I Am Charlotte Simmons: A Novel

I Am Charlotte Simmons is filled with filthy language and unspeakable situations. Unfortunately, I think it is a very accurate description of contemporary college life.

Tom Wolfe knew what he was doing when he set out to shock readers with this depiction of a naive Southern girl's scholarship-funded experience at a prestigious university. In no way could Charlotte have been prepared for what she encountered. And from the experiences of my children and their friends, I have to believe that the alcohol-fueled bacchanal Wolfe depicts is very close to the mark.

Consider this. Many schools have done away with Friday classes altogether, which students use as an excuse to start the party on Thursday night. Often, early-morning classes are gone, too. Schools turn a blind eye to students' drinking in their dorm rooms. Rules against overnight "guests" are rarely enforced--roommates are "sexiled" or forced to pretend not to notice, or care about, the activities going on in the other bed. While some kids get to college on their own merits, let's face it: a legacy student with the money to pay the tuition is going to get in, and he's not there to study.

Charlotte is surprised to find the world that exists on campus; she had thought that it would be peopled with others like herself, who were actually interested in learning. Instead, the financial gulf between her and the frat boys and sorority girls is the most painfully obvious problem she finds at first. There really is no niche for Charlotte, who wants to fit in while still retaining her values. Charlotte is treated brutally and exploited, both physically and emotionally. The decency with which she grew up is hard to find at her university. Modesty, chastity, self-control and respect for others is pretty thin on the ground.

The year my older daughter started college, another freshman girl was murdered at the same school. She was staying with a bunch of young men in a house off-campus before classes started. She had her own car, which was found miles from the school. One of the men living in the house had killed her; as I recall, sex and alcohol were involved.

Say what you want to, but the relaxed moral code that says it's fine for girls to stay in men's homes (and share hotel rooms, which Charlotte does) and to feel free to indulge in alcohol (Charlotte does this too) and casual sex (into which Charlotte is pushed, somewhat knowingly) had dire consequences in this case. While the overly-sheltered Charlotte is drawn as ultra-naive, poor, and idealistic, the truth is that few 18-year-old kids are prepared to hold their own in the prevailing wild lifestyles on campuses.

This book is wrenching, heartbreaking, and incredibly frank. Yes, it's a novel, and yes, what happens to Charlotte is terrible, but I would encourage every parent of a teen who hopes to attend college to read it. Education has become secondary to partying and hookups. Tom Wolfe is trying to get us to open our eyes. If this book gets you to dig a little deeper into what really goes on at your child's campus, it's done its work.

I couldn't wait for this book to come out in paperback yet somehow, other books kept taking priority on my must-read list. Once I finally picked it up I was totally engrossed. This book transported me back to college days and the wild world it can be. Tom Wolfe is a wonderful writer--a bit wordy at times yet extremely skillful with his descriptive powers. It's hard to believe the speed at which I devoured this 700 plus page book. Read it--you won't be disappointed!

Awesome book, Tom Wolfe is a master of modern language. He really personifies America's 18-20somethings, the good and the bad. Fun read, one of my tops :)

I'm a french reader and have been delighted by this reading. With all those College&University movies, I was looking for a good novel on US university but found Bret Easton Elis a bit boring a times.
I was very satisfied with this one.

This is so refined, Tom Wolfe knows life for sure, like the old man he is. And with his outstanding litterary skills and empathy, he goes even deeper.
So that you really get inside the characters' head (motivations, fears, etc).

And I believe that's the main difference between movies and books: books explain things, they analyse, whereas movies suggest things (apart from the voice over), both with their own angle and means.
But the result is that you get a much more subtle picture of the characters and the situations in a book, although I agree a film can be as poetic and have its own perfections.

But because litterature is now surounded with so many entertainments, I really think it should stick to the XIXth century template, to its "analytic study" identity.
Many authors today try too hard to write like a movie. What's the point then, you might as well see the movie !
Of course a book must have as well a good sense of litterary suspense : more than ever should a book be a page turner (otherwise people just won't read anymore: simple as that, they will see movies !)

Anyway this book got it all (analysis & litterary suspense)
And it takes place in this most fascinating theatre scene (at least for an non-american) : a university campus. Sort of a hiatus between teenage and adult ages, city and countryside.
A world apart.
And the vast US territory somehow makes these green and gothic islets of youth, if I may say, even more mysterious (I mean, a campus in a small territory like France is not quite the same).

Of course Wolfe has a severe (although indifferent, beyond sadness) look on the rather depraved life on the campus, the despise of intelligence, etc.
There is a magnificent scene in the middle of the book where a family man returns to one of these big picnics around the stadium before the match (I forgot the name of these events) and just looks around him, amazed by the difference to what it used to be (traditional picnics on blankets, students in ties, talking normally, flirting nicely, sober, and probably enjoying just the same, if not more... than those drunk students in shorts around SUV, swearing and listening to rap music, girls showing their body, mixed smell of beer and urine floating in the air, plastic glasses all over the grass...

To follow Charlotte, the very clever but unsophisticated provincial girl, in this harsh environment is always interresting, until an rather odd, ambiguous but in my opinion beautiful end.

The subject of the book will never go out of style and will forever be a hot issue amoung both students and teachers. The core issues have been the same since college education came into being. The presentation style is what I have trouble digesting - way too verbose and repetitious. Sometimes it seems that Mr. Wolfe forgot that he had said the same thing before, be it informing of a character's feelings or when describing a situation. Frankly, often I felt like skipping the pages here and there only to stumble upon a repeat of something else. This 'I may have told you but here I am saying it yet again' obscures a relevant topic. It is very clear that Mr. Wolfe does not believe that brevity to tbe the key to a good story. This is not a book that had me interested as many characters are predictable, presented in black and white, thus making getting to the last page a great relief.

Just started the book...it looks good so far. A friend recommended it to me....said it may refer to Duke University...Don;'t know!

I am 3/4's of the way through and it has yet to grab my interest. I am weary of reading about frat dullards.