Cameron is writing paragraphs about A Separate Peace by John Knowles that was assigned for summer reading. He is supposed to address the characteristics of two “round” characters in this paper. Okay, he writes a bit and then sends me what he has written and asks, “Is it right?” Duh . . . I don’t know; so I put him off and Google the book which takes me into character analysis and motifs and themes and symbols. Did Knowles figure all this out as he planned his book, or did he just write the story he had and let people make of it watch they will?

Since people have been looking at the themes and motifs and symbols in literature for a long, long time, I guess I must function at a lower level. I think I have always looked at the characters themselves in determining why they reacted as they did; all these years, I should have been paying more attention to the part of the question that asked what the author was telling you. Those characters, they didn’t have a chance. I guess novelists are Presbyterians – predestination, don’tcha know.