So, I spent Thanksgiving laid up with a nasty cold and nothing to do but read and sleep. I decided to give Charlotte Simmons a go as a break from my recent spate of non-fiction.

With every passing minute, I find myself disliking this book more and more. In fact, I'm starting to hate it! I can't tell if my ire is directed at Wolfe's ability to cram a 20 page short story into 700, the book's hasty and entirely unsatisfying ending, the shallow/unbelievable characters who elicit no sympathy/empathy/cheering for their victory or defeat, the relentless repetition of certain phrases (i.e., downlighters, ruturtrut and pelvic saddle), his less-than-clever rap lyrics (M.C. Wolfe also failed miserably as a rap lyricist in 'A Man In Full'...give it up, old man!), the constant need to describe the same things over and over (we knew JoJo was 6-10 about 400 pages ago, Tom), the flat, pseudo-clever wordplay, e.g. the Bitsosushi car. It's funny cuz it's Japanese! Hyuk hyuk...

I think people think they're getting some really biting satire when Tom Wolfe decides to tackle another decade's zeitgeist. 'Charlotte' isn't satire. It's not even remotely funny and its characters are uninteresting stereotypes completely familiar to anyone who's seen a John Hughes film. Instead, it's a rather creepy look at how an elderly man looks at issues like the sexuality of people 50 years his junior. Seriously, the 50 page lead up to Charlotte's rape/deflowering at the frat formal was gratuitous and rather unsettling - especially so when picturing Wolfe (who dedicated this book to his college-aged daughters, no less!) sitting in his Manhattan apartment in his white suit, late at night, writing about an 18 year old girl losing her virginity...from her point of view. If I wasn't so sick, I'd have taken a long shower after that passage.

'Charlotte Simmons' doesn't even fall into the category of social commentary. Wolfe attacks obvious targets with no new insight. Far out! The jock has a brain! The well-intentioned geek has a devious side.

It must be said that I did not go to a big college with big time athletics. But I know this much, if ANYONE came up with a chant as dumb as "Go go, Jojo!" at one of our basketball games, they would have certainly been dealt with harshly and expeditiously.

Maybe for the '10s, an 80 year old Wolfe can take on the scandalous world of Montessori schools!

This book sucked!

This book was the ABSOLUTE WORST. The only reason I even got through it was because my cousin gave it to me for Christmas(WHY? WHY MUST YOU TORTURE ME SO!!?) and I felt obigated to finish it.
First of all, the main character is this insufferable caricature of a goody-good southern girl who is so freaking naive about all life subjects that you want to punch her in the face(People drink beer and have sex in college? Who would have thought?!) For real? No one is that stupid. Also, she is a HUGE hypocrite. She's all like " I want people to be jealous and think I'm with this hot frat guy but when I see people dirty dancing I nearly throw up"! She's really just a stuck up mean girl who doesn't want to be seen with the nerdy guy and safety pins her dresses up so people will admire her legs. Her character just doesn't make sense. She wants to attract boys but then is scandalized when boys are attracted to her.
Also, okay, I'm from Arkansas, so I've seen hick and the way Mr. Wolfe portrays Charlotte and her family is so ridiculously stereotypical that it gets annoying fast. Has he ever even been to "the country"? I suspect not.
Secondly, the language in this book is weird, and very foul. It's like a pervy old man is trying way too hard to try to talk like "young folks today". Example: he talks about a character having "loamy loins"(Wtf?) and how the line of sweat in some girls butt crack is so sexy. Gross. I'm in college, and I've never heard anybody talk like the people in this book.
Finally, the ending sucks. After reading all that, I hoped the ending woud be somewhat redeeming, but no. The character of Charlotte goes from bad to worse. There is no growth, no lessons learned. She just turns into even more of a retarded uptight hypocrite.
I come to the conclusion that Tom Wolfe has no idea what college-aged kids are like but for some reason has a very bad opinion of them.

My favorite book all time. I read it about a year after graduating college, and while I was working in a job where I interacted primarily with college freshmen. The themes in this book are SO relevant to today's college campus atmosphere. I wanted to make all of my students read it and learn from it. A very powerful book from the voice of a timid female college freshman.

Tornassi indietro non lo leggerei.

Il libro mi è capitato “purtroppo” per puro caso, a seguito di una catena di scambio/letture, dico purtroppo perché non mi è affatto piaciuto, degno neanche dell'unica stella data. Probabilmente rivolto ad un lettore più giovane, anche se, onestamente, non saprei spiegarmi perché un giovane lettore stimolato dalla narrativa potrebbe mai interessarsi ad un testo simile.

Ambientato in un ricco e ambito College degli US, infarcito di ogni tipo di banalità, superficialità e stereotipo possibile..
Ci sono gli sportivi, i secchioni, le posh mean girls e ogni tipo di character a cui i mille telefilm americani (tutti uguali) con il bel finale, dagli anni ‘90 ad oggi, ci hanno abituato. Sembra un miscuglio di tante brutte serie televisive per adolescenti; trama scontata, oltretutto di una noia incredibilmente incredibile e infinita in quanto lunghissimo..! Quasi 800 pagine inutili, per una storia che se fosse stata 1/7 della sua lunghezza sarebbe già stata sufficiente. Mi dispiace molto aver perso tempo a leggere questo libro ma “purtroppo” termino sempre un libro iniziato.. Purtroppo..

