Word: devon
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...HELL. But peace is worse; it has all of the violence of war with no prospect of a victory or even a surrender. In Peace Breaks Out, John Knowles returns to the Devon School, setting of his highly-acclaimed A Separate Peace, to explore the theme of restless destructiveness as the natural state of man. But Peace Breaks Out has neither the depth nor the freshness of Knowles' earlier novel. The "rolling fields" and "limitless blue sky" of the New Hampshire countryside seems telescoped into a two-dimensional backdrop, against which Knowles manipulates his characters like a puppeteer...
...grew up in its shadow, paralyzed by youth, full of violence and rage, and suddenly lacking an enemy. Knowles protrays this generation as "riddled with guilt" and trapped by frustration. Having always assumed they would be called upon to fight, these young men discover a compulsion to fight. The Devon boys are determined to defeat a foe at all costs--to crate a foe if need be--and then to destroy...
...Peace. In the earlier novel, he concentrates on the relationship of two friends: Gene, a lonely intellectual, painfully unsure of his own identity, and Phineas, a demi-god, full of love and humor, the embodiment of the separate peace. Although seemingly protected from the destruction of the war by Devon's ivy-covered walls, the two classmates create their own violence. Driven by jealously and insecurity. Gene transforms a friend into the enemy. He deliberately destroys Phineas, shattering the illusion of peace at Devon...
...boys' American History teacher, Pete Hallam, presides over the conflict, commenting periodically on its progress. A wise but bitter former POW. Hallam tries to recapture the innocence he knew at Devon as a student but finds the same violence he thought he had escaped. Instead of adding depth to the Hochschwender Wexford confrontation, his observations reduce the action to a series of cliches. Reflecting on "that monster war," Hallam sees it "sending last thin even here to this still reverberating around the world even here to this little rural corner...
...jury of "the rather bizarre and surprising case," the presiding judge described the evidence against Thorpe as "almost entirely circumstantial." He made the point that the prosecution's case relied on the testimony of witnesses whose characters were less than trustworthy. Scott, who now trains horses in Devon, gave a highly emotional performance...