This spring was a good time for reading in the house. My cousin, sent me a book of my high school teacher's poetry and musings. It gave me a better sense of the man -- now that I'm more his age than I was in the 1980's. Some poems were as good as anything he taught us (A.E. Houseman, Keats), and some I imagined I could write (though probably not). He had such an infectious passion for literature -- it inspired me.
One of the book he assigned was A Separate Peace. I remember liking the book when I first read it and a nephew left a copy after a visit. At three chapters in, I couldn't remember the names or settings, or why I liked it so much. Then, the light bulb illuminated and it reminded me of the locker room after a winning basketball game. There is something about a coming of age book that one can't appreciate when one is coming of age. Looking back at the time, there was so many decisions being made (by me and others) that would have decades long impacts. The book was set in a New England boarding school in 1943. Many of the characters were deciding how they would contribute to the war effort. I feel some of the same drum beats in the world today. It seems like we're heading to a conflict.
It's a good thing to revisit old books one read in high school. There I things I remembered, things I'd thought I remembered (but made up), and things I see with a new perspective. Maybe 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 next.