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cdbellomy's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
rungemaille's review
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
macca23's review
emotional
funny
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
just a joy to read. I honestly was shocked at the overt level of queerness this had for something that was published in 1916, and I was overjoyed to see the love and friendship between David and his friends (particularly Frank, "that friend of his heart") that was, on the whole, regarded as perfectly normal and accepted in the environment they were in. I was very nervous that there was going to be a bury your gays-esque tragedy to negate it all, and was very pleasantly surprised when there wasn't. and it was lovely to see David realise that adults/teachers are humans too, and that Ancient Greeks were people just like us: “Up till now it had not been real to him that the people who wrote these tedious or difficult things which he had to learn were once as alive as himself, or that beauty had inspired them to make plays and statues ... They had all become people who went to the theatre like anybody else, and went to Olympia, just as anybody now might go to the Oval, and had play-writers like Aristophanes who made just the same sort of jokes as people make nowadays”
And these kids were making the same sort of jokes as people make nowadays too--teenage boys have just always been Like That, I guess.
although I read this purely as a precursor to the follow-up, David of King's, for a potential dissertation, I'm so happy that I read this one first. as well as making notes on all the queer overtones, I ended up just loving the way benson crafts a sentence. I hope some confused queer kid in the early 20th century found some solace in this, just like I did
And these kids were making the same sort of jokes as people make nowadays too--teenage boys have just always been Like That, I guess.
although I read this purely as a precursor to the follow-up, David of King's, for a potential dissertation, I'm so happy that I read this one first. as well as making notes on all the queer overtones, I ended up just loving the way benson crafts a sentence. I hope some confused queer kid in the early 20th century found some solace in this, just like I did
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia and Child abuse
laurie_323's review
informative
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
eddie's review
3.0
Hovering between three and four stars, despite my ideological objections to public schools, and my bewilderment at Benson’s coy (perhaps hypocritical?) homoeroticism. This book would definitely be a goldmine for a queer studies course.
It is charming, frequently amusing, and ends in an adroit tugging of the heartstrings. A quick and pleasant read, if somewhat outside of modern concerns. The book was a bestseller for Benson in its day (out of print now) and he delivered two sequels featuring the David Blaize character.
Fairly episodical in structure, the novel follows David’s career as a schoolboy from Prep school to public school and ends just before he leaves for university. There is a fair amount of cricket, nowhere near as successfully integrated from a literary point of view as in ‘The Go-Between’ (so easily skimmed, result).
Thematically it is very much about burgeoning homoerotic feelings. David and his friend Frank have a full-blown bromance, very much minus sex, viewed as ‘beastly’. Another friend of David’s is expelled for carnality, but by the end of the novel we hear he has reformed and he’s made it into a military academy.
I wondered about Benson’s decision to write a schoolboy novel at this particular point in his career. It perhaps could be he was responding to a vogue: Arnold Lunn had published ‘The Harrovians’ in 1913 - a huge bestseller and apparently the first book to lift the lid off public school abuses. In this sense ‘David Blaize’ (1916) could be Benson’s attempt at a correction or a defence of the public school system. In 1917 the teenage Alec Waugh published ‘The Loom of Youth’ which explicitly referenced Lunn and presented homosexuality as traditional in public schools. Again, the book was wildly controversial but enormously successful for the young author - however both he and his father had to remove themselves from the school’s old boy association and younger brother Evelyn had to attend a different school.
It is charming, frequently amusing, and ends in an adroit tugging of the heartstrings. A quick and pleasant read, if somewhat outside of modern concerns. The book was a bestseller for Benson in its day (out of print now) and he delivered two sequels featuring the David Blaize character.
Fairly episodical in structure, the novel follows David’s career as a schoolboy from Prep school to public school and ends just before he leaves for university. There is a fair amount of cricket, nowhere near as successfully integrated from a literary point of view as in ‘The Go-Between’ (so easily skimmed, result).
Thematically it is very much about burgeoning homoerotic feelings. David and his friend Frank have a full-blown bromance, very much minus sex, viewed as ‘beastly’. Another friend of David’s is expelled for carnality, but by the end of the novel we hear he has reformed and he’s made it into a military academy.
I wondered about Benson’s decision to write a schoolboy novel at this particular point in his career. It perhaps could be he was responding to a vogue: Arnold Lunn had published ‘The Harrovians’ in 1913 - a huge bestseller and apparently the first book to lift the lid off public school abuses. In this sense ‘David Blaize’ (1916) could be Benson’s attempt at a correction or a defence of the public school system. In 1917 the teenage Alec Waugh published ‘The Loom of Youth’ which explicitly referenced Lunn and presented homosexuality as traditional in public schools. Again, the book was wildly controversial but enormously successful for the young author - however both he and his father had to remove themselves from the school’s old boy association and younger brother Evelyn had to attend a different school.
jain's review
4.0
A delightfully funny and insightful British schoolboy novel. Benson is very good at depicting the tumult of adolescence, and especially the desperate pursuit of looking and acting the right way among your peers, no matter that what's "right" changes from year to year and from school to school.
I generally prefer less internalized homophobia in my narratives, but for a book originally published in 1916, this was a very fun read.
I generally prefer less internalized homophobia in my narratives, but for a book originally published in 1916, this was a very fun read.
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