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I Am Charlotte Simmons
Tom Wolfe, the master social novelist of our time, the spot-on chronicler of all things contemporary and cultural, presents a sensational new novel about life, love, and learning--or the lack of it--amid today's American colleges.
Our story unfolds at fictional Dupont University: those Olympian halls of scholarship housing the cream of America's youth, the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns suffused with tradition . . . Or so it appears to beautiful, brilliant Charlotte Simmons, a sheltered freshman from North Carolina. But Charlotte soon learns, to her mounting dismay, that for the upper-crust coeds of Dupont, sex, cool, and kegs trump academic achievement every time.
As Charlotte encounters the paragons of Dupont's privileged elite--her roommate, Beverly, a Groton-educated Brahmin in lusty pursuit of lacrosse players; Jojo Johanssen, the only white starting player on Dupont's godlike basketball team, whose position is threatened by a hotshot black freshman from the projects; the Young Turk of Saint Ray fraternity, Hoyt Thorpe, whose heady sense of entitlement and social domination is clinched by his accidental brawl with a bodyguard for the governor of California; and Adam Geller, one of the Millennial Mutants who run the university's "independent" newspaper and who consider themselves the last bastion of intellectual endeavor on the sex-crazed, jock-obsessed campus--she is seduced by the heady glamour of acceptance, betraying both her values and upbringing before she grasps the power of being different--and the exotic allure of her own innocence.
With his trademark satirical wit and famously sharp eye for telling detail, Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons draws on extensive observations at campuses across the country to immortalize the early-21st-century college-going experience.
Our story unfolds at fictional Dupont University: those Olympian halls of scholarship housing the cream of America's youth, the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns suffused with tradition . . . Or so it appears to beautiful, brilliant Charlotte Simmons, a sheltered freshman from North Carolina. But Charlotte soon learns, to her mounting dismay, that for the upper-crust coeds of Dupont, sex, cool, and kegs trump academic achievement every time.
As Charlotte encounters the paragons of Dupont's privileged elite--her roommate, Beverly, a Groton-educated Brahmin in lusty pursuit of lacrosse players; Jojo Johanssen, the only white starting player on Dupont's godlike basketball team, whose position is threatened by a hotshot black freshman from the projects; the Young Turk of Saint Ray fraternity, Hoyt Thorpe, whose heady sense of entitlement and social domination is clinched by his accidental brawl with a bodyguard for the governor of California; and Adam Geller, one of the Millennial Mutants who run the university's "independent" newspaper and who consider themselves the last bastion of intellectual endeavor on the sex-crazed, jock-obsessed campus--she is seduced by the heady glamour of acceptance, betraying both her values and upbringing before she grasps the power of being different--and the exotic allure of her own innocence.
With his trademark satirical wit and famously sharp eye for telling detail, Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons draws on extensive observations at campuses across the country to immortalize the early-21st-century college-going experience.
738 pages, Paperback
First published December 9, 2004
About the author
Tom Wolfe
174 books2,943 followersWolfe was educated at Washington and Lee Universities and also at Yale, where he received a PhD in American studies.
Tom Wolfe spent his early days as a Washington Post beat reporter, where his free-association, onomatopoetic style would later become the trademark of New Journalism. In books such as The Electric Koolaid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and The Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe delves into the inner workings of the mind, writing about the unconscious decisions people make in their lives. His attention to eccentricities of human behavior and language and to questions of social status are considered unparalleled in the American literary canon.
He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Tom Wolfe is also famous for coining and defining the term fiction-absolute .
http://us.macmillan.com/author/tomwolfe
Tom Wolfe spent his early days as a Washington Post beat reporter, where his free-association, onomatopoetic style would later become the trademark of New Journalism. In books such as The Electric Koolaid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and The Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe delves into the inner workings of the mind, writing about the unconscious decisions people make in their lives. His attention to eccentricities of human behavior and language and to questions of social status are considered unparalleled in the American literary canon.
He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Tom Wolfe is also famous for coining and defining the term fiction-absolute .
http://us.macmillan.com/author/tomwolfe
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,158 reviews
May 19, 2008
"I am Tom Wolfe... " and therefore I can write whatever I want. And people will still buy my over-long, thinly-developed, poorly-constructed tirade against 'kids these days.'
It's called a stereotype, Tom. You should probably avoid making all your characters painfully simple cardboard cutouts of actual people. And I'm pretty sure I've seen all of these before, in EVERY movie and book about "college" ever produced.
To inventory:
- The main protagonist, the archetypical smart girl who's better looking than she realizes.
- The big dumb jock who's smarter than he realizes
- The beautiful-but-evil roommate
- The nerdy reporter for the school paper
- The obnoxious, privileged frat boy
- And a whole host of minor supporting characters... as the secretary from Ferris Bueller put it, a cast of "sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, and d!ckheads." Along with rednecks, the new england rich, and a smattering of other cellophane-thin stereotypes.
This book isn't quite satire, it isn't quite commentary, isn't remotely insightful, but it is awfully long. It has that going for it.
It's called a stereotype, Tom. You should probably avoid making all your characters painfully simple cardboard cutouts of actual people. And I'm pretty sure I've seen all of these before, in EVERY movie and book about "college" ever produced.
To inventory:
- The main protagonist, the archetypical smart girl who's better looking than she realizes.
- The big dumb jock who's smarter than he realizes
- The beautiful-but-evil roommate
- The nerdy reporter for the school paper
- The obnoxious, privileged frat boy
- And a whole host of minor supporting characters... as the secretary from Ferris Bueller put it, a cast of "sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, and d!ckheads." Along with rednecks, the new england rich, and a smattering of other cellophane-thin stereotypes.
This book isn't quite satire, it isn't quite commentary, isn't remotely insightful, but it is awfully long. It has that going for it.
August 31, 2008
Sigh.
771 pages. Talking about college. How college is shocking for sheltered girls. How college (shocker) isn't really about academia, but sports, beer, sex, and pretty much everything that the university brochures lie about in order to protect their reputations and continue charging $30,000 a year for an "education." This could be written by ANYONE, and in less than HALF the pages.
When a book is bad, and too long, there is a certain point in reading the same shit over and over when your mind just screams SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!. This happened to me about half way through when I got sick of even the most random characters who appear only once in the story, having their entire family histories mapped out for the reader since the 1800's. Filler? Some sort of psychological explanation of the character? NO. BORING. EDITOR?? WHERE ARE YOU!? CUT THIS SHIT. Also, we don't need every single regional accent spelled out for us. Charlotte is from the South. We don't need to be reminded after the says "get" that she pronounces it "git." We don't need to be told that a dude from Brooklyn says "what do you want?" and then have it rewritten again after the quote as "whaddaya want?". Fuck me. If that wasn't enough, can we stop this shit of "shooting looks that are as if to say...."? He shot her a look as if to say fuck you, she shot him a look as if to say I hate you, etc. UGH.
Granted, this book did get the Bad Sex Award in 2003. But since it doesn't even happen until page 2394875485723847, it's not just BAD, it's boring. How anyone managed to FIND this bad sex without skimming over it or simply falling asleep is completely beyond me. I'm shocked that this didn't get the Bad Book Award of 2003.
If you want a good, engaging, and true-to-life story about a fish out of water in her academic environment, read Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel Prep. Use I am Charlotte Simmons only for expensive toilet paper or to stop a bullet.
Sucked.
771 pages. Talking about college. How college is shocking for sheltered girls. How college (shocker) isn't really about academia, but sports, beer, sex, and pretty much everything that the university brochures lie about in order to protect their reputations and continue charging $30,000 a year for an "education." This could be written by ANYONE, and in less than HALF the pages.
When a book is bad, and too long, there is a certain point in reading the same shit over and over when your mind just screams SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!. This happened to me about half way through when I got sick of even the most random characters who appear only once in the story, having their entire family histories mapped out for the reader since the 1800's. Filler? Some sort of psychological explanation of the character? NO. BORING. EDITOR?? WHERE ARE YOU!? CUT THIS SHIT. Also, we don't need every single regional accent spelled out for us. Charlotte is from the South. We don't need to be reminded after the says "get" that she pronounces it "git." We don't need to be told that a dude from Brooklyn says "what do you want?" and then have it rewritten again after the quote as "whaddaya want?". Fuck me. If that wasn't enough, can we stop this shit of "shooting looks that are as if to say...."? He shot her a look as if to say fuck you, she shot him a look as if to say I hate you, etc. UGH.
Granted, this book did get the Bad Sex Award in 2003. But since it doesn't even happen until page 2394875485723847, it's not just BAD, it's boring. How anyone managed to FIND this bad sex without skimming over it or simply falling asleep is completely beyond me. I'm shocked that this didn't get the Bad Book Award of 2003.
If you want a good, engaging, and true-to-life story about a fish out of water in her academic environment, read Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel Prep. Use I am Charlotte Simmons only for expensive toilet paper or to stop a bullet.
Sucked.
May 28, 2008
Yawn or cringe? Eye roll? So imagine your grandpa takes you out to the Dog 'n Suds for a root beer float. He goes on to tell you about what life was like at college - not for him but for you. He sprinkles in terms like "phat" and "shorty" and "rad" and "rutting" throughout his tale. Grandpa has been dipping into the Dictionary of American Youth Slang written by the Youth Minister at his church, who has covered the volume in a plain black cover lest it fall into the hands of the few blessed innocents out there, people like Charlotte Simmons, who would only become distraught at how _dirty_ and crude people are.
