This Boy's Life

It's taking me quite a while to figure out what to write about Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life. Perhaps it's because I kept feeling that nothing more could be said about it, because it's been praised up and down, left and right.

And it's hard to put a finger on exactly what I liked about it. Perhaps it was the simple writing, its honesty, his way of telling things as they are. Perhaps it was the surprising events of Wolff's childhood, which made me want to read more of his work.

Perhaps it was the genius of lines such as these:

"When we are green, still half-created, we believe that our dreams are rights, that the world is disposed to act in our best interests, and that falling and dying are for quitters. We live on the innocent and monstrous assurance that we alone, of all the people ever born, have a special arrangement whereby we will be allowed to stay green forever."