2008 Woodie Awards
In My Book
Kerry Sullivan
Issue date: 2/18/05 Section: Arts & Entertainment
She walks along the darkest pathway in the oldest part of campus, approaching a large house with distinguishing columns and curtained windows. She mounts the stairs and eases open the thick wooden double doors. The sounds of girls shrieking, electric bases booming, and young singers screaming spill out onto the lawn. Guys in polo shirts, khaki shorts, and flip flops take notice of her entrance before rejoining the party. The odor of body heat and the stench of spilt alcohol inside the house are unbearable.
"Let's leave!" Charlotte begs her freshmen friends, as the three are pushed further into the center of the party.
Charlotte Simmons, the protagonist in Tom Wolfe's I am Charlotte Simmons, is a foreigner when it comes to college life. Although she calls the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina her home, she may as well have come from Mars. When this bookish freshman arrives at the fictitious Harvard-equivalent of Dupont University, she is culture-shocked by its less-than-academic atmosphere. Athletes enroll in easy classes nicknamed "Frère Jocko" (French), "Jock Sprache" (German), "Rocks for Jocks" (geology), "Stocks for Jocks" (economics), and "Voc for Jocks" (communications) just to maintain their playing eligibility. Money and a private-school education are pre-requisites for being popular. Weekends are reserved for frat and keg parties. Senior guys pick up freshman girls with the line "I bet you get really tired of people telling you you look like Britney Spears." And roommates crawl into their rooms in "ludicrously superfluous high heels" and "a mess of flattened streaked-blond hair" at 4:00 a.m.
Portions of this description may apply to aspects of life at Assumption, just as they do to most every college in this new millennium. And as the 676 page book progresses, readers watch as Charlotte encounters situation after situation that test her self-respect and morals.
In high school, Charlotte was the big-shot valedictorian headed to an Ivy League school. Raised in a "strict, devout, poor and poorly educated family," she understood that her only chance at a promising future was to work hard in school. But once her academic ambitions land her a spot in Dupont University's freshman class, she is confronted with the reality that, unfortunately, money often can get you just as far as commitment and dedication.
"Let's leave!" Charlotte begs her freshmen friends, as the three are pushed further into the center of the party.
Charlotte Simmons, the protagonist in Tom Wolfe's I am Charlotte Simmons, is a foreigner when it comes to college life. Although she calls the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina her home, she may as well have come from Mars. When this bookish freshman arrives at the fictitious Harvard-equivalent of Dupont University, she is culture-shocked by its less-than-academic atmosphere. Athletes enroll in easy classes nicknamed "Frère Jocko" (French), "Jock Sprache" (German), "Rocks for Jocks" (geology), "Stocks for Jocks" (economics), and "Voc for Jocks" (communications) just to maintain their playing eligibility. Money and a private-school education are pre-requisites for being popular. Weekends are reserved for frat and keg parties. Senior guys pick up freshman girls with the line "I bet you get really tired of people telling you you look like Britney Spears." And roommates crawl into their rooms in "ludicrously superfluous high heels" and "a mess of flattened streaked-blond hair" at 4:00 a.m.
Portions of this description may apply to aspects of life at Assumption, just as they do to most every college in this new millennium. And as the 676 page book progresses, readers watch as Charlotte encounters situation after situation that test her self-respect and morals.
In high school, Charlotte was the big-shot valedictorian headed to an Ivy League school. Raised in a "strict, devout, poor and poorly educated family," she understood that her only chance at a promising future was to work hard in school. But once her academic ambitions land her a spot in Dupont University's freshman class, she is confronted with the reality that, unfortunately, money often can get you just as far as commitment and dedication.