04 January 2006

Poor Charlotte Simmons

Yes, poor indeed. I Am Charlotte Simmons has been relegated off my "Currently Reading" list but not put on the "Recent Reads" list, because I haven't finished it. In fact, I haven't read one page of the book since my vacation in October.

This is deeply disappointing, as it was an excellent book so far, one of those books that's almost a little too good, so it's sort of scary? There are a few problems--I mean, Wolfe seems to say that the only thing going on in college is sex, period. I was in college and that was not the only thing going on there. Yes, there are parts of the college society where, to quote Mr. Wolfe, "rutrutrutrutrutrut" is the only thing going through anyone's mind, but that is hardly universal and surely a girl like Charlotte would have had an easier time finding her way than Mr. Wolfe gives her. Rutrutrutrutrutrut might be part of college, but it's hardly the only part. I mean, what about throwing month-old bran muffins and two-liters of water off the top of the football stadium into the parking lot? What about burning architecture projects in the woods? What about getting drunk on cheap beer and kicking cans around the basement of your dormitory just to make a racket? Those are all fun parts of college, too.

Still, Tom Wolfe is my favorite working novelist. I was enjoying the book before, and I want the chance to enjoy it fully, so, as I did with Cryptonomicon earlier, I'm putting it back in the pile of things to read at a later date.

I still plan to finish Collapse soon, but in the next few days you should see the reading list expand a great deal with some rather weightier books, all of which I'm hoping to read by the end of the month. Wish me luck.


4 comments:

scanime said...

Ah... the bran muffin incident. Good times, good times.

I almost picked up Collapse the other day. I loved Guns, Germs, and Steel, so it was pretty much a no-brainer. I'm looking forward to your review!

Lucky Bob said...

You can't leave out having the city coming by and taking the "shootin' fridge" off the front lawn of the duplex with a front end loader. Or when the city came by and put the huge concrete cap on "Brad's Hole" that he found in the empty lot across the street. Staying up until 2 AM playing with the can of farting goo. Staying up until 4AM talking about The Illustrated A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. Or standing out in front of the Astro and waving at all the cars that drove by for hours.
Good times. Good times.

Anonymous said...

The waving, the best is when we got people to keep driving by. And then the police stopped and asked if we were Ok.

That was great. Makes me smile.

Anonymous said...

Collapse is killing me, but I swear I am going to finish it this week. I have checked it out 3 times now, and paid a 20 cent fine. That is why you buy books, I'd imagine. I only have 3 more chapters to go, and it's been very interesting so far. I just wonder why I thought December the appropriate time of year to pick it up.