Comments on this would be welcome. The film intimates this more than the novel, but I could be wrong in so far as having seen the film after I read the novel. John Steven Lasher (producer - director).
shareThere certainly is a love story theme to the novel and it shows in the 1972 version of the story. Yes in my view one of the sub plots is that Gene can not come to terms with his feelings for Finny at sixteen/ seventeen. Hence the tree accident.
shareoh my god, can't a story be about two boys being good friends with out there being romance emplyied. Get your minds out of the gutter guys. They weren't homosexuals, and no where was that said in the story or even hinted. One could take some of the things they said as hinting but it realy wasn't. That isn't what the story is about at all.
shareI would suggest you read the novel again and then watch the 72 version. There is a love story element. My mind is not in the gutter there is implied romance.
shareOh isn't it? I definitely suggest that you read the novel then, if you haven't already. Gene is constantly, as he narrarates, noting things about Finny that one would note about a crush, not to mention the "wrestling" (ha, didn't sound like wrestling to me) scene in the first chapter. Not to mention the fact that when he goes to Finny's house he's all like "I was thinking about you"...I mean COME ON. But I'm just commenting on the book, which WAS chock-full of gay subtext, because I haven't seen the movie.
shareEponinepoe,
See the 72 film with John Heyl and Parker Stevenson. If you take it for what it is ... preppies puting on a film, it really is well done. A classic!
mmalcolm_98
I'm glad someone else noticed! I just read the book in my Honors English class in high school...and I DEFINATELY noticed a gay subtext...my teacher swears there's nothing in it. I definately felt that there was..and just finished it today and we started watching the movie, which just gave me another reason to believe it. The movie gives off a very homosexual vibe, could just be me, but over half of my class noticed it too.
shareIf you were in Honors English, and you still can't spell 'definitely' correctly, then I have to wonder what 'Honors' means these days.
shareFor all you brilliant people out there that agree with this guy/gal, just a quick note on an ignorant post that bothered me:
Honors classes are for people with deeper levels of thinking, people who have progressed past the stage of cognitive thought in which standard students are. Do not criticize someone for the misspelling of one word. Instead, praise him/her for having the confidence to share an opinion, especially in today's world, where most students refuse to read on their own and are completely apathetic about literature. The fact that this person is on the message boards for _A Separate Peace_ proves that he/she is leaps and bounds ahead of the standard high school student.
What about students who are brilliant, but learned a language other than English first? Do they deserve to be put down, too, beause their spelling isn't as good as someone who has spoken English all his or her life?
Thank you for listening. I needed to get that out.
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From an article on glbtq.com about American gay male literature:
There is no overt sexuality in the best-selling A Separate Peace (1960) by John Knowles (b. 1926), but, commenting on the relationship of the main characters in a 1972 interview, the author admitted, "Finny and Gene were in love."share
Two guys/girls can love each other without being gay: i bet you don't love your friends of the same sex that way but you're still fiends- same with Finny and Gene. Just because two guys are good friends, it doesn't mean they're gay. Everyone nowadays is so quick to call everything gay; why? That's so ridiculous. I'm not a homophobe, but these two boys who have become extensions of each other are most certainly not gay.
~Darling, I'll be yours forever cause I never wanna be without love!
This website provides no reference to confirm this quote. In researching the actual interview referenced on the website you mentioned, I found only this site: http://1forparker.tripod.com/parkerstevenson/id34.html which transcribes the article from Ingenue magazine. In it, the author John Knowles, actor John Heyl, and Parker Stevenson are interviewed about the film. It is John HEYL, not John Knowles, who says "As far as I'm concerned, Finny and Gene were in love - not physically but emotionally - and the book shows that there's nothing wrong with that."
The article refers to John Knowles by his last name, and the actor John Heyl by his first throughout the article. With the same first names, one can understand how the website would have misattributed the quote.
Thought you might like to know the website you mentioned is a bit misleading about who said this.
Even Heyl's quote is open to interpretation - by saying the love was emotional, not physical, does he merely mean they did not act on a homosexual love, or is he distinguishing the two because he doesn't mean homosexual love? In either case, this is the actor's opinion, not the author's explanation. Knowles doesn't comment on John Heyl's perspective - which could be considered tacit agreement with it, or perhaps he prefers to leave it open to readers' interpretation, as he did with whether Gene intentionally bounced the limb to cause Finny's fall.
