Drudge says that The President has a book Recommendation...

Well, apparently the President has been reading. According to Drudge:

Bush recommending Tom Wolfe's racy new beer- and sex-soaked novel, "I am Charlotte Simmons" to friends... Developing...

Surely you've heard of this book...



Here is the description from Amazon.

Product Description:





Dupont University--the Olympian halls of learning housing the cream of America's youth, the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns suffused with tradition . . . Or so it appears to beautiful, brilliant Charlotte Simmons, a sheltered freshman from North Carolina. But Charlotte soon learns, to her mounting dismay, that for the uppercrust coeds of Dupont, sex, Cool, and kegs trump academic achievement every time.



As Charlotte encounters Dupont's privileged elite--her roommate, Beverly, a Groton-educated Brahmin in lusty pursuit of lacrosse players; Jojo Johanssen, the only white starting player on Dupont's godlike basketball team, whose position is threatened by a hotshot black freshman from the projects; the Young Turk of Saint Ray fraternity, Hoyt Thorpe, whose heady sense of entitlement and social domination is clinched by his accidental brawl with a bodyguard for the governor of California; and Adam Geller, one of the Millennial Mutants who run the university's "independent" newspaper and who consider themselves the last bastion of intellectual endeavor on the sex-crazed, jock-obsessed campus--she gains a new, revelatory sense of her own power, that of her difference and of her very innocence, but little does she realize that she will act as a catalyst in all of their lives.

With his signature eye for detail, Tom Wolfe draws on extensive observation of campuses across the country to immortalize college life in the '00s. I Am Charlotte Simmons is the much-anticipated triumph of America's master chronicler.

Wow.



I wonder what Bookmarks Magazine had to say about it? Oh, here it is.

Wolfe is, as always, a master of language. He shows off "dazzling" prose theatrics (Washington Post) throughout Charlotte Simmons, faithfully replicating the sounds of basketball players mid-action and drunken students mid-coitus. Several set pieces are also extremely powerful. But Wolfe’s words won over only a few critics (in fact, some were nauseated by his countless exclamation points). The problem is that the college experience is nothing new. Unlike his books about high-stakes bond trading (Bonfire of the Vanities) or astronauts preparing for flight (The Right Stuff), this book is … unsurprising. And, according to some critics, it’s also sexist, out of touch, and incredibly cliché.



One of the biggest weaknesses is his central character, Charlotte, the author’s first female protagonist. She’s completely unbelievable. Who could be this smart yet so dangerously clueless? It doesn’t add up. In fact, no matter whom you ask, Wolfe makes outlandish mistakes here. Perhaps it can be blamed on his research. Would any student reveal the complete truth to the well-dressed man in his 70s standing in the corner of a fraternity bacchanal?



A very few critics hint at a deeper, darker message about the current sexual climate lingering beneath his "two-backed beasts herkyjerky humping bang bang bang" (see the Sex on Campus sidebar). Though the overall critical score is low, it should be noted that several reviewers found the book highly readable—almost addictive—even if it has no obvious deep insight to impart.

I wonder what James Dobson will have to say about this?



-The Oklahoma Hippy