A Separate Peace
               by John Knowles


  The countryside was striking from here, a deep green
sweep of playing fields and bordering shrubbery, with
the school stadium white and miniature-looking across
the river. From behind us the last long rays of light played
across the campus, accenting every slight undulation of
the land emphasizing the separateness of each bush.


   Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him,
and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb. Finny, his
balance gone, swung his head around to look at me for an
instant with extreme interest, and then he tumbled side-
ways, broke through the little branches below and hit the
bank with a sickening, unnatural thud. It was the first 
clumsy physical action I had ever seen him make. With
unthinking sureness I moved out on the limb and jumped
in to the river, every trace of fear of this forgotten. 


 I chose this passage, because this passage to me was the
first pivotal point of this book.  Gene and Phineas up until
this moment spent their days swimming and doing a lot
of daredevil activities. And because of the accident Phineas
will no longer be able to do physical activities, and Gene
feels responsible for the accident. And at his point the
book turns kind of dark, and depressing.