|
|
Article: Tom Wolfe's `Charlotte Simmons' begs the question ... where's the rest of the student body?
- Article from:
- Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL)
- Article date:
- February 16, 2005
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Chicago Tribune. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Byline: Patrick T. Reardon
College _ as Tom Wolfe reports it in "I Am Charlotte Simmons" _ is one long party, awash with sex and booze, punctuated by occasional grudging appearances in the classroom.
His Charlotte Simmons is a brilliant but astonishingly naive student from rural North Carolina who finds herself saddled with a rich-witch of a roommate and facing the strange world of the fictional Dupont University utterly alone and defenseless.
Over the course of 676 pages, Charlotte loses herself in a quest for social acceptance that ends in drunkenness, assault and depression. It's not a pretty picture, and, unlike Wolfe's other novels, there ...