The point of all of this? Grandpa wants to make sure you know that college is a place of wildly raging hormones, cliques one hoped would have magically disappeared once the threshhold of the high school's doors have been crossed one last time, and LOTS of liquor. You know, in case you missed it on your trip through. He also wants to be sure you know what kind of bullet you dodged at your alma mater and how relieved you should be about it. *ahem*
Don't forget to let Grandpa know that he has dribbled ketchup all down his white suit while talking. You don't want him to be embarrassed by himself, now do you?
________
Disclaimer: The grandpa (Tom Wolfe-like)in this account is fictitious (sorta) and bears no resemblance whatsoever to the author's own grandpa, with the exception of the love of a good A&W root beer float.
The point of all of this? Grandpa wants to make sure you know that college is a place of wildly raging hormones, cliques one hoped would have magically disappeared once the threshhold of the high school's doors have been crossed one last time, and LOTS of liquor. You know, in case you missed it on your trip through. He also wants to be sure you know what kind of bullet you dodged at your alma mater and how relieved you should be about it. *ahem*
Don't forget to let Grandpa know that he has dribbled ketchup all down his white suit while talking. You don't want him to be embarrassed by himself, now do you?
________
Disclaimer: The grandpa (Tom Wolfe-like)in this account is fictitious (sorta) and bears no resemblance whatsoever to the author's own grandpa, with the exception of the love of a good A&W root beer float.
May 28, 2007
I came to I Am Charlotte Simmons with trepidation. I had read the reviews that likened Wolfe to a voyeur and questioned his motivation in spending years "observing" typical college students fifty years his junior. It seemed creepy. But when I saw it in the bargain bin, I couldn't resist, and as it turned out, I couldn't put the thing down. Wolfe is a great writer and storyteller, and although there are some weird things about the book, like his linguistic obsessions over current uses of profanity, he presents a compelling story and a fascinating character in Charlotte. Charlotte, a brilliant student from the impoverished, rural North Carolina, earns a scholarship to the prestigious Dupont University, and dreams of intellectual stimulation unlike she has ever known. Instead, she finds a world of wealth, privilege, and debauchery. Although she wants to play the games of sexual intrigue of her classmates, she has none of the requisite accompanying hardness and cynicism, so her efforts are personally devastating. Wolfe deftly tackles big themes--purity, vanity, greed, social class. He may have gotten some of the details wrong, and if you are currently a college student I'm sure you will find much with which to quarrel, but the bigger story is superb.
December 14, 2013
Halfway through Tom Wolfe's enormous new novel about contemporary college life, I finally devised a question to keep my interest piqued: "Is it humanly possible," I wondered, "to write another 100 pages - another 200 pages, another 300 pages - without describing a single surprising event?"
It is.
With "I Am Charlotte Simmons," Wolfe has ventured onto the university campus and sent back reams of hyperventilating testimony: College students are slovenly and crude. They drink way too much. They listen to obscene music. They engage in casual and exploitative sex. They put their feet on the furniture - even leather sofas and fine woodwork.
But wait, there's more: College students would rather socialize than study. It's all right here, spelled out in tones of amazement, like George H.W. Bush telling us about those new scanners at the grocery store.
If you haven't seen "Animal House" or anything on the WB, you'll be surprised to learn that collegiate society is divided between "jocks" and "nerds." The jocks are very athletic, but not very smart, whereas the nerds are very smart, but not very athletic.
Am I going too fast?
To write this novel, Wolfe claims that he "had only to reassemble the material he had accumulated visiting campuses across the country," a technique that may explain the book's superficiality. This isn't the anthropology of the Ordinary - a potentially revelatory approach; it's just a dramatization of clichés.
Even the style lacks Wolfe's usual verve. He's particularly interested in the way modern Americans talk, but in his Rip Van Winkle voice, we get endless explanations and reenactments of what he calls the "undergraduate vocabulary," a discovery he highlights in a brief dedication to his children. Most of the dialogue is written in a profane patois that Wolfe spells out as though he's recording the grunts and clicks of a lost dialect from Inner Mongolia. But he has nothing to add to Norman Mailer's far more daring analysis of American profanity some 40 years ago in "Armies of the Night."
Even more tedious than the affected slips of Southern and African-American dialects are his needless parenthetical translations: I can't (cain't) stand them('em). And when characters yell at each other, their words are written in caps so that we know THEY'RE SPEAKING VERY LOUDLY.
The story follows the rise and fall of Charlotte Simmons, a brilliant country bumpkin from Sparta, N.C., (pop. 900), who wins a scholarship to Dupont University, one of the most prestigious institutions in the country. Charlotte's parents are simple folk, devout Christians, who have instilled in their daughter a deep sense of morality. They don't drink, swear, put on airs, or take no stock in your highfalutin citified ways. Along with a devoted teacher at school, they have instilled in Charlotte a sense of her exceptionalism that inspires the novel's title, which is also a sort of inspirational mantra for the heroine.
Charlotte heads off to Dupont University expecting to enter the august halls of academe, but she quickly finds that it's a brothel, seething with vain, vicious girls and crude, drunken boys. Her snobby roommate won't have anything to do with her. The coed bathrooms are an abomination. Athletes on the basketball team don't take their classes seriously. And hunky frat boys pretend to be interested in your mind, but they're interested in only one thing. (I won't spoil it for you.)
Poor Charlotte is consumed with loneliness and confusion. Everyone mocks her clothes, her naiveté, her virginity, her tee-totaling. Professors recognize her brilliance, but brilliance doesn't matter in this marketplace of drunken flesh. So, how can she resist when the hottest boy on campus asks her to the Spring Formal? (Wolfe Note: The term "hottest" is not a reference to the temperature of his body, but to the developed musculature of his body, which, along with a number of male bodies in this book, is described with slobbering attention.)
Meanwhile, one of the nerds who works for the school paper (where else?) is pursuing a scandal that could rock American politics, but don't worry about that potentially interesting thread; it never leads off campus - or toward anything.
The only issue that develops some traction in this novel is race. Wolfe explored that more profoundly in "The Bonfire of Vanities" and "A Man in Full," but his portrayal here of the racial tensions on the college basketball court is engaging. He shows a sport played largely by black men for the entertainment of white fans in an academic setting that contorts its principles to keep the whole industry going.
The cynical coach reaps millions; the pasty professor growls about academic standards; the expedient college president maintains an uneasy truce. All these characters play to type, but at the center of this subplot is a white basketball star who feels threatened by the talent and aggression of black players all around him. Why, he wonders, do they have access to a whole range of words and stances that are forbidden to him? What's more, he's starting to feel attracted to a life of the mind that he can just barely imagine. But this minor development is buried in a variety of borrowed plot lines, including a climactic bit of satire about political correctness that might have been sharp 20 years ago.
The problem isn't really the inclusion of so many cliché characters; sadly, there are plenty of real students who fall into these categories. What's galling about this novel is its persistent lack of nuance, its reduction of the whole spectrum of people on a college campus to these garish primary colors.
Wolfe wrote a much discussed essay for Harper's in 1989, "A Literary Manifesto for the New Social Novel." Instead of the cerebral games that now pass for fiction, he argued, American novelists should "head out into this wild, bizarre, unpredictable, Hog-stomping Baroque country of ours and reclaim it as literary property." This is good advice. When he took it, he hog-stomped out two baroque novels, first about New York and then about Atlanta. But cooped up on campus with "Charlotte Simmons" he's too predictable and too late to reclaim anything of interest.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1109/p1...
It is.
With "I Am Charlotte Simmons," Wolfe has ventured onto the university campus and sent back reams of hyperventilating testimony: College students are slovenly and crude. They drink way too much. They listen to obscene music. They engage in casual and exploitative sex. They put their feet on the furniture - even leather sofas and fine woodwork.
But wait, there's more: College students would rather socialize than study. It's all right here, spelled out in tones of amazement, like George H.W. Bush telling us about those new scanners at the grocery store.
If you haven't seen "Animal House" or anything on the WB, you'll be surprised to learn that collegiate society is divided between "jocks" and "nerds." The jocks are very athletic, but not very smart, whereas the nerds are very smart, but not very athletic.
Am I going too fast?
To write this novel, Wolfe claims that he "had only to reassemble the material he had accumulated visiting campuses across the country," a technique that may explain the book's superficiality. This isn't the anthropology of the Ordinary - a potentially revelatory approach; it's just a dramatization of clichés.
Even the style lacks Wolfe's usual verve. He's particularly interested in the way modern Americans talk, but in his Rip Van Winkle voice, we get endless explanations and reenactments of what he calls the "undergraduate vocabulary," a discovery he highlights in a brief dedication to his children. Most of the dialogue is written in a profane patois that Wolfe spells out as though he's recording the grunts and clicks of a lost dialect from Inner Mongolia. But he has nothing to add to Norman Mailer's far more daring analysis of American profanity some 40 years ago in "Armies of the Night."
Even more tedious than the affected slips of Southern and African-American dialects are his needless parenthetical translations: I can't (cain't) stand them('em). And when characters yell at each other, their words are written in caps so that we know THEY'RE SPEAKING VERY LOUDLY.
The story follows the rise and fall of Charlotte Simmons, a brilliant country bumpkin from Sparta, N.C., (pop. 900), who wins a scholarship to Dupont University, one of the most prestigious institutions in the country. Charlotte's parents are simple folk, devout Christians, who have instilled in their daughter a deep sense of morality. They don't drink, swear, put on airs, or take no stock in your highfalutin citified ways. Along with a devoted teacher at school, they have instilled in Charlotte a sense of her exceptionalism that inspires the novel's title, which is also a sort of inspirational mantra for the heroine.
