Books in brief -- I am Charlotte Simmons

I am Charlotte Simmons
by Tom Wolfe (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004)
Available in paperback at Amazon

(The novel was fairly heavily reviewed when it came out in late 2004. Perhaps the longest discussion of it is this Slate "book club" entry.)

Charlotte Simmons, a brilliant student from the mountains of North Carolina, enters Dupont University with the hopes of entering a world of those who live the “life of the mind.” During her first year, however, her mission is derailed by a relationship with a popular fraternity member.

There are four main characters, and, in typical Wolfe fashion, their lives are connected in various ways throughout the novel. Hoyt Thorpe, the fraternity member, lives only to show the world his masculine strength and to achieve sexual conquests. His grades are low, and only infrequently does he painfully consider that his future in investment banking is not secure. Adam Gellin, a bitter, resentful senior, writes for the college newspaper. He falls for Charlotte and hopes that she will rescue him from his humiliating virginity, but she never returns his desire. Finally, there is Jojo Johanssen, a player on the Dupont basketball team. Completely narcissistic at the start, he gradually commits himself to genuine learning.

On one level, this novel works. Much as he did in The Bonfire of the Vanities and A Man in Full, Wolfe creates highly entertaining scenes. His descriptions of human behavior, whether the embarrassment and loneliness Charlotte experiences at a fraternity party or the various ways in which Adam tries to overcome his lower male status, will be familiar to nearly anyone who has gone to school.

The main problem is Wolfe’s depiction of Dupont University. Dupont is supposed to be an elite institution, on a level with Harvard and Princeton. But none of the students is interested in learning anything. Even Adam, who must be getting excellent grades if he thinks he’s good enough for a Rhodes, is content with bull sessions with a small group of equally resentful student journalists. At a top school, one would expect most of the students to be studying throughout the week and to limit their going out to the weekend. There are, to be sure, some hints of academic interest in the novel. One of Hoyt’s closest fraternity brothers refers, somewhat embarrassingly, to his continually being “hung up” at the library. On the other hand, there is not a trace of the departmental clubs, extra-curricular societies and student competition that one would expect at any university. There will be some who may argue that, sure, Wolfe would have thrown these in if he had had to, but they’re not important to the story of Charlotte and her three suitors. The problem with that argument is that Wolfe implies that Charlotte isn’t able to find anyone or anything academically interesting and that she can’t meet anyone other than these three males during the first term of school. There are several scenes in which Charlotte must walk past fellow members of her residence building to get to her room. Not once is it suggested that she has learned the first thing about any of these girls. Either Wolfe has missed the fundamental camaraderie and curiosity that exist among freshmen, or Charlotte is the dullest, most unsympathetic student at the school.

Overall, therefore, the value of this novel is less, much less, than the sum of its parts. I am not surprised that it did not garner much critical attention when it appeared.