What the Pres likes to read

[TayTay]

When he is pretending to read something else:

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/politics/07letter.html?oref=login&hp

Bush's Official Reading List, and a Racy Omission
By ELISABETH BUMILLER

Published: February 7, 2005

WASHINGTON

If you ask the White House what President Bush is reading these days, the press office will call back with the official list: "His Excellency: George Washington" by Joseph J. Ellis, "Alexander Hamilton" by Ron Chernow and, not least, the Bible.

What the official list omits is Tom Wolfe's racy new beer- and sex-soaked novel, "I Am Charlotte Simmons." The president, a fan of Mr. Wolfe, has not only read the book but also is enthusiastically recommending it to friends.

It is unclear exactly what Mr. Bush liked so much about the book, which is told from the point of view of Charlotte Simmons, a young woman from the God-fearing backwoods of North Carolina who is the first in her family to go to college. Charlotte, who is at first shocked by the booze and debauchery she encounters at Mr. Wolfe's Dupont University, modeled on Duke among others, eventually succumbs in a chapter-long deflowering scene at the hands of a drunken fraternity rat. Then she sinks into depression.

Un-huh. Sounds like the autobiography he wishes he'd written.

[ginnyinWI]

1. ha

I'm sure he's been there and done that.

Meanwhile, the true president is WRITING a book. Sigh.

[TayTay]

2. I wonder what the book

is going to be about. A autobiography, a 'What I hope the Dems do Next' or a treatise on Foreign policy. We shall see. Probably won't come out until 2007.

[Corey_Baker08]

8. Kerrys New Book....

Just a guess but I'd say Kerry's new book will have somthing to do with his announcement of running again and what he will do this time better and his vision for a better America.

It will prolly cut right to the chase in the first chapter being titled like, Why I'm rerunning For President, or something like that.

I say this because he's been very secrative about the book and you'd think he'd hype it up a little bit and tell whats its about but even on Meet the Press and another interviw he didnt give any details.

[Lavender Brown]

3. Eww. That book got horrible reviews

From what I've heard it's totally pukeworthy. :puke: No wonder he likes it.

[TayTay]

4. I am many years removed from college

I no longer can tell you what is going on on college campuses. Perhaps we have people here who can speak with authority on what it is like to go to school, be obsessive and worry about no-good significant others who love them and leave them.

Perhaps * just identifies with the first-person girlie voice it is written in. Maybe he is trying to figure out how the other half lives. Who knows.

[WildEyedLiberal]

5. Here is WildEyedLiberal, resident college student, with a review

Actually, I didn't read the book. I did, however, read a chapter excerpted in Rolling Stone. In said chapter, Charlotte Simmons - childlike, pure-as-the-driven-snow country bumpkin from the Appalachian hills - moves into her dorm room at the big bad Ivy League college. She meets her roommate, a snobbish bulimic girl with filthy rich, snobbish New England parents, and the two families share an awkward meal where the culture clash between redneck hillbilly and elitist yuppie is enthusiastically rendered by Wolfe.

I wasn't sure which cartoon character two-dimensional cookie cutter stereotype was more offensive - Charlotte's down-home plain-talkin' simple folks, or her roommate's condescendingly rude SUV driving liberal yuppies from Boston. None of the characters - not even Charlotte, from whose POV we experience the story - are actual fleshed-out human beings. Wolfe seems content with crude caricatures of uneducated "mountain folks" and rich snobs, and delves into no real character development or realization.

In her first night at her dorm, Charlotte is horrified by the presence of drunk boys in the bathroom and in the halls. While drunkenness is not out of place in dorms, I have yet to see scores of students walking down the hall, beer can in hand, on any given night. Also, one of the boys actually greets Charlotte with a drunken "Whaaaazzzzzzap?" Now, I know Tom Wolfe is like 70 years old, but supposedly he went to college campuses to research this book. If he did, he should know that NO ONE says whaaaazzzzap. Ever. If they did, it was ten years ago, when those stupid Budweiser commercials came out. However, this book is set in 2004, and I can guarantee you that no one has said "whaazzzap" since junior high.

So in sum, I found Wolfe's book to be severely wanting in its portrayal of modern campus life. Maybe if he'd bothered to write about actual characters and actual realistic storylines, instead of being content to indulge in 800 pages worth of puerile stereotypes about anything and everything, he might've written a readable book. But, he didn't.

[Withywindle]

7. Ha!

I may have been a bumpkin from the Appalachian hills when I went to college, but I can assure you I was not shocked by drunks.

[elshiva]

9. LOL, great review Mrs. Kerry.

It's true. We said "Whazzzzzzzap!" in high school not college.
Liberal Yuppies from Boston? Puhleeze! No wonder Dubya likes it.

[TayTay]

10. Liberal Yuppies from Boston, like that could happen.

Why heavens Miss WEL, save us from such awful things.

We do have Liberal Yuppies in the greater Boston area. However, we would never let them eat dinner with sweet young thangs from Appalachia unless they had first secured a grant from Harvard for anthropological study purposes. Said yuppies would then load the Subaru L.L. Bean Touring Edition SUV with equipment, bug spray and anti-biotics and field guides to native customs and mating rituals. (Studying the habits and speech of indigenous peoples can be quite arduous, but quite rewarding. Red State expeditions are not without peril, but the natives can actually be quite friendly as long as you approach them carefully and don't bare your teeth.) I anticipate much contact in the future between Liberal New England Yuppies and those people who live South of New Haven.

[elshiva]

12. LOL!

[Withywindle]

6. been about 15 years for me, but

can't imagine it's changed that much.

I lived it, not sure I want to read about it now, especially written about by some creepy old overrated has-been who's waaayyy too preoccupied with college kids and their "debauchery" and deflowerings. Ewwww.

[ginnyinWI]

11. I have not read it either but

I've never yet read a male author who could get inside the head of a female character and get it right! They just don't "get" us!

[WildEyedLiberal]

13. Supposedly

"She's Come Undone" by Wally Lamb (the first Oprah book club book) is supposed to be a very good example of a male writer accurately portraying a female protagonist. I have not read the book, however, and from what I do know of it, it sounds depressing as hell. So who knows?

[JohnKleeb]

14. umm damnit whats his name

Tom Wolfe first person narrates a college freshman girl in this one book I heard about. I dont know about you but if the foot were on the other foot, a grandmother portraying someone around my age and sex, I'd be a little whoa. I cant get inside the female head any better than I can a female body.

[WildEyedLiberal]

15. Yeah see my above review

To that book, "I am Charlotte Simmons." I didn't like it very much.

[JohnKleeb]

16. dontcha think its kinda freaky a guy your grandfather's age would

try to get inside your mind, that just weirds me. Personally the thought of anyone getting inside my mind would weird me, its my mind damnit not yours, buy your own!

[WildEyedLiberal]

17. Yeah plus he's a Bushist from what I understand

Double plus ew.

[JohnKleeb]

18. Eww Bushist, I like that

[Firespirit]

19. Seems clear enough to me what he liked.

A "drunken fraternity rat" bonking a poor naive hillbilly?

DUH Ms. Bumiller!

He sees it as himself. And possibly a metaphor for the Republican agenda.

I haven't read that but it sounds thoroughly bad, honestly, the sort of book you'd feel unclean after reading. Figures.