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a home + living guide for the post-college, pre-parenthood, quasi-adult generation

09.14.2006

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copyright ©1999-2006
DigsMagazine.com.

the bookshelf:
back to school
by Yee-Fan Sun
| 1 2 3

It’s been a long time since this time of year had any real meaning for me, but still, each September, the temperatures suddenly dip down and leave me reaching for a sweater, the first leaves start changing from lush green to fiery orange-red-yellow, the air starts to smell sweet-tart as crisp apples, and my brain thinks: back to school. My mom tells me I always hated this time of year as a kid, leaving the freewheeling days of summer, returning to the strict schedules of the school year. All grown up now, the seasonal cues can’t help but trigger a glow of nostalgia for school days gone by -- hindsight seems to have blinders for the big stress of exams, the high drama of teen friendships, the trauma of waking up with a huge zit on yearbook picture day. Instead, I find myself sighing a big dreamy oh at the clear blue fall skies, the sight of small children in new clothes filing neatly off a yellow school bus. Still, I’m glad my days are all my own now. Fall no longer forces me back inside a classroom; instead, I can relive the school days angst through great books like these…

o o o

Old School by Tobias Wolff
buy it

It’s the early 1960s and the unnamed narrator of Tobias Wolff’s Old School is a scholarship student in his last year at a prestigious New England prep school. That he’s one of the few scholarship students amidst this sea of wealth isn’t really acknowledged by his peers; theirs is the sort of highbrow institution that prides itself on judging others by what they do, and though the boy might not have the benefit of a fancy old-money name that will guarantee his future success, he has ambition galore. The boy adopts the casual insouciance of his privileged peers -- doesn’t talk about his family, or his summer jobs, or any of the other things about himself that make him different from everyone else. Instead, he throws himself into the school’s literary clique: he’s one of a small group of wannabe writers who worship their English teachers and lord over the editorial decisions of the school literary journal. At the center of these boys’ obsessions are the school’s periodic literary competitions, main prize of which is a private audience with a series of literary luminaries that the school’s headmaster brings in for readings and talks. The lucky winner is chosen by the famous writer him/her self, raising the stakes all that much higher as the eager students vie desperately for a nod from their gods. As he racks his brain for the perfect entry to win time with Robert Frost, then Ayn Rand, and finally, his biggest idol, Ernest Hemingway, the boy finds himself sizing up his fellow friend-competitors, battling writer’s block, discovering new writers to learn from and reveling in the familiar works of old favorites. But all that’s just a cover for the real dilemma: good writing rings the truth, and the boy has a tendency to hide behind his writing, using words to create a perfect picture of himself as cool and confident upper-crusty WASP. The boy knows who he wants to be -- a real writer -- but to get there, he has to come to terms with who he is first.

single-file please... this way for more.

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