I agree. And the movie definitely shows these homosexual tendencies more than the novel.
shareI agree too although I don't see why that means our minds are in the gutter, it's not bad or anything o_O.
And I agree, sometimes it does seem like two guys can't be friends without seemingly being in an intimate relationship; however, something about the writing style and the way Finny and Gene interacted seemed like they were more than friends.
I agree that there is an element of love in the relationship between Finny and Gene, however, I do not think it is of a romantic nature.
These two boys I saw more as brothers, rivals, and friends than lovers. Yes, the two are very close, but at the day and age in which this film is set, closeness like that was not uncommon. I mean, they lived together in a dorm, they spent all their time together, of course they're going to think about each other and worry about each other and care for each other. Especially after Finny's accident, when Finny has to rely on Gene so much.
definitely. like the butt room. was it called the butt room because of smoking in it, or because of... something else?
shareI just read the book today, and I haven't had a chance to see a movie version, but there was definitely a subtext in the book. The beach scene, especially. Gene's feelings may not be reciprocated, but they're definitely there.
shareEspecially when there's a whole page dedicated to describing Brinker [i think it was] 's "rump" lmao
shareI haven't seen the movie. So I can't rightly comment upon whether or not Gene and Finny's relationship is altered from the book, wherein any homosexual subtext being detected by assorted readers is - in my opinion - merely a [projected] product of their own imagining. This is simply not what Knowles is shooting for with his allegorical tale of sin and redemption.
It's simply irresponsible - not to mention juvenile - to approach every close relationship between two males as being of a potentially sexual nature.
wrong!
shareIt's simply irresponsible - not to mention juvenile - to approach every close relationship between two males as being of a potentially sexual nature.
It dissapoints me that homophobia has ingrained our culture so much that a story of a deep relationship with boys must be seen as homoerotic. Hasn't anyone had a best friend, someone you spent all your time with, before you even knew about the invention of girls? This is a movie about the primal relationship boys have as they come of age into men; it is only homosexual in that boys at this age are more free of the trappings of "aware" adults, to which such closeness would lead to humiliation and embarassment, believing because society tells them they are gay, when of course they are not, they are just humans interacting on a personal social level. Homosexual is old, but gayness is new; there is a gay agenda that works both ways, and makes us question relationships and activities that wouldn't be considered gay (As there was no gay in the 40's) but just a sort of platonic closeness before the gay revolution. The boys of the novel and the movie are simply very close because they live in a world where there are no girls, and part of becoming a (heterosexual) man is discovering girls, and losing that closeness you felt with other boys when you were young. It is only in recent years that this pre-sexual closeness has become something to be embarassed about.
shareWell, I agree that it's very possible for people of the same sex - children as well as adults - to have a very close relationship without it becoming homosexual.
However, the author of the book, John Knowles did say that Gene and Phineas were in love. [See my post earlier in this thread for the exact quote.] Pretty hard to misinterpret that.
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It's not a whole page, really just a sentence or two, and implies that he has a fat butt in contrast to his otherwise athletic physique. It doesn't read as attraction to me - rather like noticing if he had had lots of pimples, or something.
oh come on.
share[deleted]
I agree, in the novel I saw a very homosexual attraction, it was hinted multiple times, in the summery of on the back and very much so during the beach scene, and in the book Gene even says that they were not JUST best friends but the truth will come later, or something among those lines.
Rest in Peace Heath, you will always be in our hearts.
You got it!
shareFor those of you who think "A Separate Peace" has a homosexual subtext, you might want to see "The Great Romantic Films" by Lawrence J. Quirk (Secaucus, New Jersey: The Citadel Press, 1974). The film is discussed on pages 210 - 213 by Quirk who see this as a homosexual love story. There are also some wonderful photos from the film on these pages, Quirk was himself gay. I posted a User Review on this film in which I said that I didn't think there was a homosexual subtext, just a story of two boys' friendship. Nonetheless, I am open to the idea of a homosexual subtext and know that there have been many critics who see this in the novel.
share[deleted]