<p>Hey, I know that stuff goes on. It was the reason my D transfered from her first school. But even there, a lower-ranked state school, there were plenty of people not involved, and not considered social pariahs. When I refered to mysoginism, though, I didn't mean the campus itself, but the book. there was no positve female character--all were portrayed as being at each others' throats, including Charlotte, who again, as i said, only draws a sense of self at the end by being seen with the BMOC, not for anything she's done, herself.</p>
<p>IMHO the book isn't very good, not nearly as good as several of Wolfe's past novels, but I do believe he portrays the college party scene accurately.</p>
<p>Just an aside from my work: the behaviors that Wolfe alludes (and social attitudes) seem to be more common at the higher ranking schools (and flagship state schools) than at the lower-ranking ones, or schools where there are more commuters.</p>
<p>I seem to remember a positive portrayal of a lesbian writer who was a member of the nerdy club. But be that as it may, what I liked about Charlotte (I didn't particularly enjoy the novel) was that she wasn't unidimensional, that she went from unsophisticated naif to victim to bounced-back success story. I would have called that pretty positive myself.</p>
<p>My remark about misogynism was intended to point out what I saw as Wolfe's largely realistic portrayal of the marginalization of women at many top colleges and universities - especially as it comes to determining campus culture - and the many different ways they try to cope (about which I thought Wolfe was spot-on.)</p>
<p>We recently read this for my book club. Mothers of senior daughters were predictably horrified! As another fan of Tom Wolfe's previous work, in my opinion, Charlotte Simmons missed its mark. Years ago, Wolfe called for other modern novelists to return to the realistic tradition. He has been compared to the great authors of the 19th century for his ability to document social culture of a particular time, place and people. </p>
<p>IMO, that is what Wolfe fails to accomplish in this book. What is the big revelation here? The characters as portrayed are obviously made to type. As such, what is so shocking about the fact that college students can be immature, crude, obscene (engaging in f*&% - patois, the tendency to insert the f word at any and all opportunities), and here's a shocker - drink and have casual sex. </p>
<p>The cliched characters were not believable for several reasons. First, on a campus such as Dupont (ranked second only to Princeton), wouldn't Charlotte have been able to meet more like minded individuals?
Surely she wouldn't be the sole person on campus determined to gain something academic from her education? For a major university the size of Dupont, the idea that Charlotte was never able to get past the (hackneyed) frat or jock scene seems unlikely, not to mention dated. Nowhere is there portrayed the vivid plurality of culture that exists on the American college campus - groups as varied as there are interests exist on any campus today. </p>
<p>Wolfe does have an incredible ability to engage with his narrative style, however some of the prose seems stilted and awkward, as the author himself must have seemed as he conducted his research as a 74 year old frat boy wanna be! He apparently traveled to Stanford, U of Michigan, UNC, U of Ala, and U of Fl. His daughter attended Duke, and the description of Dupont most reminded me of that school.</p>
<p>His efforts to drive the novel forward depended on making Charlotte so naive, that she would have had to have been locked away in a convent or cult - Charlotte appears to have had no prior familiarilty with current day TV, magazines or movies or she would have had a clue that at least some of what she encountered was not atypical. All in all, this was a book that was an easy and entertaining read for its over 700 page girth. However, I think the author missed an opportunity to show a more detailed and updated portrait of contemporary American life on the college campus. </p>
<p>And just for CCers, in one scene the president of the university was discussing USNews rankings. He rants, " Here is this third-rate news weekly aimed at businessmen who don't like to read, trying desperately to move up in the race but forever wallowing in the dust of 'Time' and 'Newsweek' and some character dreams up a cute gimmick: Let's rank the colleges."</p>
<p>PS The one thing I still can't get past is the concept of co-ed bathrooms. If they are anything like Wolfe portrays them, I can most definitely identify with Charlotte over that issue!</p>
<p>
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Just an aside from my work: the behaviors that Wolfe alludes (and social attitudes) seem to be more common at the higher ranking schools (and flagship state schools) than at the lower-ranking ones, or schools where there are more commuters.
