Rethinking summer reading

The Right Stuff: Students have much to be thankful for

Upon reaching Bowdoin College, first years (not freshmen, mind you!) are taught the ins and outs of the fabled "Bowdoin Bubble." This "Bubble," which revisionist historians date to the late 1960s, was used as an excuse to forget about the "real world" and enjoy the liminal atmosphere of college.

The Right Stuff: Students battle against personal responsibility

I have long theorized that four years at Bowdoin, while building up our minds, erodes our sense of personal responsibility. The evidence is compelling. Whiny and entitled comment cards at the dining hall. Messes abandoned all over campus, left for the College to clean up. Complete lack of hygiene that results in housekeeper exploitation.

The Right Stuff

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

December 3, 2004

The student body was asked recently about recommendations for next year's first-year book. The timing could not have been better, because I just finished a great new novel over Thanksgiving break: I Am Charlotte Simmons by the incomparable Tom Wolfe. Since the last four selections have been left-wing propaganda pieces, I Am Charlotte Simmons gets my vote for next year.

Tom Wolfe, now in his 70s, is one of the most important writers and social critics of the past 40 years. He defined the Cold War space race (The Right Stuff), New York limousine liberalism (Radical Chic), and the insanity of early '70s San Francisco (The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test). In the 1980s, he moved on to novels that defined decades and cities with Bonfire of the Vanities (1980s New York) and A Man In Full (1990s Atlanta). Now, I Am Charlotte Simmons successfully defines the intellectual and moral free fall of 21st century academia.

The novel is set at Dupont University, a fictional Ivy League college in Pennsylvania. The protagonist is Charlotte Simmons, a brilliant student from a tiny town in the mountains of North Carolina, who yearns to be surrounded by intellectual excellence at Dupont. Unfortunately, when she arrives on campus, she finds out moral experimentation and social climbing have replaced intellectualism.

In typical Tom Wolfe fashion, several plots weave together. Hoyt is a frat boy and sexual predator who holds career killing information about a potential Republican presidential candidate. Adam is a social misfit, investigative journalist, and rabid intellectual, yearning for a Rhodes scholarship. Jojo is the only white starter (nicknamed "Token") on the basketball team who gets caught up in an academic scandal. All three of these men develop attractions to Charlotte because of her innocence, quick wit, and physical beauty.

Tom Wolfe researched the novel by spending years in a blue blazer, following students around the campuses of America's top colleges and universities, including Michigan and Harvard. He went to frat parties. He talked to students about their sex lives. He discussed French literature. He went to classes. Tom Wolfe has been using this "new journalism" immersion approach for his entire career, and he perfected his craft decades ago. Despite being a 70-year-old man, he has an incredible understanding of the language and behavior of college students.

Wolfe is a great writer. His prose is exciting, his characters are engaging, his wit is biting and hilarious, and he knows how to weave between four page-turning storylines seamlessly.

Best of all, he skewers modern academia. Intellectual conversation has been smothered by rampant debauchery and political correctness. Wild parties dominate the entire campus. Athletes are given a free pass for four years. Professors are handcuffed by campus politics.

I Am Charlotte Simmons should be read by all incoming first years. It meets the criteria established by the panel. It is a new novel, fun to read, and it is controversial?liberal critics are desperately attacking it all over the country. The book is too honest. It makes people uncomfortable. Unfortunately, our panel will most likely choose whatever book liberal critics claim is "important" and "progressive" this year?to be forgotten in mere months. Somehow, safely assigning a liberal book to a liberal student body has been deemed "controversial." Maybe they will say that I Am Charlotte Simmons is too long (700 pages), but that would be hysterically ironic, considering that the book details how students are given shortcuts where they used to receive rigor.

I guarantee that I Am Charlotte Simmons will provide an entertaining, intellectually stimulating, and thought-provoking reading experience to anyone that reads it. It is a great book, and there is no better alternative.

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