I Am Charlotte Simmons

Say what you will about the man in the white suit…I do declare that he has not left the building! My mother (of all people) recommended this biting, vulgar and entertaining critique of the suprisingly empty American college experience, telling me that it was, and I quote, “shocking, entirely shocking”. Since my mother regularly thinks Oprah’s shows and B movies are “shocking”, I took this passionate literary suggestion with a grain of salt. However, over winter break last year, I decided to pick up I Am Charlotte Simmons for one of those light reads that one craves after reading hundreds of poorly written student essays on Poe and Romanticism (why do I give them these topics??). While Charlotte did not give me any sort of a break, what it did do was prove what a master of critique Tom Wolfe really is.

In the one heavy suitcase of our heroine, Charlotte Simmons, a brilliant, gifted girl struggling to get out of a town for which she is clearly too big, and away from parents that don’t do well with multi-syllabic words, Wolfe packs his readers back to college. But, gentle reader, this is not the college your momma attended. Through the eyes of Charlotte, we see the plagiarism (which, as an English teacher, made my blood boil), the sex, the drug use, the influential music scene, the troubled race relations, the total and complete disregard for any academic pursuit or honorable betterment of the mind that have taken over our nation’s university system (and especially, I think Wolfe would argue, the private, elite institutions – the book was, per rumor, based on Duke, pre-scandal). It is not pretty.

Throughout her four years, Charlotte changes from a curious, innocent, nerd (just like Rachel and me upon entering (and leaving) Cal ), into a cookie cutter co-ed who doesn’t recognize her own reflection. I love how Wolfe showed all sides of Dupont University with Charlotte and her “friends”, from the academics, to the jocks, to the administration. No one hides from his pen stroke. It made me so glad that I avoided the greek system and jocks in general.

Despite his unflinching treatment of subjects such as date rape, academic dishonesty, over-indulgement of bratty kids, spoling and subsequent using of poor black basketball players to boost a team’s record, bad dorm food, crazy roomates and extreme partying, Wolfe somehow uses stereotypes to avoid stereotypes. Don’t ask me how he does this. I found myself riveted by his grasp of teenage vernacular, though the dialogue is sometimes exaggerated – or maybe not. Also, being a nerd at heart, I identified with Charlotte’s desire to know everything, but I was also terrified by how easily she was swayed from this endeavor. In short, she is a little weak, if you ask me. Or maybe college really changed in these last years, and I, as well as any other unsuspecting, wide-eyed small town girl can be sucked into the dark side of “life without parents”.

The novel is more than a bit over the top, as are all Wolfe novels, but he is clearly a journalist, reporting, as he did in Electric Kool Aid, as he did in Bonfire, on what really happens behind closed doors during some of the most unsettling times in history. Wolfe gets off easy though, because most of his readers are not college students, and think MTV and Hip Hop are rotting the minds of the youth. Maybe he thinks he’ll get away with the sensationalism because none of the readers will challenge him. The wonderful thing about this book is that I don’t care if he is exaggerating, or even flat out lying. He is just smart enough to know how to make the stories interesting, believable and unbelievable ((not)just like real life) and a simultaneously sick and fun read.

NOTE: Supposedly, he did a year’s worth of reserch on the state of the system by employing several “undercover” college students to do his bidding. I’d like to know what they think of his portrayal.