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</p>
<p>Once upon a time, those behaviors might have been simply and accurately attributed to "spoiled rotten" students.</p>
<p>BTW, Mini, there was another story on urinating and spreading feces in dorm common rooms in our alma mater's newspaper this week. I seem to recall most of the students being properly potty-trained when I was there!</p>
<p>Cited above (post #20). I doubt (but can't be sure) there are many women doing the spreading, much as virtually all of the social, cultural, and athletic scene in Wolfe's novel is initiated/dominated by men.</p>
<p>We had our share of rowdy times in Perry House. But nothing like what seems to have become de rigeur in the Purple Valley these days. Had someone told me what has been reported repeatedly in the Record (I presume there is lots more that isn't reported), I would have assumed they were simply making it up - maybe like Tom Wolfe or somethun ;).</p>
<p>Were the characters intentionally one dimensional? If so, to what end? None of the characters had a tenth of the smarts, humour or complexities that I see in my sons' peers evry day. The basketball player did have revelations--at the rate of a complete dullard. 50 pages...<em>thunk</em>...50 pages...* thunk*...and so on...talk about the telegraphed result! Ugh. I got it after the initial character description.</p>
<p>Charlotte, supposed academic titan, was impressionable beyond belief. Yes, I recongnized some of her navel gazing as my own a tthe same age--but there was so much more to my 17 year old story. For one thing, along with that hedonistic experimentation, I was on fire, ON FIRE about my subject and my courses. My S1 is too.</p>
<p>Charlotte was not. Her academic attitudes were much less mature (impress the teacher, get good test grades etc). She was portrayed as a high school student who has stumbled into an orgy. </p>
<p>Yes, college is an orgy of sorts, but that isn't the main course on offer.</p>
<p>and you seem to forget that Charlotte was poor and very much unexposed to the greater society at large and from a poor academic preparation. Did these facts escape you???</p>
<p>Like several other members here, I found the characters to be largely unsympathetic. Each of the main characters seems to embody every typecast aspect and apocryphal anecdote of their stereotype. I had the feeling that Wolfe wrote down hundreds of these, and then tried to cram them all into each of his few major characters. Not that these things don't happen, but the characters were a little too over the top and lacking in nuance for my taste. Give me Bonfire or A Man in Full any day... keep Charlotte.</p>
<p>Dunno hazmat. Don't poor people have social exposure? Were there tremendous differences between Charlotte's hometown social life and her college social life? Had Wofe bothered to add the intellectual component, there might have been (as in real life). But in the book, by illustrating the town bullies, I believe Wolfe makes the point that there WEREN'T many differences. Both societies had their crude underbellies. ADmittedly, his illustration was tiresome and predictable.</p>
<p>As for Charlotte's poor academic preparation, she answered the most difficult questions in her classes. She had no trouble getting top marks when she did the work. I'd say she had excellent preparation--for a poor kid.</p>
<p>Hey, I read the book, I thought parts of it were funny. It mostly made me wonder whether scholarship works out...........if it is more trouble than it is worth. I cannot totally disagree with much of what you say about the character development mainly I was interested in the campus activites.</p>
<p>Would it be correct to assume that athletes are much less lionized at most LACs, in the IVY league, and maybe even at Stanford?</p>
<p>Why would you assume that? At the LAC I referred to above, athletes are a much larger portion of the student body than at the state schools; sports are huge. And the basketball players at, say, Duke or Stanford, are less "lionized"? I certainly doubt it.</p>
<p>It's true about the larger percentage of athletes at LACs, but I was hoping that the answer was individuals or even teams captured less of the campus mindset than at Duke (Oh, I meant Dupont). Further, I hoped that the academic caliber of the athletes at LACs and Ivys was closer to the student body as a whole, and that many of them chose their schools for some of these reasons. Last I knew, the Dupont depiction does not accurately reflect the social position of athletes at Stanford (except a healthy break in admissions).</p>
<p>"It's true about the larger percentage of athletes at LACs, but I was hoping that the answer was individuals or even teams captured less of the campus mindset than at Duke (Oh, I meant Dupont)."</p>
<p>At some. See post #20 above. Not isolated. If you check through the on-line edition of the paper, you'll see what has gone on around football games (which they have now happily taken very sternly under control.)</p>
<p>Any way, it MIGHT be true - but I just wouldn't make assumptions.</p>
<p>I'm sure there is a postive correlation among athletics, fraternities, binge drinking and various forms of bad behaviour referred to. You no doubt know better than I whether minimizing the first or second has a serioius effect on the third and fourth. I hope there are still schools with a reasonable amount of the first three and much less of the fourth.</p>
<p>Don't know, but I do that problems would be fixed real quick if USNWR would include number of feces-spreading incidents in its ranking methodology. ;)</p>
<p>I'm sorry to hear about such an awful incident at your alma mater, Mini. Maybe because both my kids go to less frat-oriented schools, or less athlete oriented (both at the bottom of their conferences :)), they haven't encountered anything remotely like that. But that wouldn't be fair, either. I attended a frat-filled athletic powerhouse, and I found lots of reasonable, kind, nice, academically oriented people there, too. Because they are everywhere, except Dupont, apparently.</p>
<p>
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Don't know, but I do that problems would be fixed real quick if USNWR would include number of feces-spreading incidents in its ranking methodology.
