My wife pointed out an article in the New York Times yesterday. She knew it would make me crazy.
This is like coming home and finding your 80 year old mother in a frenzied sex orgy, with bongs, kegs, and 130 decibels of Crunk pumping through the speakers.
The NY Times article claimed that POTUS not only read, but enthusiastically recommends to friends I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe. I thought Charlotte was a very very good novel (which puts me in the critical minority). It's shocking, however, that The President would be such a fan.
Charlotte contains long passages about the contemporary usage of the word f**k, scenes where religion is mocked, dozens of passages of marijuana, cocaine, and ecstasy use, disquisitions on oral sex, casual sex, drinking, cheating in school, corruption in the university, long passages mocking morality, chastity, and sportsmanship, and many many gallons of beer, wine, and Vodka. The pivotal chapter of the book details the date rape of Charlotte Simmons by a fraternity rat.
I am utterly baffled as to what The President would find to love in the book, at least in light of his public persona. The article speculates it may be a hearkening back to his hard partying fraternity days at Yale.
The official list of books The President reads does not include Tom Wolfe. The White House press office will tell you his favorite books are currently His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis (a great book, by the way), Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, and, of course, The Bible.
I keep thinking someone buffaloed the New York Times and we'll read a retraction of the story tomorrow. I just can't wrap my head around this one, it's so weird.
---o0o---
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