Title A darkening green : notes on Harvard, the 1950s, and the end of innocence / Peter S. Prescott ; with a new introduction by Anne Lake Prescott

Published Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2017

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Description 1 online resource Contents Cover; Title Page; Copyright Page; Contents; Introduction to the Transaction Edition; A Darkening Green Summary "This is a book about the end of childhood. Much of it is drawn directly from a diary the author kept while he was a bright but insecure freshman at Harvard in the 1950s. From these pages emerges a precise description of the raw, half-understood experience of late adolescence-the anguish and arguments, the rivalry and anxiety about sex, the facile cynicism and desperate fumblings for purpose, the bull sessions held late at night-just as Peter Prescott recorded them only hours after the event. These diary excerpts are contained in a narrative that examines that freshman experience from a vantage point of twenty years. Thus, we are able to look at the past with a double perspective: The exact record, unclouded by memory or nostalgia, of what was said and done is set in a structure that reveals the form of the experience. The result is an ironic, witty, and often moving book. Writing with some compassion and even more asperity, Peter S. Prescott not only captures the conflicts and emotions of a single year, but probes beneath the surface of memory to explore certain tribal customs and rites of passage as they are played out in the classrooms and living quarters of the college. A few famous people-T.S. Eliot and Edith Sitwell among them-play brief parts in this chronicle, but young Prescott's attention was primarily engaged in his struggle with his extravagant roommates and an assortment of eccentric undergraduates."--Provided by publisher Notes "Originally published in 1974 by Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc."--Title page verso "Published 2009 by Transaction Publishers."--Title page verso Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Print version record Subject Prescott, Peter S. -- Childhood and youth Prescott, Peter S. -- Diaries SUBJECT Prescott, Peter S. fast Subject Harvard University -- Students -- Biography Harvard University -- History -- 20th century. SUBJECT Harvard University fast Subject College freshmen -- Massachusetts -- Cambridge -- Biography Young men -- Massachusetts -- Cambridge -- Biography College students -- Massachusetts -- Cambridge -- Social life and customs -- 20th century Students -- Massachusetts -- Cambridge -- Social life and customs -- 20th century EDUCATION -- Higher. Childhood and youth of a person College freshmen College students -- Social life and customs Manners and customs Social conditions Students Young men SUBJECT Cambridge (Mass.) -- Social life and customs -- 20th century Cambridge (Mass.) -- Social conditions -- 20th century Cambridge (Mass.) -- Biography Subject Massachusetts -- Cambridge Genre/Form Electronic books Biographies Diaries History Form Electronic book ISBN 9781351535724 1351535722 9781351535717 1351535714

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