In pioneering the style of New (read: literary) Journalism, grand social structures have always been the foundation of Tom Wolfe's fiction. One could argue that his fictional efforts are somewhat formulaic: taking a slice of American culture and exposing its minute cogs and gears, letting us know every little instrument that makes such an enormous orchestration come alive. In Bonfire of the Vanities, he exposed 1980s Manhattan high society; the engrossing A Man in Full laid bare the financial and cultural politics of Atlanta; and now, Mr. Wolfe sinks his teeth into the American university scene with his latest novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons.
Mr. Wolfe's 600-plus page exposé chronicles salacious student life at a "typical" American university. Dupont University, the fictional backdrop for Mr. Wolfe's socio-literary drama, is nothing more than a stand-in for an Ivy-League Sodom and Gomorrah -- a brothel steaming with excessive sex, alcohol and foul language (what Mr. Wolfe calls "F**k Patois").
Our heroine is Charlotte Simmons, a virginal, naïve country bumpkin who descends from her Mount Olympus of innocence in Western North Carolina to attend Mr. Wolfe's school of hard knocks. Her goal is simple: to engage in "the life of the mind." But when she arrives, she finds no such life among the hallowed halls of academia. The life of the mind at Dupont University is supplanted by the life of the body -- for Charlotte, who just wants to get her education and avoid the uneasiness of young adult society, Dupont University is hell.
I Am Charlotte Simmons masks itself as a novel with a definite narrative when, in reality, the plot is merely an outlet for Mr. Wolfe's observations on the trivial, decadent lifestyles of collegiate co-eds. Sure, there's a loose plot about a national controversy when two frat boys stumble upon the governor of California in a compromising position with a young college girl, but Mr. Wolfe doesn't stress this dilemma -- it is merely a frame to present his criticisms.
As far as plot structure goes, I Am Charlotte Simmons is a completely episodic novel; each chapter is devoted to another "interesting" facet of a college student's life. Readers might envision a checklist: frat houses, check; sexiling, check; dining halls, walks of shame, rampant intoxication -- check, check, and double-check.
Even the characters, though engaging, are tropes; puppets for Mr. Wolfe's conclusions on college life. There is the superstar jock, JoJo, the newspaper reporter and social flotsam, Adam, the irresistible frat boy, Hoyt, and the classic collection of nerds, sluts and stoners.
The beasts in heat at Mr. Wolfe's All-American Menagerie do exist, but his work lacks the positive aspects of university life. Where are the professors who inspire their classes, the graduate students or, for that matter, the undergraduates who are just trying to successfully make it through college and into the real world?
I Am Charlotte Simmons, with its lack of attention to real-life issues, is more polemic than balanced -- an apocalyptic prophecy on the degenerate future of America. Universities, in Mr. Wolfe's eyes, have become American hearts of darkness; perhaps the only solution for moral America is exterminating all the undergraduate brutes.
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