Charlotte heads off to Dupont University expecting to enter the august halls of academe, but she quickly finds that it's a brothel, seething with vain, vicious girls and crude, drunken boys. Her snobby roommate won't have anything to do with her. The coed bathrooms are an abomination. Athletes on the basketball team don't take their classes seriously. And hunky frat boys pretend to be interested in your mind, but they're interested in only one thing. (I won't spoil it for you.)
Poor Charlotte is consumed with loneliness and confusion. Everyone mocks her clothes, her naiveté, her virginity, her tee-totaling. Professors recognize her brilliance, but brilliance doesn't matter in this marketplace of drunken flesh. So, how can she resist when the hottest boy on campus asks her to the Spring Formal? (Wolfe Note: The term "hottest" is not a reference to the temperature of his body, but to the developed musculature of his body, which, along with a number of male bodies in this book, is described with slobbering attention.)
Meanwhile, one of the nerds who works for the school paper (where else?) is pursuing a scandal that could rock American politics, but don't worry about that potentially interesting thread; it never leads off campus - or toward anything.
The only issue that develops some traction in this novel is race. Wolfe explored that more profoundly in "The Bonfire of Vanities" and "A Man in Full," but his portrayal here of the racial tensions on the college basketball court is engaging. He shows a sport played largely by black men for the entertainment of white fans in an academic setting that contorts its principles to keep the whole industry going.
The cynical coach reaps millions; the pasty professor growls about academic standards; the expedient college president maintains an uneasy truce. All these characters play to type, but at the center of this subplot is a white basketball star who feels threatened by the talent and aggression of black players all around him. Why, he wonders, do they have access to a whole range of words and stances that are forbidden to him? What's more, he's starting to feel attracted to a life of the mind that he can just barely imagine. But this minor development is buried in a variety of borrowed plot lines, including a climactic bit of satire about political correctness that might have been sharp 20 years ago.
The problem isn't really the inclusion of so many cliché characters; sadly, there are plenty of real students who fall into these categories. What's galling about this novel is its persistent lack of nuance, its reduction of the whole spectrum of people on a college campus to these garish primary colors.
Wolfe wrote a much discussed essay for Harper's in 1989, "A Literary Manifesto for the New Social Novel." Instead of the cerebral games that now pass for fiction, he argued, American novelists should "head out into this wild, bizarre, unpredictable, Hog-stomping Baroque country of ours and reclaim it as literary property." This is good advice. When he took it, he hog-stomped out two baroque novels, first about New York and then about Atlanta. But cooped up on campus with "Charlotte Simmons" he's too predictable and too late to reclaim anything of interest.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1109/p1...
January 7, 2016
This was far too long. When I am 200 pages into a book, I do not want a 50 page background on a character that probably wont matter anyway. Read The Rules of Attraction or The Sorrows of Young Mike if you want to know about college kids. Tom Wolfe is for people who have a lot of time on their hands.
May 14, 2007
Wolfe could not seem to decide whether he wanted Charlotte Simmons to be a satire or a legitimate zeitgeist piece. Thus, the characters come off as caricatures to ill effect. Wolfe should take a page from Sinclair Lewis, who somehow managed to write biting satire with still-believable protagonists at the helm. Wolfe could have also gone all out and just made this an absurd piece of literature, but he clearly intended to use this book as a revelation on modern college life.
In Wolfe's defense:
Though I think there are legitimate criticisms of Charlotte Simmons, the most frequent one, the "look at how this prude old guy is so freaked out by young people today" criticism is problematic on several levels. First: it is possible for an author to create an authentic protagonist with whom s/he has little in common. Take Mark Twain's feat of writing from the perspective of a boy in Huck Finn or Sinclair Lewis's believable boob Babbitt in the eponymous book. Wolfe may come from a different generation than his characters, but this does not preclude him from channeling universal emotions through his characters, emotions like self-doubt, alienation, etc.
A favorable reviewer on Amazon rightly pointed out that those who criticize Wolfe for not getting this current generation are missing the point. Wolfe is asking the reader to step outside the decadent conventions of this group in order to question why it they are so blindly accepted. To dismiss him because he seems so shocked! by the generation he portrays is to buy into the legitimacy of this (my) generation's norms.
Like so many American novels before it, I Am Charlotte Simmons indicts complacent conformity. Perhaps it's easier to recognize these themes in novels where the author is skewering the prudish, straight-laced yesmen rather than the indulgent, counter-traditional ones, but both societies signify rigidity and intolerance towards deviating norms. The pendulum has just shifted in the sense that polite conversation is now quite hospitable to the impolite, but now the diplomat is the odd man out. Being different is hard, whether you're a wandering musician in 1950s America or an intellecutally curious girl from a quiet mountain town in millenial America.
My biggest issue: I am most disappointed with how unedited I Am Charlotte Simmons seems at times. Wolfe could have pared this book down a lot. He simply writes too much, sometimes mercilessly belaboring his point. Still, I think the generic criticisms of this book are ignorant of a novel's purpose.
In Wolfe's defense:
Though I think there are legitimate criticisms of Charlotte Simmons, the most frequent one, the "look at how this prude old guy is so freaked out by young people today" criticism is problematic on several levels. First: it is possible for an author to create an authentic protagonist with whom s/he has little in common. Take Mark Twain's feat of writing from the perspective of a boy in Huck Finn or Sinclair Lewis's believable boob Babbitt in the eponymous book. Wolfe may come from a different generation than his characters, but this does not preclude him from channeling universal emotions through his characters, emotions like self-doubt, alienation, etc.
A favorable reviewer on Amazon rightly pointed out that those who criticize Wolfe for not getting this current generation are missing the point. Wolfe is asking the reader to step outside the decadent conventions of this group in order to question why it they are so blindly accepted. To dismiss him because he seems so shocked! by the generation he portrays is to buy into the legitimacy of this (my) generation's norms.
Like so many American novels before it, I Am Charlotte Simmons indicts complacent conformity. Perhaps it's easier to recognize these themes in novels where the author is skewering the prudish, straight-laced yesmen rather than the indulgent, counter-traditional ones, but both societies signify rigidity and intolerance towards deviating norms. The pendulum has just shifted in the sense that polite conversation is now quite hospitable to the impolite, but now the diplomat is the odd man out. Being different is hard, whether you're a wandering musician in 1950s America or an intellecutally curious girl from a quiet mountain town in millenial America.
My biggest issue: I am most disappointed with how unedited I Am Charlotte Simmons seems at times. Wolfe could have pared this book down a lot. He simply writes too much, sometimes mercilessly belaboring his point. Still, I think the generic criticisms of this book are ignorant of a novel's purpose.
May 31, 2007
Any girl who has ever gone through the journey of the small liberal arts big name college will know parts of Charlotte in ways that take them back to times and insecurities that are far better left forgotten. Charlotte, the brain trust of her small town, enters the world of the privledged "it's mine because I'm entitled to it" college student. It should be a coming of age tale, and it is but in the twisted way. Charlotte loses herself and every belief she held to fit in from the first day of her freshman year to the last day of her senior. Her uncooth parents embarass her, and so she pushes them away. She is so insecure that she constantly obsesses about what she wears, what she eats, who she is seen with, how she speaks, and with whom she sleeps. After a few months, it's clear that she has lost her identity entirely. My favorite part about this book is what makes it real - disturbing but true - she doesn't come back around. And I think that's a reality. When we lose ourselves, we don't get that self back, we just create a new one. Maybe that new one mimics many parts of the old self, but the new insecurities prevent it from every returning to the original. If you want a pick me up, this is not the book. However, if you have been in this world and want to appreciate how you made it through and appreciate life on the other side, you won't be disappointed.
July 9, 2011
I picked this up at the big garage sale that my work puts on. It caught my eye and I remember being interested in it after reading a review of it when it came out. It's a pretty thick book, over 750 pages, and I didn't plan on reading it for a while. I read the first few chapters when I got home and got very caught up in it. It is one of those books where once you've start reading it, everything else in your life takes a back seat and you can't do anything else but read the book until you're done. Apparently all of Tom Wolfe's books are like that, though I've only read this one. I'll let the New York Times say it better than I can: "Like everything Wolfe writes, 'I Am Charlotte Simmons' grabs your interest at the outset and saps the desire to do anything else until you finish."
The book is basically a critique of the current state of higher education and the university lifestyle. The three main characters are students at a Dupont, a fictional prestigious liberal arts school on the east coast and their lives intersect through various plot threads. The title character, Charlotte, is the fish out of water from a small working-class town in West Virginia. She comes to Dupont full of innocence and ideals and the book is propelled by the story of her inevitable fall from grace and eventual redemption. There is one long extended chapter the book about Charlotte going to the big fraternity formal with her new boyfriend and his friends. Wolfe describes what is happening in real time with great detail (both material and emotional), and the result is an incredible and extremely moving piece of writing. If movies that present prom night as an magical evening where everyone's problems are somehow resolved are a zero on the realism scale, Wolfe's description of Charlotte's experience is an easy 10 .
One of the things that Wolfe does really well is observe the motivations behind people's words and actions, analyzing people in much the same way that a biologist would study the behavior of animals. To Tom Wolfe, every human interaction is a struggle for dominance, and he makes his case convincingly enough particularly when applied to the seemingly simple but incredibly complex social codes of the fraternities and sororities.
Wolfe does stumble occasionally, getting a bit out of his element, particularly when attempting to recreate the dialogue and slang of the black players on the college basketball team. He creates a rapper called Doctor Dis and writes lyrics for his songs in a few cringe-inducing passages. Still, you've got to give an old white guy credit for an attempt. A large part of Wolfe's critique is about class, and the sense of entitlement that well-heeled and well-educated feel. Wolfe lays it on a little too thick in describing Charlotte's humble background, however, and details like Charlotte's family having to use a picnic table inside because they couldn't afford a dining table seemed forced. One final criticism that I'll make is that I though that the end was too neat and sudden. I expected more of a payoff, though I was satisfied enough (if only just to see Charlotte okay again after everything that Wolfe puts her through).
