Old School (Magill’s Literary Annual 2004)
At a glance:
- Author: Tobias Wolff
- First Published: 2003
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: 1960-2003
- Setting: A New England prep school
- Principal Characters: Narrator, Arch Makepeace, Headmaster, Mr. Ramsey, Jeff Purcell, George Kellog, Bill White
- Genres: Long fiction, Bildungsroman
- Subjects: Teaching or teachers, 1960’s, United States or Americans, Twentieth century, Authors or writers, Literature, Class consciousness, Schools or school life, New England, Novelists, Pretensions, Contests, Private schools
- Locales: New England
Old School, Tobias Wolff’s first novel, concerns tradition. Tradition, it shows, is personal, self-made. Accordingly, even the most intellectual of traditions, such as that of a nation’s great literature, comes as much from native illusions and bamboozle as from the succession of native genius as one generation of writers supplants another. Hilarious, tender, discomfiting, and harshly candid, the novel depicts this succession intimately.
Old School takes place in a New England preparatory school for boys. The institution is old, most of the students come from...
[The entire page is 1908 words long]
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