by Tom Wolfe
That soft soft man with a white suit, white socks and white shoes: a dandy: Tom Wolfe. I knew this picture of him and therefore I concluded that he writes about things I could never be interested in. How wrong!
Charlotte Simmons comes as freshman to one of the elite universities in the US – the fictional Dupont University. She thinks that she left behind all the mediocrity of here home village in the mountains. But what she finds is” the “stupid” sportsmen are the starts on the campus, attitude is more important than knowledge. a body in shape and the right cloth are necessary to be noted, and the rest is alcohol, sex, sex and alcohol. Wolfe’s refined writing style contrasts so brilliantly with the reduced ‘fuck patois’ which is the language of the cool at the university. I read it in a very good German Translation but the next novel I will read definitely in English.
The novel is a description of a status, a world apart but it tells also the life of Charlotte during the first semester with its joys and disasters. It is a novel in the tradition of great American story telling but at the same time it evokes also the whole inner and outer world with every detail. That makes this book so rich, and long. It is also about the controversy of a liberal and a conservative life style, about political correctness.
Today my feelings about a man in a white suite changed dramatically. His dandyism is today for me an expression of his individualism in wanted contrast to his surroundings.
Charlotte Simmons comes as freshman to one of the elite universities in the US – the fictional Dupont University. She thinks that she left behind all the mediocrity of here home village in the mountains. But what she finds is” the “stupid” sportsmen are the starts on the campus, attitude is more important than knowledge. a body in shape and the right cloth are necessary to be noted, and the rest is alcohol, sex, sex and alcohol. Wolfe’s refined writing style contrasts so brilliantly with the reduced ‘fuck patois’ which is the language of the cool at the university. I read it in a very good German Translation but the next novel I will read definitely in English.
The novel is a description of a status, a world apart but it tells also the life of Charlotte during the first semester with its joys and disasters. It is a novel in the tradition of great American story telling but at the same time it evokes also the whole inner and outer world with every detail. That makes this book so rich, and long. It is also about the controversy of a liberal and a conservative life style, about political correctness.
Today my feelings about a man in a white suite changed dramatically. His dandyism is today for me an expression of his individualism in wanted contrast to his surroundings.
Facts:
English title: I am Charlotte Simmons
Original title: I am Charlotte Simmons
Published: 2004
