Hungry Like the Wolfe
"Surely contemporary America offers a third way between, as it were, the missionary calling and the missionary position."
That fine sentence is from a piece about Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons," his widely panned but widely read new novel. It wasn't difficult for me to dismiss it as a bloated, boring behemoth (the novel weighs in at 676 pages and it is quite hard for me to make that kind of commitment), especially considering the putrid reviews. It is difficult for me to take a man who dresses like Wolfe seriously:
When almost every article about you features the word "dandy" prominently, you're just asking for ridicule, a la Jon Stewart's smackdown of that bow-tie wearing bitch Tucker Carlson.
A couple of friends of mine seem to be enjoying the novel, even if it does seem likely to be kind of dumb, at least to this particular college student. Granted, this is a classic example of judging a book by its cover (and the press it has received), but hear this- I'm in the twilight of my college years, and I don't need a geriatric blowhard to tell me what's right or wrong with our universities. My goodness! They have intercourse! They drink alcohol, sometimes excessively! They don't really care for their studies that much! INSANITY!
I know that I should probably read more of the novel besides the quotes featured as evidence in reviews that rip the thing to shreds, but as a reader, I feel that I have the right to be just as irrational and unfair as I want to be, especially when there is so much great stuff out there that can't get any kind of coverage. If I'm going to take the time to give Mr. Wolfe a chance, he had better give me a damn good reason to do so. You wrote a book about college students- so what? I do enough navel-gazing on my own time, so don't give me that 'unexamined life not being worth living' jive. Write about something I know little about, and maybe we can have a relationship. Because that's what we're really getting at here- the relationship between the author and his or her readers. A nearly 700 page novel is no small thing to take on, and Tommy, I'm just not so sure we're right for each other. Not this time at least.
But so you also wrote a book about drugs and Ken Kesey? Now we're talking! After all, I'm just another debauched college student. But you already knew that, didn't you?
That fine sentence is from a piece about Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons," his widely panned but widely read new novel. It wasn't difficult for me to dismiss it as a bloated, boring behemoth (the novel weighs in at 676 pages and it is quite hard for me to make that kind of commitment), especially considering the putrid reviews. It is difficult for me to take a man who dresses like Wolfe seriously:
When almost every article about you features the word "dandy" prominently, you're just asking for ridicule, a la Jon Stewart's smackdown of that bow-tie wearing bitch Tucker Carlson.
A couple of friends of mine seem to be enjoying the novel, even if it does seem likely to be kind of dumb, at least to this particular college student. Granted, this is a classic example of judging a book by its cover (and the press it has received), but hear this- I'm in the twilight of my college years, and I don't need a geriatric blowhard to tell me what's right or wrong with our universities. My goodness! They have intercourse! They drink alcohol, sometimes excessively! They don't really care for their studies that much! INSANITY!
I know that I should probably read more of the novel besides the quotes featured as evidence in reviews that rip the thing to shreds, but as a reader, I feel that I have the right to be just as irrational and unfair as I want to be, especially when there is so much great stuff out there that can't get any kind of coverage. If I'm going to take the time to give Mr. Wolfe a chance, he had better give me a damn good reason to do so. You wrote a book about college students- so what? I do enough navel-gazing on my own time, so don't give me that 'unexamined life not being worth living' jive. Write about something I know little about, and maybe we can have a relationship. Because that's what we're really getting at here- the relationship between the author and his or her readers. A nearly 700 page novel is no small thing to take on, and Tommy, I'm just not so sure we're right for each other. Not this time at least.
But so you also wrote a book about drugs and Ken Kesey? Now we're talking! After all, I'm just another debauched college student. But you already knew that, didn't you?
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