This book got a lot of mixed reviews, and some critics really panned it, seeing it as a one of Wolfe's lesser books. I'm not familiar with his other works and with nothing else to compare it to, I was blown away and completely engrossed. I'd strongly recommend it, though only if you can afford to disappear for a week.
The book is basically a critique of the current state of higher education and the university lifestyle. The three main characters are students at a Dupont, a fictional prestigious liberal arts school on the east coast and their lives intersect through various plot threads. The title character, Charlotte, is the fish out of water from a small working-class town in West Virginia. She comes to Dupont full of innocence and ideals and the book is propelled by the story of her inevitable fall from grace and eventual redemption. There is one long extended chapter the book about Charlotte going to the big fraternity formal with her new boyfriend and his friends. Wolfe describes what is happening in real time with great detail (both material and emotional), and the result is an incredible and extremely moving piece of writing. If movies that present prom night as an magical evening where everyone's problems are somehow resolved are a zero on the realism scale, Wolfe's description of Charlotte's experience is an easy 10 .
One of the things that Wolfe does really well is observe the motivations behind people's words and actions, analyzing people in much the same way that a biologist would study the behavior of animals. To Tom Wolfe, every human interaction is a struggle for dominance, and he makes his case convincingly enough particularly when applied to the seemingly simple but incredibly complex social codes of the fraternities and sororities.
Wolfe does stumble occasionally, getting a bit out of his element, particularly when attempting to recreate the dialogue and slang of the black players on the college basketball team. He creates a rapper called Doctor Dis and writes lyrics for his songs in a few cringe-inducing passages. Still, you've got to give an old white guy credit for an attempt. A large part of Wolfe's critique is about class, and the sense of entitlement that well-heeled and well-educated feel. Wolfe lays it on a little too thick in describing Charlotte's humble background, however, and details like Charlotte's family having to use a picnic table inside because they couldn't afford a dining table seemed forced. One final criticism that I'll make is that I though that the end was too neat and sudden. I expected more of a payoff, though I was satisfied enough (if only just to see Charlotte okay again after everything that Wolfe puts her through).
This book got a lot of mixed reviews, and some critics really panned it, seeing it as a one of Wolfe's lesser books. I'm not familiar with his other works and with nothing else to compare it to, I was blown away and completely engrossed. I'd strongly recommend it, though only if you can afford to disappear for a week.
December 21, 2018
738 σελίδες απόλυτης, συνεχόμενης και ασταμάτητης παπαρολογίας που το ξεκίνησα ντάλα καλοκαίρι και με βρήκαν τα Χριστούγεννα μέχρι να το τελειώσω διότι όπως πολύ καλά καταλάβατε αυτή η γκουμούτσα δεν διαβάζεται με τίποτα. Ένα κακογραμμένο και δήθεν "διδακτικό" τεράστιο κείμενο για το "κακό" κολλέγιο και τους κινδύνους που ενέχει η απόφαση να πας να σπουδάσεις. Γεμάτο με τετριμμένους χαρακτήρες κολλεγιόπαιδων και μία σχεδόν τρομοκρατική προκατάληψη για το τα δεινά που μπορούν να σε βρουν περνώντας την πόρτα της σχολής. Λες και του ανέθεσαν από την εκκλησία να γραψει το εγχειρίδιο του καλού φοιτητή και της αμαρτωλής τεστοστερόνης, του φρικτού αλκοόλ, και της συμφοράς του να απομακρύνεσαι από την οικογενειακή εστία, τύφλα να έχει ο Περίανδρος Πώποτας και να το πλασάρει στη νεολαία υπό τον μανδύα ενός μυθιστορήματος. Που μάλλον αυτό έγινε διότι δεν μπορώ να εξηγήσω αλλιώς τον τρόπο με τον οποίο ο συγγραφέας εξηγεί στις προτάσεις του κάποια πολύ απλά ζητήματα λες και απευθύνεται σε δωδεκάχρονα (γκουχ, γκουχ) πχ αυτή είναι μία εφημερίδα, στην εφημερίδα διαβάζουμε τα νέα της ημέρας, η εφήμερίδα έχει αυτό το κόστος. Αστεράκια 2 και δεν θέλω να ξαναπιάσω Τομ Γουλφ στα χέρια μου ούτε αν τα βιβλία του είναι τα μόνα που θα διασωθούν μετά από μία τραγική καταστροφή του πολιτισμού.
June 18, 2020
Is this the most innovative, unpredictable novel ever written? Nope, but I can't deny that Wolfe's nasty, satirical pageturner about millennial college life in the US is great fun. Protagonist Charlotte Simmons has grown up in the small town of Sparta, NC, in a conservative working class environment. When she starts college at the prestigious Dupont University, well-known for academic excellence and its successful athletics department (hello, Duke), virginal Charlotte has trouble fitting in with the more worldly rich kids, Greek letter organizations, and jocks. Aspiring to reach a higher position in the on-campus pecking order, she takes some measures that, due to her naivety and the cruelty of the social order, soon get out of control...
Sure, Wolfe employs quite some stereotypes and cliches, but it's not like these don't exist in reality. Everybody in this book is more or less unlikeable, and it speaks volumes that reading the text is still so much fun: Charlotte is lonely and insecure, but she is also arrogant and ignorant - and so are many other characters. While the story is narrated in the third person, we perceive everything from Charlotte's perspective, which means that we witness her reasonings and justifications, and they are psychologically believable and well-rendered. The intricate psychological writing is juxtaposed with many flashy, over-the-top characters who do flashy, over-the-top things (rich kids being the meanest mean girls imaginable, sports stars having sex with groupies and cheating their way through classes, unpopular nerds founding nerd clubs and fantasizing about their future success etc. pp.).
Wolfe's held back, matter-of-fact narration shows how the students at Dupont strife for status, but the author does not judge them - in fact, he does not even present one character that offers appealing alternative ways of behavior. This set-up gives the book its light, satirical flair, and while the novel certainly qualifies as social commentary, it is no "o tempora, o mores" lament. I enjoyed the easy flow, the entertaining story and the many subplots of the text, so while this is no literary masterpiece, it's a good book that tells quite some truths about life in general.
Incidentally, the wonderful Hasan Minhaj has recently produced a great episode of "Patriot Act" entitled "Is College Still Worth It?", pondering some of the trends Wolfe talks about as well (but in the context of the Corona crisis).
Sure, Wolfe employs quite some stereotypes and cliches, but it's not like these don't exist in reality. Everybody in this book is more or less unlikeable, and it speaks volumes that reading the text is still so much fun: Charlotte is lonely and insecure, but she is also arrogant and ignorant - and so are many other characters. While the story is narrated in the third person, we perceive everything from Charlotte's perspective, which means that we witness her reasonings and justifications, and they are psychologically believable and well-rendered. The intricate psychological writing is juxtaposed with many flashy, over-the-top characters who do flashy, over-the-top things (rich kids being the meanest mean girls imaginable, sports stars having sex with groupies and cheating their way through classes, unpopular nerds founding nerd clubs and fantasizing about their future success etc. pp.).
Wolfe's held back, matter-of-fact narration shows how the students at Dupont strife for status, but the author does not judge them - in fact, he does not even present one character that offers appealing alternative ways of behavior. This set-up gives the book its light, satirical flair, and while the novel certainly qualifies as social commentary, it is no "o tempora, o mores" lament. I enjoyed the easy flow, the entertaining story and the many subplots of the text, so while this is no literary masterpiece, it's a good book that tells quite some truths about life in general.
Incidentally, the wonderful Hasan Minhaj has recently produced a great episode of "Patriot Act" entitled "Is College Still Worth It?", pondering some of the trends Wolfe talks about as well (but in the context of the Corona crisis).
January 27, 2010
Wow. I believe you can write about being young no matter how old you are. However, I don't know if you can write about being young and going to college in 2004, when you haven't been young (or attended college) since the Eisenhower administration.
This absurd novel, which fails as a novel in any convention sense except perhaps self-satire, follows the travails of a beautiful, smart, yet pure-as-the driven-snow hillbilly angel, who emerged out of what sounds like a hobbit hole in Western North Carolina and landed at Duke, I mean, Dupont University, where all the women are rich sorority girls, radicalized lesbian separatists or grotesque underlings who grovel and drool in the dorm hallways at night like some great unwashed mass of medieval lepers. And where all the men are spoiled fratboy rapists, self-deluding, sleazy leftists or wholesome (white!) basketball players who love their mamas.
I would like to challenge anyone who has been to college in the past twenty years to find something in "Charlotte Simmons" that is remotely believable. I live about fifteen minutes from Wolfe's model for Dupont University and grew up in Western North Carolina and I can tell you this book might as well be set on Mars, as far as I'm concerned. Reading it requires a suspension of disbelief quite a bit greater than that needed to enjoy "Harry Potter," and I literally threw this book across the room no less than a dozen times whilst reading it.
Basically, what I learned is that Tom Wolfe is either actually a sexist, racist, elitist, ignorant, patronizing scumbag or he's so woefully out of touch that he doesn't realize this book makes him seem like all of those things.