In classic Tom Wolfe style, this book provides some fascinating insights about humanity. Sure, the characters are types, but I actually found them all relatable to the common man in some way (fears, desires, plans for future, etc.). Writing style had all the wit and sass of an older Tom Wolfe but with all the light-hearted, mocking amusement of an observer who really isn't worked up about what's wrong with the world - I'm sure Wolfe disapproved of the college culture he wrote about, but you wouldn't necessarily guess that aside from the fact that characters get logical consequences for their actions.

Actually found reading the negative reviews about this book amusing... I think some readers either a) have never read a Wolfe book/essay before and therefore don't get HIM, or b) were offended by some of his veiled criticisms of modern university life and therefore it hit too close to THEM.

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.

Due stelle e mezzo.
Assolutamente non all'altezza de "Il falò delle vanità", e acquistato solo perché quest'ultimo mi era piaciuto moltissimo.
Qualche buono spunto, ma nel complesso una lettura non troppo utile, che ci si può tranquillamente risparmiare se non si è particolarmente interessati alla vita nei College statunitensi.

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.

worst book ive ever read

This book is...horrible. Something about this novel bothered me the entire time I was reading it. Actually, a lot of somethings bothered me. For one, Wolfe's extreme stereotypical carictures of the characters in this novel are all abrasive and very unrealistic. Secondly, the book is entirely too long--he could have easily cut out at least 200 pages. The excessive length of the book has much to do with the fact that each character makes numerous unncessary very repetitive tirades of their thoughts. After a while I began to try to skim--or even partly skip over some of these such literary occurences, in the novel, because they did nothing but slow the story down. Most importantly, I did not feel any sort of attachement to any character in this novel, furthermore they did more of a job annoying me and repulsing me than anything else.

Much of Wolfe's writing in this novel sounds more like someone from the oustide of college life looking in and satirically commenting about all the terrible horrible, immoral things that happen. Wolfe's potrayal of college life is far--very far---off base. He has no idea what he is talking about. I became especially annoyed at Wolfe's attempt to make a mockery of rap music throughout the novel. Wolfe has obviously barely ever listened to rap music and cannot even begin to fathom the diversity, cultural relevance and depth of thought that much of hip-hop music is about.

The characters in this book are all very simplistic--in the fact that they have no depth whatsoever. I am an avid reader, and one of the great things about fiction novels is the ability of the author to be able to actually make you feel what the characters feel--to experience their emotions. This book did not do that. In fact, I was mostly annoyed by each and every character, and I did not feel for them at all. They were not layered, they did not seem all that human at all. Rather than being believable, I saw them more as puppets that Wolfe manipulated in a way that he saw fit to portray. Racism, sexism, classism and the like run rapid in between and all around every line of this book--and not in a good way.

There is more to college than athletes, fraternities, academics and drug, sex and alcohol. It is true that these things do exist, but certainly not in the way that Wolfe portrays them. There is more to athletes than just sports. There is more to fraternities and the guys who are in them than just sex, parties, drugs and alcohol. There is more to academics than just the extreme outcast geniuses. AND there is more to those geniuses than academics. In simpler terms, Wolfe fails to portray the complexities of college life. The ability for students to exist in between the stereotypes and oustide of them as well.

What is probably the worst part of the novel is the main character, Charlotte Simmons. She is entirely too pure and innocent to be believable. She puts herself on a pedestal and instead of feeling compelled by it and her ability to look at herself in such a positive matter is more so annoying and off putting because she places herself above EVERYONE else in the novel and above every bad thing she happens to encounter. No one is too good for EVERYONE. She thinks herself to good to experience the realities of life.

Wolfe breaks no barriers here, or makes no achievments--he may in fact have set us back thirty or forty years in writing this novel and releasing it to the public. I surely hope that there are not too many people who take his potrayal of college life--and the students a part of it--as true to life.

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...

Let's say 2 1/2 stars. I can't give it fewer than that because the prose is beautiful. However, I humbly think I know a thing or two about college students. I was an undergraduate when Wolfe published this book, and have spent most of the years since then teaching them. Are they naive? Sure. Do they make poor life decisions? Absolutely. But they're not the status-obsessed orgy-goers of this book. At least, most aren't. The book itself seems to have nothing but contempt for its characters, and while some of them (the rape-y frat boy and the entitled, cheating athlete, stereotypes that do represent a reality in some cases) deserve it, most of them, from Charlotte herself to her vapid roommate to her gossipy friends, are poor, shallow caricatures of kids trying to figure out where they fit.

The depiction of depression is also disappointingly facile. And Wolfe is walking a very fine line between representing sexism and racism and actually being sexist and racist. I'm not sure which side of that line he ends up on.