Listening to the new TomWolfe book, I Am Charlotte Simmons, during my workouts. (I remain adevoted fan of Audible.com — man, if it were not for this digital audio booksubscription service and workouts and long commutes, I would have little timefor new fiction, at least not without seriously sacrificing sleep!)
Terrific writing, butalready I can see what made some critics allege Wolfe sounds dated when hetries to capture modern college student talk.
At one point he goes intoa discourse on how "this year’s" linguistic fad is the use of theF-word as a sort of patios … standing in for all parts of the sentenceincluding prepositional adjective, noun, verb, blah, blah, blah. If, in fact,he hadn’t heard anyone talk like that until he started researching this bookI’d have to wonder if the last time he heard young people talk was when he waswriting The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I know that’s how the kidstalked when I was in high school, and there were papers and books written on itby the time I was in college (one by a professor who taught at my college
I haven’t read much Tom Wolfe, and none of Charlotte Simmons, but ignorance has never stopped me from having opinions so here’s mine on one of Ernesto’s points. When I was young I used the F word and tried to be as prolifically immoral as my status and constitution allowed. But I always had a sense of caution and even shame about it, and I knew that there was a veil between me and another group of young wantons and hedonists who were more clever, attractive and/or less scrupulous than I. I knew that in that circle, the kids could cuss like mad poets, drink, take loads of dope and were having sex all the time. I assume that TW was brainy and nerdy in his youth. Even if he wasn’t, he probably wasn’t a member of this “other circle,” so his experience with it had to be gained as a voyeur. What I think has happened in recent years is not a fundamental change in behavior, simply a normalization of the behavior of that inner, hedonistic circle. The veil has been pulled aside. But Wolfe is also revealing the perspective matrix of the older generation. The excesses of youth seem fairly insignificant to the youth but they seem to loom over the landscape to parents. My son’s girlfriend was recently kicked out of her house for behavior that both of her parents acknowledge was common among their friends when they were growing up. The girl’s step-father admits to far worse behavior and seems to think that drawing the line on the girl (i.e. asking her to live elsewhere) is a better course than simply dealing with the behavior and trying to be helpful and instructive. I remember the first time I went to see a “sock hop” at my son’s high school and found that the current dance consists of the boy rather crudely simulating rear-entry sex with his date. I felt a moment of despair until I realized that the couples were casually talking to friends while they “danced.” At a certain point, all an adult can do is stand around in helpless awe. Or write a book that taps into this anxiety and sell a lot of copies to other adults.
Good points, Rick. I suppose the problem that lingers for me is — which adults are you talking about? The generation that Wolfe writing about is your son’s age, maybe a few years older, sure, but the generation I’m using as a point of reference — the one I attended college and high school in (or through …) — is at least a generation, maybe two, in advance of that one. Thirty-somethings to youngish forty-somethings.
So when I say that the kids in Wolfe’s book aren’t any cruder than kids were when I was in school, I’m not implying that those kids are in my generation.
I’m one of the old people now, and this stuff seems dated to me (at least in terms of it being surprising).