A review by friedchickensuicide
Old School by Tobias Wolff

4.0

I read this slim 200-page volume in a single sitting, in a sort of overnight frenzy which I usually reserve for a new Stephen King book. I haven't read many campus novels, except for some Ruskin Bond and some of those Children's Book Trust paperbacks in Hindi during my school years. This book has made me nostalgic for that time of my life, which I'm sure is a common side effect of consuming this kind of literature. What surprised about this book is that it contains one of the most convincing critiques of Ayn Rand's writing that I have ever read, a devastating takedown that works because of its brilliant mixture of sharp intellect and mundane human emotion, qualities sorely lacking in Rand's reactionary, one-dimensional politics. The scenes with Robert Frost and Ayn Rand are unforgettable and so is the Hemingway interview. My only problem with the book is that after the narrative moves on from the school days, it turns into a series of vignettes, of largely disconnected scenes of the narrator's adult life. They are interesting, but a pale shadow of everything that came before. But a great book nonetheless.