A Good School: A Novel

A good school by Richard Yates is another novel in the long tradition of "public school writing". The introduction by the author seems a bit tongue-in-cheek, confusing me as whether to see this as autobiographical or pure fiction. I felt the first part of the book more enticing than the later part.

I liked this book much less than others I have read written by Richard Yates. I felt there was too much information, not enough clarity, and so very much bad behavior. It is hard to believe that all of these incidents are based on truth, and that there were no intercessions. I rated it as highly as I did because I learned from the parts that may have been based on real experiences.

Pretty good boarding school/adolescent novel...nothing unusually good but a decent read.

To begin with, I thought this was really bad. Am I the only person who likes books less the more I learn how autobiographical they are? I hope and assume not. But at the end of the day, it wasn't so terrible. It's an ensemble novel really, although Grove might be more central than other characters. But only a bit. Not much in the way of story, but an amusing collection of anecdotes to do with some interesting characters. Not a bad way to spend a couple of hours, but nothing more.

When I reviewed Richard Yates' novel Revolutionary Road I wrote that it was "a perfectly-written book" and "a modern classic in the true sense of the word." In his novel A Good School, published seventeen years later, I found a classic of a different sort in that I believe in this later work he captured a certain spirit of place and time perfectly. Even though the book did not seem to me as being perfect in writing style, the economy of Yates' prose still impressed me. Even more striking was his ability to convey the feeling of a certain time in the lives of a few representative boys while, at the same time, creating a pervasive feeling of an historic setting and place. The description of the school made clear it was unique among the prep schools of New England and that the small select group of boys that called it their home were just as unique in their own way. The awkward and nervous boy who becomes editor of the school newspaper is just one example of the different students that shared their school years at this good, if not unflawed, school. The awakening of character and the changes in the boys lives seemed to lead inexorably to an ending that made this novel and the titular school memorable.Yates used vignettes about the boys' social interactions, some of which seem mundane, but which cumulatively demonstrate the growth and change in their young lives. The drama of the real world with World War II always in the shadows is always impinging on the action and sometimes bursts in to interrupt. Thus the small world of the Dorset School seems to be sheltered from the world without until events of the world around it overwhelm the adolescent angst within it.The result of reading this novel is to remind me that I must read more of Yates oeuvre as the experience is exhilarating.