Old School - Literature & Adventure

I have been reading a book 'The old school' by Tobias Wolff. It's a novel partly based on his autobiography, about the formation of a boy in an Institute in New England, in 1960. The school enjoyed excellent reputation and high prestige due to it's attention dedicated to literature. One of the incentives or attractions for the students was the monthly visit of a well known author, each month a different one, whose name would be announced beforehand.

The pupils presented their own work, the visiting writer chose what he considered the best one, and the chosen would enjoy the privilege of a personal audience with the writer. The first invited guest was the poet Robert Frost, whom Wolff described as touchy and spiteful, followed by the authoress of best sellers Ayn Rand. The third celebrity writer was Earnest Hemingway.

Wolff told how the poems and stories presented by the boys were, and how they behaved or acted on those special occasions, in the public lecture and the reunion in the Club of Literature. Wolff himself had a couple of problems. Coming from a humble family background, he got the entrance to the Institute by winning a scholarship. Each time he wrote he fabricated the reality till one day, he saw an easily recognizable article in a magazine and he automatically copied it and won the audience with Hemingway.

In the last few chapters, his plagiarised deceit was discovered by the professors and he was expelled. From that moment on he began to go adrift, enlisted in the army fighting in the Vietnam war. When he returned home, he idled his days away observing people in bars. As opposed to writers who would use literature as a way of escaping the reality, and he a novelist expelled and without the protecting literary shelter, free to roam and conquer the world.

There had been other novels of similar themes. Literature appeared in these like a reserve, a refuge in which one feels protected from the hostile environment. Writing is used as a shield to overcome lack of family love and support, or a miserable life. The book gives something to think about. The classic story of a man rejected by society but he redeemed himself through his adventure into the outside world, and won finally the acceptance.

The novels of formation published here in Spain, are more of the contrary in which they tell of people, once becoming writers and recognised as such, they renounced the adventure of the world and limit themselves to passing through the filter of his literary vision, the reality they despise and refuse to accept.

Tags:literature,autobiography

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