Ham o' Bone posts far too infrequently. His passionate review of Tom Wolfe's "I am Charlotte Simmons" is here. Some background info (if he doesn't mind?): Ham grew up in an extremely rural area of North Carolina and raised in a strict semi-fundamentalist Christian home, so there must be especial resonance for him in Charlotte's story:
Wolfe does a realistic job portraying the immaturity of coddled youth as they are released into an environment where there is ample tinder for whatever fire of passion they want to start. Whether it be activism, alcoholism, sexual antics, or even saying the F-word as often as one likes, the university setting is an ideal one for them. Is it any wonder that conservative Christian universities are seeing widespread growth in enrollments?...Instead of encouraging sublimation of primal desires as a cornerstone of society, boomers have passed on to their children the notion that giving full expression to one's desires is the highest plane of fulfillment. Incredibly, Wolfe recognizes this as can be deduced from the excerpt that follows:"The man sitting across from him, the butterball grotesquely squeezed into a dark gray sweater, was of another sort entirely, despite the fact that they were both Jewish and agreed on practically every public issue of the day. Both believed passionately in protecting minorities, particularly African Americans, as well as Jews. Both regarded Israel as the most important nation on earth, although neither was tempted to live there. Both instinctively sided with the underdog; police violence really got them steamed. Both were firm believers in diversity and multiculturalism in colleges. Both believed in abortion, not so much because they thought anyone they knew might want an abortion as because legalizing it helped put an exhausted and dysfunctional Christendom and its weird, hidebound religious restraints in their place. For the same reason, both believed in gay rights, women's rights, transgender rights, fox, bear, wolf, swordfish, halibut, ozone, wetland, and hardwood rights, gun control, contemporary art, and the Democratic Party. Both were against hunting and, for that matter, woods, fields, mountain trails, rock climbing, sailing, fishing, and the outdoors in general, except for golf courses and the beach."
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