I have just finished reading Tom Wolfe’s most recent novel I Am Charlotte Simmons. It’s the first Tom Wolfe I’ve ever read. I probably won’t read another.

I Am Charlotte Simmons chronicles a young, small town girl’s attendance at a fictional Ivy League university in the United States. Charlotte is cast as a fish out of water in many ways: the small town girl from North Carolina with an accent; the academic paired with a roommate who likes to party; the young virgin surrounded by the feelings of lust that are pervasive amongst post-high school kids.

Wolfe — a 75 year old man with a fondness for white suits — has a fertile imagination and a pen that can certainly spin a story. This is a story with three fundamental threads that run throughout (two of which are, essentially, variations on the fish out of water theme…one social, one academic) and all come to a rapid conclusion towards the end of this 600+ page novel. It’s sort of the opposite problem of The Da Vinci Code which plods along such a predictable path that one can’t help but see the end; I Am Charlotte Simmons simply unfolds, and when the ending comes it seems to have little relationship to the rest of the novel.

If the book has a message, I think it’s that for those who remain true to themselves, things always work out in the end. A young girl discovers that just because she lives in the big city doesn’t mean she’s changed; an athlete learns that there’s more to himself than just basketball and a campus journalist and smart guy learns that honesty can be the best policy, even if it doesn’t always seem like it at first.

Five out of ten. Not remarkable, but I don’t get what’s particularly special about the book.

Posted by skooter at 8:44 PM This entry is filed under Books.
This entry is tagged: Books