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</p>
<p>Knowing USNEWS, they'd probably have add yet a second component of the ranking: a "predicted feces-spreading rate" and the degree to which each college under- or over-performs.</p>
<p>If you want to read something a bit more encouraging about some kids in college, take the time to read Absolutely American : Four Years at West Point. </p>
<p>There are some very special women and men at all five service academies who forego a "normal college experience" and pledge to serve their country so that the Charlotte Simmons' of the world can have their college experieinces.</p>
<p>Here are some thoughts from a Freshman at the Air Force Academy for anyone who might not get why someone would go to a service academy:
Joseph R. Tomczak
Cadet Fourth Class,
United States Air Force Academy</p>
<p>So after our sunburns have faded and the memories of our winter break have been reduced to pictures weve pinned on our desk boards, and once again weve exchanged t-shirts and swim suits for flight suits and camouflage, there still remains the question that every cadet at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs has asked themselves at some point: Why did we come back? Why, after spending two weeks with our family would we return to one of the most demanding lifestyles in the country? After listening to our friends who are home from State or Ivy League schools chock full of wisdom about how our war in Iraq is unjust and unworldly, why would we return? And after watching the news and reading the papers which only seem to condemn the militarys every mistake and shadow every victory, why would we continue to think it is worth the sacrifice of a normal college life?
Is it because the institution to which we belong is tuition-free? Anyone who claims this has forgotten that we will, by the time we graduate, repay the U.S. taxpayer many times over in blood, sweat, and tears. Is it because the schooling we are receiving is one of the best undergraduate educations in the country? While the quality of the education is second to none, anyone who provides this as a main reason has lost sight of the awesome responsibility that awaits those who are tough enough to graduate and become commissioned officers in the U.S. Air Force.
I come back to the Academy because I want to have the training necessary so that one day Ill have the incredible responsibility of leading the sons and daughters of America in combat. These men and women will never ask about my Academy grade point average, their only concern will be that I have the ability to lead them expertly I will be humbled to earn their respect.
I come back to the Academy because I want to be the commander who saves lives by negotiating with Arab leaders
in their own language. I come back to the Academy because, if called upon, I want to be the pilot who flies half way around the world with three mid-air refuelings to send a bomb from 30,000 feet into a basement housing the enemy
through a ventilation shaft two feet wide. For becoming an officer in todays modern Air Force is so much more than just command; it is being a diplomat, a strategist, a communicator, a moral compass, but always a warrior first.
I come back to the Air Force Academy because right now the United States is fighting a global war that is an away game in Iraq taking the fight to the terrorists. And whether or not we think the terrorists were in Iraq before our invasion, they are unquestionably there now. And if there is any doubt as to whether this is a global war, just ask the people in Amman, in London, in Madrid, in Casablanca, in Riyadh, and in Bali. This war must remain an away game because we have seen what happens when it becomes a home game
I come back to the Academy because I want to be a part of that fight. I come back to the Academy because I dont want my vacationing family to board a bus in Paris that gets blown away by someone who thinks that it would be a good idea to convert the Western world to Islam. I come back to the Academy because I dont want the woman I love to be the one who dials her last frantic cell phone call while huddled in the back of an airliner with a hundred other people seconds away from slamming into the Capitol building. I come back to the Academy because during my freshman year of high school I sat in a geometry class and watched nineteen terrorists change the course of history live on television. For the first time, every class currently at a U.S. Service Academy made the decision to join after the 2001 terror attacks. Some have said that the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan only created more terrorists
I say that the attacks of September 11th, 2001 created an untold more number of American soldiers; I go to school with 4,000 of them. And thats worth missing more than a few frat parties.</p>