This absurd novel, which fails as a novel in any convention sense except perhaps self-satire, follows the travails of a beautiful, smart, yet pure-as-the driven-snow hillbilly angel, who emerged out of what sounds like a hobbit hole in Western North Carolina and landed at Duke, I mean, Dupont University, where all the women are rich sorority girls, radicalized lesbian separatists or grotesque underlings who grovel and drool in the dorm hallways at night like some great unwashed mass of medieval lepers. And where all the men are spoiled fratboy rapists, self-deluding, sleazy leftists or wholesome (white!) basketball players who love their mamas.
I would like to challenge anyone who has been to college in the past twenty years to find something in "Charlotte Simmons" that is remotely believable. I live about fifteen minutes from Wolfe's model for Dupont University and grew up in Western North Carolina and I can tell you this book might as well be set on Mars, as far as I'm concerned. Reading it requires a suspension of disbelief quite a bit greater than that needed to enjoy "Harry Potter," and I literally threw this book across the room no less than a dozen times whilst reading it.
Basically, what I learned is that Tom Wolfe is either actually a sexist, racist, elitist, ignorant, patronizing scumbag or he's so woefully out of touch that he doesn't realize this book makes him seem like all of those things.
April 18, 2019
Non posso dire che mi abbia deluso perchè non ho mai letto niente di questo scrittore e non sapevo cosa aspettarmi. Posso dire che il personaggio di Charlotte mi ha deluso, è una ragazza tipo "voglio ma non posso" e poi .. alla fine il suo "fidanzamento" (non dico altro per non far scoprire la storia) mi ha lasciato veramente male.
June 12, 2023
Tom Wolfe hat mit "Ich bin Charlotte Simmons" einen großen amerikanischen Universitäts-Roman geschrieben. 1988 war mein Lieblingsbuch "Fegefeuer der Eitelkeiten" von Tom Wolfe. 2012 habe ich "Back To Blood" mit ähnlicher Begeisterung gelesen. Aber den Roman "Ich bin Charlotte Simmons" von 2005 habe ich damals aufgrund einer Kritik (ich glaube im Spiegel) ausgelassen. Knapp 20 Jahre später wollte ich mir doch noch ein eigenes Bild machen. Zum Glück.
In diesem Ziegelstein von einem Taschenbuch mit knapp tausend Seiten geht es um Charlotte. Sie kommt aus einem kleinen ländlichen Ort. Sie ist die erste aus dem Ort, die es auf die renommierte Dupont Universität geschafft hat. Mit ihrer konservativen, zurückhaltenden Art landet sie in Sodom und Gomorrha. Sie wird im ersten Semester vor allem drei Bekanntschaften machen: Jojo ist ein etwas dümmlicher, weißer Basketballspieler im Uni-Team. Adam ist ein verpeilter Student, der zwischen Reporter und Intellektueller changiert. Hoyt ist das unsympathische Großmaul einer Uni-Verbindung. Letzterer wird Charlotte in eine Depression stürzen. Die Fahrt nach Hause und die Depression Charlottes ist einer der dunkelsten Abschnitte des Buches. Hier gibt es keinerlei ironische Brechung. Generell ist das Buch mit Ausnahme dieses Abschnittes aber in einem satirischen, leichten Ton geschrieben.
Trotz Längen in der Handlung, die bei dem Umfang nicht so überraschend sind, habe ich mich zu keinem Zeitpunkt gelangweilt. Das liegt daran, dass Tom Wolfe so gut schreiben kann. Egal ob er ein Basketball-Spiel, ein Seminar oder eine Studenten-Party beschreibt, egal ob er Klassenunterschiede, Neid, politische Intrigen thematisiert, er langweilt nie. Es geht aber über reine Unterhaltung hinaus. Der Mikrokosmos der amerikanischen Uni-Gesellschaft wird schmerzhaft genau ausgeleuchtet. Ein Meisterwerk.
In diesem Ziegelstein von einem Taschenbuch mit knapp tausend Seiten geht es um Charlotte. Sie kommt aus einem kleinen ländlichen Ort. Sie ist die erste aus dem Ort, die es auf die renommierte Dupont Universität geschafft hat. Mit ihrer konservativen, zurückhaltenden Art landet sie in Sodom und Gomorrha. Sie wird im ersten Semester vor allem drei Bekanntschaften machen: Jojo ist ein etwas dümmlicher, weißer Basketballspieler im Uni-Team. Adam ist ein verpeilter Student, der zwischen Reporter und Intellektueller changiert. Hoyt ist das unsympathische Großmaul einer Uni-Verbindung. Letzterer wird Charlotte in eine Depression stürzen. Die Fahrt nach Hause und die Depression Charlottes ist einer der dunkelsten Abschnitte des Buches. Hier gibt es keinerlei ironische Brechung. Generell ist das Buch mit Ausnahme dieses Abschnittes aber in einem satirischen, leichten Ton geschrieben.
Trotz Längen in der Handlung, die bei dem Umfang nicht so überraschend sind, habe ich mich zu keinem Zeitpunkt gelangweilt. Das liegt daran, dass Tom Wolfe so gut schreiben kann. Egal ob er ein Basketball-Spiel, ein Seminar oder eine Studenten-Party beschreibt, egal ob er Klassenunterschiede, Neid, politische Intrigen thematisiert, er langweilt nie. Es geht aber über reine Unterhaltung hinaus. Der Mikrokosmos der amerikanischen Uni-Gesellschaft wird schmerzhaft genau ausgeleuchtet. Ein Meisterwerk.
April 9, 2008
This was a great read. Tom Wolfe does an excellent job reporting on college life; you'd almost swear it was written by a contemporary. This book tells the story of a sheltered, back-country girl as she adjusts to college life and confronts the world of wealth and entitlement in her prep-school bred fellow students, the frat scene, the jock scene, academic achievements and struggles, and pains of growing up.
Wolfe's writing style is very powerful. I really felt for Charlotte during all her trying and triumphant moments. There's a host of other characters that Charlotte meets who are equally well drawn. If you're drawn to books for good descriptions and sympathetic characters, you'll really enjoy this.
But at times, I found Wolfe's writing to be too self-congratulating. The first time he described the variety of ways people curse today, I thought his moniker of "f*ck patois" was clever. But by the 17th time he used that phrase I was tired of it. And I wasn't sure it needed the 4 page explanation of what that means. So, anyone our age might feel like some obvious things are explained too much (as in "today they use hot for what we used to say was cool") that just makes me picture an out-of-touch 70 year old thinking he's got "us kids" figured out in a way that is clear he doesnt. And speaking of the fact that he was 70 something when he wrote this, some of his descriptions of certain sexual situations is just plain creepy. Apparantly he spent years "researching" at universities across the country, including Duke, where his daughter went to school and which the fictional Dupont University is supposedly based on.
But all in all a good read. If anyone else has read/reads this, let me know - I wanna discuss the ending with someone.
Wolfe's writing style is very powerful. I really felt for Charlotte during all her trying and triumphant moments. There's a host of other characters that Charlotte meets who are equally well drawn. If you're drawn to books for good descriptions and sympathetic characters, you'll really enjoy this.
But at times, I found Wolfe's writing to be too self-congratulating. The first time he described the variety of ways people curse today, I thought his moniker of "f*ck patois" was clever. But by the 17th time he used that phrase I was tired of it. And I wasn't sure it needed the 4 page explanation of what that means. So, anyone our age might feel like some obvious things are explained too much (as in "today they use hot for what we used to say was cool") that just makes me picture an out-of-touch 70 year old thinking he's got "us kids" figured out in a way that is clear he doesnt. And speaking of the fact that he was 70 something when he wrote this, some of his descriptions of certain sexual situations is just plain creepy. Apparantly he spent years "researching" at universities across the country, including Duke, where his daughter went to school and which the fictional Dupont University is supposedly based on.
But all in all a good read. If anyone else has read/reads this, let me know - I wanna discuss the ending with someone.
March 14, 2024
Rated R for language and sexuality. And yet, this book is still difficult to evaluate, because authorial tone is a major factor in evaluation. While I don't know Wolfe's work well, it's clear that nothing raunchy in this book is meant to be gloried in. In fact, Wolfe (at least here) seems to be intent on providing something of an exposé—this is what a "progressive" agenda gets you, a cesspool of disgusting, human-degrading behavior that is laughed off or slept away, only to be returned to the next day, like dogs to vomit.
Although there is a sense of justice at the end (unfortunately, Charlotte has no room for forgiveness in her heart), it's clear that Wolfe intends for readers to be saddened (and shocked) by what really goes on in American universities. And Wolfe would know, having done extensive first-hand research on campuses across the nation. In his book How (Not) to Be Secular, Jamie Smith writes (102n15) that Tom Wolfe's novels show what modern "liberation" gets you, and it's not liberty.
The one-star reviews on GoodReads are pretty rabid. They strike me as the futile wails of people who know that they've been nailed to the wall. On its way to that wall, the nail hit a nerve, and people never like their imbecility being pointed out. A common charge is that Wolfe is naively complaining about "kids these days," but it's unclear what the problem is. Is Wolfe's depiction of "kids these days" inaccurate? Is his depiction of "kids these days" accurate, but inconsequential? Some of these reviews sound like a few of the rejects from the book crawled out and wrote their own reviews, demonstrating that those who think that there's nothing wrong with American higher education are themselves their own punishment.
Several quotes/comments here, here, here, and here.
See here (6:33 to 10:04) for N.D. Wilson's comments about books vs. films.
Very good review at The American Conservative.
Wolfe is an atheist, but in The Kingdom of Speech, he mocks Darwinian evolution.
Wolfe died in May 2018.
