness, Death of a Salesman, and this book, too. Maybe teenagers are just struggling with who they are so much that man's darkness ends up being the most important topic in high school classrooms. Anyway, I like the idea in A Separate Peace that darkness exists in everyone, but decisions made by that "darker side" are usually decisions based on ignorance. Lately, I've been thinking that too often people get offended by other people not because of anything that happens in reality, but because of an ignorant reality that exists in one's head. Which, I think, is what happened to Gene.

None of that is really all that profound, but the other strong impression that I had when I read this book is that I don't hate my brother Scott and I never did. There is a famous short story that I wrote in high school that involves Scott teaching me to play baseball in the front yard and me feeling terribly inadequate. That much could be true, because I think baseball is the root of all evil. The ball is way too small to manage. But at one point I encapsulated all the "competition" and "angst" I felt toward Scott as I watched him fluidly move in a perfect arc and fired a 100 mph pitch in my direction. I fumbled across three front yards for the ball while saying in my head, "I'll get you one day, Scott Paulsen. I'll get you!" My mom promptly sent this to Scott on his mission in Germany as evidence of my cry for help.

Now I'm not denying that any of this happened, but I've never understood parts of the story. First of all, I don't think Scott's really all that great at baseball. Second of all, while Scott was my hot older brother who all the girls were madly in love with and while Scott is incredibly intelligent and just all around cool, I never really felt all that competitive with him. I kind of enjoyed the attention I got being Scott's little sister. I was that much more awesome because of his hotness, intelligence, and coolness. I still feel more awesome being Scott's little sister.

So I never could really understand why I wrote the narrative. Then I read A Separate Peace again which is entirely about Gene's ignorant competitiveness with Finny. And I realized that I had modeled my writing on the characters. It wasn't a cry for help, IT WAS A WRITING EXERCISE. The golden boy description I wrote about Scott's perfect pitch was almost word for word a description of Finny jumping from a tree in the sunset.

So I have four conclusions. One, fiction is a big part of my nonfiction world. Two, I really love Scott. Three, you are in big trouble mom for sending the story to Scott on his mission. And four, even though I've written this impassioned defense, the line, "I'll get you Scott Paulsen" will still be brought up six times this year.

Let's rally, family. PedXing is really a much more funny story.