Well, fuck me. Remember when I said I was going to write up something on I Am Charlotte Simmons? I really wanted to at least get a smirk out of someone to purchase the time I wasted reading the goddamn thing. But Unf has gone and written what you need to know about the book:
As for Wolfe's latest, its not so good. The wierd verbal tics (someone may wish to inform Mr. Wolfe that no one in the English speaking world uses the phrase "loamy loins") are a lot more difficult to get over when you're reading a novel about an 18 year old female college student written by a 70 year old foppish reactionary. Which is to say, this novel suffers from a lack of realism that makes it pretty difficult to get through without chuckling off and on at how tin Wolfe's ear has become.I'd have said more, but that's about what you need to know. To illustrate just how embarrassing it is to read this book, at one point Wolfe tries incorporat the word "torpor" in the lyrics of a "crunk rap" song playing in the background. Worse still—at multiple points—Wolfe uses the onomatopoeia, "rutrutrut," to describe sex. (G.p pleads with its readers: Once your sweet lovemaking goes "rutrutrut," it's time to refrain from the sweet lovemaking. Even the thinking about the sweet lovemaking.) Wolfe deserves a congressional medal of honor, though, for his identification and etiology of "fuck patois" (e.g., "Fuckin what the fuck?").
Fafnir is sharing his review, which you should read . . . if you are of the opinion that Fafnir and Unf are different people.
Posted by Kriston at January 10, 2005 9:50 PM"loamy loins" sounds sort of Scottish... I wonders if there's a "loamy trooooosers" equivalent --- regardles.... "The Painted Word" is still a bible to me... I guess I'll skip this book!
Posted by: Lenny at January 10, 2005 10:13 PMWolfe deserves a congressional medal of honor
Why not? With such illustrious company...
Posted by: tom at January 10, 2005 10:27 PMhe overused loamy loins in Man in Full. Christ is this what passes for a "great" novelist these days. Holy overrated batman
Posted by: at January 10, 2005 10:52 PMWolfe's been over(-)rated for far too long. Indeed, I wonder why he ever was (rated). Must be my youth. Then again, maybe it is just him.
Posted by: kevin thurston at January 11, 2005 12:29 PMAfter I saw his interview on the Daily Show where he talked about all the hot young coeds he interviewed and described their little black books in which they recorded the nature and quality of their sexual encounters with men whose names they didn't bother to remember -- well, at that point I realized this book would have no connection to the college I knew not so long ago, the one in which I never, ever met these girls, despite five years of trying.
Posted by: matty at January 11, 2005 6:09 PMNo kidding, Matty. Who are these girls? I mean, nobody bothered to write it all down!
Posted by: susan at January 11, 2005 6:27 PM