Although there is a sense of justice at the end (unfortunately, Charlotte has no room for forgiveness in her heart), it's clear that Wolfe intends for readers to be saddened (and shocked) by what really goes on in American universities. And Wolfe would know, having done extensive first-hand research on campuses across the nation. In his book How (Not) to Be Secular, Jamie Smith writes (102n15) that Tom Wolfe's novels show what modern "liberation" gets you, and it's not liberty.
The one-star reviews on GoodReads are pretty rabid. They strike me as the futile wails of people who know that they've been nailed to the wall. On its way to that wall, the nail hit a nerve, and people never like their imbecility being pointed out. A common charge is that Wolfe is naively complaining about "kids these days," but it's unclear what the problem is. Is Wolfe's depiction of "kids these days" inaccurate? Is his depiction of "kids these days" accurate, but inconsequential? Some of these reviews sound like a few of the rejects from the book crawled out and wrote their own reviews, demonstrating that those who think that there's nothing wrong with American higher education are themselves their own punishment.
Several quotes/comments here, here, here, and here.
See here (6:33 to 10:04) for N.D. Wilson's comments about books vs. films.
Very good review at The American Conservative.
Wolfe is an atheist, but in The Kingdom of Speech, he mocks Darwinian evolution.
Wolfe died in May 2018.
October 6, 2007
I was engrossed in this book from its first pages. I read it during the last semester of my 6-year-long midlife return to college, and felt it was right on the money in its depiction of certain segments of college life. My university is a well-known Southern party school, close rival of another well-known Southern party school where Wolfe did a good bit of research--and where similar events are not uncommon. Like I said, right on. Exaggerated of course, and skewered with rapier wit as only Wolfe can. Beautiful, eloquent language. Wolfe has the right stuff, for sure.
February 11, 2008
Sigh...
It's no fun writing a hatchet job, much less a hatchet job on one of your heroes. I read Charlotte Simmons about a year ago and hated it, but decided that the generousity of the Christmas Spirit might make it the perfect time for me to read it. Jesus it was even worse.
I love Tom Wolfe, his early journalism is alive as very few works I know. His critism is sharp and cutting and can make a whole school of thought look ridiculous in a clever turn of phrase. His novels are flawed sure but like his journalism the sheer verve and style of his prose carries them across whatever bumps they might have.
Until Charlotte Fucking Simmons.
The problem is that since Hooking Up Tom Wolfe has found himself fascinated by post modern philosphy. He's no longer concerned with writing about individuals but has instead decided to focus on the misfiring chemicals in their brain in a probablistic equation. He makes Kurt Vonnegut look like Saint Augustine when it comes to subject of free will and it's sucked the life write out of his books. It's heartbreaking.
Worse yet is he's lost his ear for society and character. Ms. Simmons who has been raised around meth mouths and shit kickers would not be shocked by an errant Silver Bullet Tall Boy.
The book goes from muddled to straight out surreal about midway through where Wolfe suddenly decides to play a two hundred page game of "Whose's going to bust Charlotte Simmon's Cherry." which would be bad enough if Wolfe didn't narrate the proceedings with the smirk of a dirty old uncle.
It's sad that Zadie Smith accomplished in a page long vignette in On Beauty what it took Wolfe 700 odd pages to not accomplish.
It's no fun writing a hatchet job, much less a hatchet job on one of your heroes. I read Charlotte Simmons about a year ago and hated it, but decided that the generousity of the Christmas Spirit might make it the perfect time for me to read it. Jesus it was even worse.
I love Tom Wolfe, his early journalism is alive as very few works I know. His critism is sharp and cutting and can make a whole school of thought look ridiculous in a clever turn of phrase. His novels are flawed sure but like his journalism the sheer verve and style of his prose carries them across whatever bumps they might have.
Until Charlotte Fucking Simmons.
The problem is that since Hooking Up Tom Wolfe has found himself fascinated by post modern philosphy. He's no longer concerned with writing about individuals but has instead decided to focus on the misfiring chemicals in their brain in a probablistic equation. He makes Kurt Vonnegut look like Saint Augustine when it comes to subject of free will and it's sucked the life write out of his books. It's heartbreaking.
Worse yet is he's lost his ear for society and character. Ms. Simmons who has been raised around meth mouths and shit kickers would not be shocked by an errant Silver Bullet Tall Boy.
The book goes from muddled to straight out surreal about midway through where Wolfe suddenly decides to play a two hundred page game of "Whose's going to bust Charlotte Simmon's Cherry." which would be bad enough if Wolfe didn't narrate the proceedings with the smirk of a dirty old uncle.
It's sad that Zadie Smith accomplished in a page long vignette in On Beauty what it took Wolfe 700 odd pages to not accomplish.
June 30, 2013
I Am Charlotte Simmons was published in 2004, which was the year in which I matriculated at my alma mater. I guess that makes Charlotte and I the same age (except that Charlotte is, obviously, a shadowy, fictional stereotype of someone my age and, thus, not real). Charlotte Simmons is a sheltered, smart girl from a small town in the mountains of North Carolina, who ends up at a top university and is shocked by what she sees there. I was also a sheltered smart girl from a small town in the mountains (of Southern California. In case you were unaware, California is also overrun with idiotic Republican whack job Jesus freaks, at least once you get away from the coast and into the shit-hole provincial towns. They're probably spouting nonsense about the glories of gun-ownership via semi-literate Facebook posts as we speak).
All this is to say that Charlotte and I are both girls from small towns who got into prestigious universities, only to find that they didn't fit the Elysian vision of intellectual nirvana we had created for ourselves when we imagined what college would be like. The main difference between us is that, while I was disappointed, I didn't find this particularly surprising.
But wait, you may say, it's unfair for you, as a reader, to hate on a book because it doesn't mirror your own experiences! And this is true, to a point, except that Wolfe wrote a book rife with inaccuracies about what life was like for college students in 2004. This paragraph serves as a running inventory of specific things Tom Wolfe got wrong: Charlotte's roommate brings a fax machine with her, and sets it up in her dorm room (??). Wolfe describes cell phones as if they're super fancy gadgets possessed only by the elite. A fraternity brother asks to borrow porn videos from the other brothers, instead of searching for porn on the internet like a normal human being. Wolfe forgets that we're a bit too young for Animal House and Swingers to be the defining films our youth (although he is correct in assuming that we all watched Old School). I'm pretty sure we're not the first generation to forgo last names when introducing ourselves. Rap and reggae were not the only genres people listened to (I mean, isn't Belle and Sebastain one of the prototypical college bands? Also, reggae has always been pretty niche). Britney Spears peaked when Oops…I did it Again came out in 2000. The Stairmaster may have been big in 80's, but young women have been partial to the elliptical since at least the early 2000's. No cool girl would willingly call herself a "douche" (or a trekkie, for that matter).
To be fair, Wolfe got a few things right. Often, my classmates would proffer answers in class that were so idiotic, I couldn't help but wonder how they had gotten into the university in the first place. Athletes really are treated like gods, even at schools with fairly middling athletic programs. Also, we played a ton of drinking games.
Nevertheless, the millennial cultural narrative doesn't align with Wolfe's story of an edenic fall into a tawdry, quasi-intellectual underbelly populated by hormone-crazed sex drones. In reality, we went to college, like our parents before us, we studied, we graduated, we attempted to obtain gainful employment. Things would be a lot easier if previous generations hadn't managed to screw up both the economy and the environment, but that's a different story. With Charlotte Simmons, it seems to me that Tom is not so much a prescient social commentator as he is a self-indulgent writer who cried wolf.
The main problem with I Am Charlotte Simmons is that that Wolfe fails to satirize the (very real) issues of entitlement and lack of racial and economic diversity on prestigious college campuses. Instead, he adds his voice to the cyclical, and ultimately untenable, diatribe against "kids these days," forgetting that we've been there before, and the overhyped prognostications about the end of polite society have consistently proved to be, shockingly, anticlimactic.
Two stars: one, because the writing is remarkable (this is Tom Wolfe, after all. Dude knows how to write). Two, because there's a great description of the horror that is the fast-casual dining experience.
All this is to say that Charlotte and I are both girls from small towns who got into prestigious universities, only to find that they didn't fit the Elysian vision of intellectual nirvana we had created for ourselves when we imagined what college would be like. The main difference between us is that, while I was disappointed, I didn't find this particularly surprising.
But wait, you may say, it's unfair for you, as a reader, to hate on a book because it doesn't mirror your own experiences! And this is true, to a point, except that Wolfe wrote a book rife with inaccuracies about what life was like for college students in 2004. This paragraph serves as a running inventory of specific things Tom Wolfe got wrong: Charlotte's roommate brings a fax machine with her, and sets it up in her dorm room (??). Wolfe describes cell phones as if they're super fancy gadgets possessed only by the elite. A fraternity brother asks to borrow porn videos from the other brothers, instead of searching for porn on the internet like a normal human being. Wolfe forgets that we're a bit too young for Animal House and Swingers to be the defining films our youth (although he is correct in assuming that we all watched Old School). I'm pretty sure we're not the first generation to forgo last names when introducing ourselves. Rap and reggae were not the only genres people listened to (I mean, isn't Belle and Sebastain one of the prototypical college bands? Also, reggae has always been pretty niche). Britney Spears peaked when Oops…I did it Again came out in 2000. The Stairmaster may have been big in 80's, but young women have been partial to the elliptical since at least the early 2000's. No cool girl would willingly call herself a "douche" (or a trekkie, for that matter).
To be fair, Wolfe got a few things right. Often, my classmates would proffer answers in class that were so idiotic, I couldn't help but wonder how they had gotten into the university in the first place. Athletes really are treated like gods, even at schools with fairly middling athletic programs. Also, we played a ton of drinking games.
