A finales del siglo XIX, Francis Prescott, un joven brillante y prometedor, licenciado en Harvard y Oxford, decide renunciar a un futuro más mundano y funda St. Justin Martyr, un internado masculino que con el tiempo se convertirá en el colegio más exclusivo de los EE.UU. y en cuyas aulas se educarán muchos de los hombres llamados a regir el destino del país. Cincuenta años más tarde un joven profesor del colegio recibirá el encargo de redactar la biografía del carismático fundador y todavía director. Cada uno de los testimonios que va recogiendo de amigos, ex alumnos, colaboradores y familiares le ofrece una visión distinta, a veces opuesta, de Prescott, de sus motivaciones y de los problemas a los que ha tenido que enfrentarse, de sus éxitos y fracasos. A través de esta controvertida figura Auchincloss construye un convincente retrato de las contradicciones de la clase dirigente americana durante la primera mitad del siglo XX.

This clunker is about "the greatest figure in American secondary education," Francis Prescott, told through the eyes of his students, colleagues, and family members. This aggregate storytelling makes him seem unknowable. While we are constantly made aware of Prescott's greatness and influence, we never really understand why he is held in such esteem. The novel is at pains to show his foibles and mistakes, as if to counter its otherwise glowing portrait, but these come off as gun shy---showing Prescott not as fallible, but as righteous and misunderstood.

Worse, the novel is melodramatic and saccharine, and it is replete with absurd dialogue: "You couldn't face the idea of letting the world see that I was Charley's mistress!" or "[P]oor Day wanted my affection and knew he wasn't getting it, and he accepted this just as he accepted everything else. Just as I'm sure he accepted that last horrible dive into the blue of the Pacific!"

Elsewhere, Auchincloss shows off his lack of imagination. There's a psychoanalyst named Dr. Klaus. The women are mentally ill or rebellious. And there's this chestnut: "Charley had read with passionate interest the first of Proust's novels and had been taken by Mr. Havistock to visit the author in his cork-lined room. I suppose the journal was his own recherche du temps perdu."

The absorbing fictional story of a man who founded a boarding school for boys near Boston in the early 1900s. I couldn't get enough of the views of this man through the eyes of those orbiting around him - and finding out a lot about those observers as well. Solidifies Mr. Auchincloss' status as one of my favorite authors. ( )

A finales del siglo XIX, Francis Prescott, un joven brillante y prometedor, licenciado en Harvard y Oxford, decide renunciar a un futuro más mundano y funda St. Justin Martyr, un internado masculino que con el tiempo se convertirá en el colegio más exclusivo de los EE.UU.y en cuyas aulas se educarán muchos de los hombres llamados a regir el destino del país.
Cincuenta años más tarde un joven profesor del colegio recibirá el encargo de redactar la biografía del carismático fundador y todavía director. Cada uno de los testimonios que va recogiendo de amigos, ex alumnos, colaboradores y familiares le ofrece una visión distinta, a veces opuesta, de Prescott, de sus motivaciones y de los problemas a los que ha tenido que enfrentarse, de sus éxitos y fracasos. A través de esta controvertida figura Auchincloss construye un convincente retrato de las contradicciones de la clase dirigente americana durante la primera mitad del siglo XX.

4727. The Rector of Justin, by Louis Auchincloss (read 14 Jul 2010) An account of the rector of a boys' school in Massachusetts (fictional) like Groton, where the author went to school. It shows the Rector in various ways, through the eyes of an admiring young master, an admiring trustee of the school, a non-admiring daughter, a boy who had a major run-in with the Rector, etc. I guess I still identify more with the student, so I did not like the rector, on balance. The book is less bland than Goodbye Mr. Chips, and less sentimental and I admit I liked this book less than I did James HIlton's masterpiece. ( )