Nevertheless, the millennial cultural narrative doesn't align with Wolfe's story of an edenic fall into a tawdry, quasi-intellectual underbelly populated by hormone-crazed sex drones. In reality, we went to college, like our parents before us, we studied, we graduated, we attempted to obtain gainful employment. Things would be a lot easier if previous generations hadn't managed to screw up both the economy and the environment, but that's a different story. With Charlotte Simmons, it seems to me that Tom is not so much a prescient social commentator as he is a self-indulgent writer who cried wolf.
The main problem with I Am Charlotte Simmons is that that Wolfe fails to satirize the (very real) issues of entitlement and lack of racial and economic diversity on prestigious college campuses. Instead, he adds his voice to the cyclical, and ultimately untenable, diatribe against "kids these days," forgetting that we've been there before, and the overhyped prognostications about the end of polite society have consistently proved to be, shockingly, anticlimactic.
Two stars: one, because the writing is remarkable (this is Tom Wolfe, after all. Dude knows how to write). Two, because there's a great description of the horror that is the fast-casual dining experience.
July 20, 2018
Tom Wolfe undoubtedly did some research and got some things right. His humorously pedantic grammar lesson in adolescent "fuck patois" is impossible not to laugh at, his descriptions of fraternity parties are disgustingly accurate, his portrayal of the athletic monomania of D1 schools utterly on point. He even, once or twice, manages to grasp the mental gymnastics young women are forced to perform when trying to figure out what men want from them, and how they're going to escape unscathed if it tuns out to be something they don't want. Unfortunately, that's the extent of Wolfe's insight. His titular protagonist--the only significant female character in the entire book--is a textbook example of the way men think women think. She's pretty but charmingly unaware of how pretty she is, wants men to want her but not to give them what they want, and is obliged to drop everything and take care of said men when they need her, whether as a girlfriend, mother, tutor, witness, whatever. She's the worst sort of Manic Pixie Dream Girl, a kind of humorless redneck Rory Gilmore, so smart and so pretty and so crucially not like other girls. She's also so naive it borders on imbecilic, and characterized as "virginal"--implicitly and explicitly--with fetishistic perseverance. Despite the fact that she's about as interesting to read as the Yellow Pages, every guy in the book is dying to deflower her, in grossly graphic detail. (In a scene which takes place at the university gym, one of these would-be Lotharios waxes poetic about the line of sweat in her ass crack. I wish I were making that up.) When her virtue is finally besmirched, it sends her into the sort of downward spiral nuns warned me about in Catholic school: she gets drunk and lets a boy take her clothes off and all of a sudden she's sullied, dirty, worthless, unable to even drag herself out of bed until--Surprise!--a man comes to the rescue. (The same man, incidentally, who was so enthralled by the sweating of her posterior. What a prince.) After a truly unbelievable deus ex machina, the book ends on a peculiar note, with Charlotte emerging from her tribulations having completed her devolution from "not like other girls" to exactly like other girls: in other words, a catty vapid bitch. In Wolfe's collegiate world, there are no other options.
April 12, 2013
This is the standard Tom Wolfe novel where characters face turbulence and inevitably suffer downfall. There is much social satire and the subject area concerns students at an American University (a fictitious one).
The character type under scrutiny and under the gun is the young American male who is portrayed as sexually callous, anti-intellectual and consumed by an insatiable appetite for sports – whether it is a video games or in an arena. The main character is Charlotte, an innocent virginal girl who has a brilliant mind, but somehow seems unconvincingly asexual for an 18 year old adolescent. But her portrayal as a rape victim from the handsome but utterly parasitical Hoyt is convincing and is the pathos of this story. She is infatuated by his charming deviousness and while a part of her feels sincerity from him another suspects ulterior and lascivious motives. Even after she is raped she still has ambivalent feelings towards him. At the end of the story she has succumbed to ‘popularity’ and is going out with a dim-witted basketball player. This was less convincing (or maybe its’ just me wishing for a rescue plan!)
The alienation and loneliness Charlotte feels in this large institution feels very real.
However compared to two previous works of Tom Wolfe (‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ and ‘A Man in Full’) this story has less to relate. Its’ world was primarily concerned with underdeveloped adolescents. ‘Bonfire’ was far more satirical with a diversity of characters and explored class relationships in America. The same could be said for ‘A Man in Full’ which also had a wider geographical range.
Also ‘Charlotte’ was far too long and repetitious. Too many frat parties were described. There was no need to have so many upper class girl snobs. Drunkenness, debauchery and snootiness were constantly recurring – like advertisements on T.V.
But Tom Wolfe never fails to entertain and enlighten. I will be following his next work.
The character type under scrutiny and under the gun is the young American male who is portrayed as sexually callous, anti-intellectual and consumed by an insatiable appetite for sports – whether it is a video games or in an arena. The main character is Charlotte, an innocent virginal girl who has a brilliant mind, but somehow seems unconvincingly asexual for an 18 year old adolescent. But her portrayal as a rape victim from the handsome but utterly parasitical Hoyt is convincing and is the pathos of this story. She is infatuated by his charming deviousness and while a part of her feels sincerity from him another suspects ulterior and lascivious motives. Even after she is raped she still has ambivalent feelings towards him. At the end of the story she has succumbed to ‘popularity’ and is going out with a dim-witted basketball player. This was less convincing (or maybe its’ just me wishing for a rescue plan!)
The alienation and loneliness Charlotte feels in this large institution feels very real.
However compared to two previous works of Tom Wolfe (‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ and ‘A Man in Full’) this story has less to relate. Its’ world was primarily concerned with underdeveloped adolescents. ‘Bonfire’ was far more satirical with a diversity of characters and explored class relationships in America. The same could be said for ‘A Man in Full’ which also had a wider geographical range.
Also ‘Charlotte’ was far too long and repetitious. Too many frat parties were described. There was no need to have so many upper class girl snobs. Drunkenness, debauchery and snootiness were constantly recurring – like advertisements on T.V.
But Tom Wolfe never fails to entertain and enlighten. I will be following his next work.
January 18, 2011
I read this book years ago and saw it on my friend's bookshelf today. I had to add it to my bookshelf because I LOVED it. It's about a girl who grew up fairly poor in a small town and she goes off to college. It put right back in college. It was amazing! One of my favorite books ever. All of you have to read it!!!
June 16, 2007
I like this book, though it's really looooong.
Some paragraphs go on for a page or two. But once you get into it, the sentences flow and take you to unexpected nuggets of satiric humor and ironic wit. Of course, the dialogue and characterizations are hilarious too.
I would not say that one "loves" or "likes" either Charlotte Simmons or the rest of the characters---which are not prerequisites for the overall quality of a novel---but they ring true. As their psycholoy is revealed, their personalities and choices become patently plausible, invevitable really.
I'm not sure I "liked" the ending, but again, liking it is neither here nor there in terms of quality. I liked it because it seemed a bit idealized and in someways fulfilling, which is also the reason I didn't like it because thus far, the novel had seemed to follow an inevitable and necessary trajectory so that this "happy ending" of sorts, seems a bit out of place.
However, within this ideal situation that the protagonist finds herself in toward the end, reasons for her ultimate choice are hinted at that she herself is barely aware of, and because of this, who she is, what she learns and all that jazz, says a lot about her that clearly demote her from heroine to basically a person one may not like. She has not learned all that much in fact. She is the social animal that is motivated and affected by societal values; she is not above status as defined by not only peers but also by the larger American culture.
I wanted Charlotte to "do the right thing," I really did. But given her experiences, the ending makes sense and the ambiguity about who she is and what she's becoming, are really apt, I think.
I liked this book for the wry comic turns, the wording and syntax are "ambrosial" (a term used by a character) and the intellect is constantly stimulated. As far as the characters and their ultimate development, it's depressing. And not only because they in effect are "evil" or anything like that, but because they mirror back a litttle (or a lot) of ourselves, especially for those who have travailed the path to Higher Ed. The depression hits because the choices made are done by people like you or I, and their all too human desires, ambitions, and psychology make it hard to judge.
You want to identify with a character who is basically good and incapable of corruption because then you can tell yourself you identify with that character. But there are none---Charlotte hardly qualifies as a classic heroine and much less the supporting characters.
This is definitely a Naturalistic novel with all of its social animals trapped by forces out of their control. They are all too human and what the novel has to say about our present culture resonates long after you put it down. While reading it, though, the humor and irony and syntactical brilliance are at the fore.
Some paragraphs go on for a page or two. But once you get into it, the sentences flow and take you to unexpected nuggets of satiric humor and ironic wit. Of course, the dialogue and characterizations are hilarious too.
I would not say that one "loves" or "likes" either Charlotte Simmons or the rest of the characters---which are not prerequisites for the overall quality of a novel---but they ring true. As their psycholoy is revealed, their personalities and choices become patently plausible, invevitable really.
I'm not sure I "liked" the ending, but again, liking it is neither here nor there in terms of quality. I liked it because it seemed a bit idealized and in someways fulfilling, which is also the reason I didn't like it because thus far, the novel had seemed to follow an inevitable and necessary trajectory so that this "happy ending" of sorts, seems a bit out of place.
However, within this ideal situation that the protagonist finds herself in toward the end, reasons for her ultimate choice are hinted at that she herself is barely aware of, and because of this, who she is, what she learns and all that jazz, says a lot about her that clearly demote her from heroine to basically a person one may not like. She has not learned all that much in fact. She is the social animal that is motivated and affected by societal values; she is not above status as defined by not only peers but also by the larger American culture.
I wanted Charlotte to "do the right thing," I really did. But given her experiences, the ending makes sense and the ambiguity about who she is and what she's becoming, are really apt, I think.
I liked this book for the wry comic turns, the wording and syntax are "ambrosial" (a term used by a character) and the intellect is constantly stimulated. As far as the characters and their ultimate development, it's depressing. And not only because they in effect are "evil" or anything like that, but because they mirror back a litttle (or a lot) of ourselves, especially for those who have travailed the path to Higher Ed. The depression hits because the choices made are done by people like you or I, and their all too human desires, ambitions, and psychology make it hard to judge.
You want to identify with a character who is basically good and incapable of corruption because then you can tell yourself you identify with that character. But there are none---Charlotte hardly qualifies as a classic heroine and much less the supporting characters.
This is definitely a Naturalistic novel with all of its social animals trapped by forces out of their control. They are all too human and what the novel has to say about our present culture resonates long after you put it down. While reading it, though, the humor and irony and syntactical brilliance are at the fore.
December 4, 2012
I got so much enjoyment out of this book. If you attempt to read it as an actual piece of literature (or, God forbid, actually purchase it) you will be incredibly insulted and possibly enraged. I wouldn't even deign to call these characters stereotypes because I think that would be giving them more credit than they rightly deserve. And if you read it as the desperate attempt of an aging writer to remain relevant, it might just make you sad (unless you are already enraged/insulted in which case feelings of hatred may render you unable to feel pity). This is the literary equivalent of Crossroads with Britney Spears. Instead, read it to revel in the hilariously awful (oh sorry, Mr. Wolfe, I meant "well-researched") writing. Especially enjoy the abundant use of the phrase "mons pubis." Seriously.
January 6, 2018
I only read 50% of the book because it was for uni and omg what a pain in the ass. I hated this book SO much!!
April 15, 2012
I'd gone through some of the reviews here before I picked it up and I thought they were exaggerated. Nope. This really IS an old fella's attempt to explain you your college experience (assuming you went to college in the last decade).
I have 2 major problems with this book. First of them is the author. What is your deal, Tom Wolfe? I've never read any other book written by him (don't think I will) so I can't say if it's his usual style but is he a control freak? Is he bizzarely proud of his research? Or, which might be the most probable answer, does he think his readers are f*cking morons? Or maybe he thought only other 70+ year olds will be the ones reading this novel? Why else would he explain everything? People, we get a definition of humping. We learn that Nietzsche was "a German philosopher". He tells us 3.99 USD is not a price of a year's subscription of Cosmo, it's what you pay for one issue (which is supposed to be a shocker, apparently)! Is he for real?!
Also, the main character. Charlotte Simmons, the sweet virgin. Are we supposed to like her? To root for her? To symphatize with her? Because she's the most annoying, self-righteous uptight b*tch. Plus, I'm not from NC but I'll take a wild guess and assume North Carolina circa 2004 generally had TV and internet, right? So am I really supposed to believe a smart girl who went to a normal public high school would be so utterly shocked by a bit of cursing? By a boy in a corridor wearing (the horror!) a t-shirt and boxer shorts? By people (gasp!) having sex (not in front of her, just in the same building)? Had she never watched the O.C., or anything on MTV? Believe me, I get that wild partying and casual sex are not for everyone, I do. I just don't think her reactions to so.many.things. are the reactions of a young girl (even a small town one, who's introvertic, unexperienced etc.). Really, such people simply don't exist.
Also, Wolfe seems to master the subject yet fails to build a realistic world based on his research. Yes, he knows the lingo (yet he uses it same way a nerdy kid who tries to be cool would). But at the same time he seems not to understand how rapidly some fashions and quirks change - around 2004 no girl would take "You look like Britney Spears" as a compliment anymore, yet this very line is used repeatedly and very succesfully by one of the male characters. Tiny detail? Yes, but social realities of such books are based on them (and there are many other examples).
My advice: if you want a story about college kids doing auto-destructive things, read Easton Ellis. He did it much better. 20 years earlier. And while he was still actually young.
Edit: I've actually finished it (I hate to quit books, even if they suck) - my opinion hasn't changed. One more general thought though - some people defend this book saying the author asks us to question the norms. I think they're giving this novel wayyyy too much credit. As one reviewer on this very website said, Wolfe must have got the norms wrong.
I have 2 major problems with this book. First of them is the author. What is your deal, Tom Wolfe? I've never read any other book written by him (don't think I will) so I can't say if it's his usual style but is he a control freak? Is he bizzarely proud of his research? Or, which might be the most probable answer, does he think his readers are f*cking morons? Or maybe he thought only other 70+ year olds will be the ones reading this novel? Why else would he explain everything? People, we get a definition of humping. We learn that Nietzsche was "a German philosopher". He tells us 3.99 USD is not a price of a year's subscription of Cosmo, it's what you pay for one issue (which is supposed to be a shocker, apparently)! Is he for real?!
Also, the main character. Charlotte Simmons, the sweet virgin. Are we supposed to like her? To root for her? To symphatize with her? Because she's the most annoying, self-righteous uptight b*tch. Plus, I'm not from NC but I'll take a wild guess and assume North Carolina circa 2004 generally had TV and internet, right? So am I really supposed to believe a smart girl who went to a normal public high school would be so utterly shocked by a bit of cursing? By a boy in a corridor wearing (the horror!) a t-shirt and boxer shorts? By people (gasp!) having sex (not in front of her, just in the same building)? Had she never watched the O.C., or anything on MTV? Believe me, I get that wild partying and casual sex are not for everyone, I do. I just don't think her reactions to so.many.things. are the reactions of a young girl (even a small town one, who's introvertic, unexperienced etc.). Really, such people simply don't exist.
Also, Wolfe seems to master the subject yet fails to build a realistic world based on his research. Yes, he knows the lingo (yet he uses it same way a nerdy kid who tries to be cool would). But at the same time he seems not to understand how rapidly some fashions and quirks change - around 2004 no girl would take "You look like Britney Spears" as a compliment anymore, yet this very line is used repeatedly and very succesfully by one of the male characters. Tiny detail? Yes, but social realities of such books are based on them (and there are many other examples).
My advice: if you want a story about college kids doing auto-destructive things, read Easton Ellis. He did it much better. 20 years earlier. And while he was still actually young.
Edit: I've actually finished it (I hate to quit books, even if they suck) - my opinion hasn't changed. One more general thought though - some people defend this book saying the author asks us to question the norms. I think they're giving this novel wayyyy too much credit. As one reviewer on this very website said, Wolfe must have got the norms wrong.
October 15, 2022
Can you know that a book is existentially ridiculous and still love it? I’m not quite talking about in the “a movie so bad it’s good” sense. I don’t read I am Charlotte Simmons in the spirit of mockery, and I don’t think it’s totally inept, except in one particular way - it is exactly a book about young college students written by a man in his 70s. Everything about the characterization of Charlotte and the people around her seems anachronistic and tonally wrong. The slang is terrible, the expression of social mores is funny, the very picture of youth is all wrong. And yet there’s something so loving in this portrait, and so endearing in its quaint values and stabs at relevance, that I enjoyed every page. Wolfe's story is engaging, and while Charlotte is 100% a symbol of things he doesn't understand, she's also an inherently compelling protagonist. So funny that the synopsis of this book highlight's Wolfe's satirical wit, as there's nothing resembling effective satire here. Instead, there's a sweet sharp story that exists despite itself and a character out of time that fails in depiction but sings from a place of pure sentiment.
Can you imagine people chanting "Go go, JoJo" at a player named JoJo at a basketball court? I sure can't! It's rhythmically terrible. But it's exactly what I like about this daft book.
Can you imagine people chanting "Go go, JoJo" at a player named JoJo at a basketball court? I sure can't! It's rhythmically terrible. But it's exactly what I like about this daft book.
April 5, 2022
I'm not going to go around recommending this one willy-nilly to church friends looking for just a really good read, as it's pretty raunchy and brimming with bad language. That said, the raunch is in the service of verisimilitude, and the satirical humor is spot on. I was a university student at the same time as the fictional Charlotte Simmons, and while frat boys were soooo not my scene (I was too busy hanging out with my local Salvation Army brass band friends—yeah!) reading this novel brought me right back to those days in the early 2000's. Wolfe clearly did his research; everything down to music and clothing references (Ben Harper and Abercrombie and Fitch!), not to mention his perfect application of the word Okaaaaaay, was brilliant. I was totally engrossed and desperate to see what would become of Charlotte Simmons.
Also, I find it hilarious and kinda ironic that many of the negative reviews characterize Wolfe as some stodgy, back in my day, killjoy of a grandpa. Wolfe is definitely a grampie that I'd want at my party; he's hilarious!
Now for my next Wolfe novel...
Also, I find it hilarious and kinda ironic that many of the negative reviews characterize Wolfe as some stodgy, back in my day, killjoy of a grandpa. Wolfe is definitely a grampie that I'd want at my party; he's hilarious!
Now for my next Wolfe novel...
April 13, 2020
Certainly not one of Wolfe's best. The book really began well for me and drew me into the Charlotte Simmons story of a young girl from the mountains of North Carolina going to this highly rated liberal arts university in Pennsylvania. A fish out of water type story, and once there this book bogged down for me. Maybe I am too familiar with colleges and all that goes on there, but the book just did not move me and we always just sitting there and I had a hard time returning again and again to the book. As with all of Wolfe's novels they are extremely well written which, for me, is the only reason I gave it a 3***. Again, not his best and maybe not as bad as the reviewers have said for years, but certainly not what you expect from Wolfe.
April 26, 2017
Another great read from Wolfe, one of my favorites. Bought this for $1 at a book sale last week. Wolfe tells the story of a bunch of college students at a prestigious University.
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