Patois

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I managed to read I Am Charlotte Simmons while on the ferry and, in spite of my utter adoration for Tom Wolfe and his writing, it was a thoroughly disappointing read. Of course, his writing style was as elaborate as ever but it was tough to plod through a book with such a narcissicistic protagonist and a carnival of painful stereotypes. Anyone who went to an American private university will find it a vivid reminder of younger, dumber days frought with promise before grim reality set in. The book seemed less a snapshot of current college life than a caricature of the stereotypes as a form of social critique, a satire. The one part of the book that was thoroughly entertaining was the treatise on 'fuck patois' and 'shit patois', which amuses more than it shocks since both fuck and shit have become so hackneyed that they have been reduced from the profane to the pedestrian.

The frat boys and the sorority girls sang songs-all of them seemed to know all the words to everything-they shared gossip-the two bitches were superb at filleting people's reputations while seeming to be merely adding little details-they turned whatever they could into sexual innuendo-they indulged their predilection for Shit Patois. Charlotte had been aware of Fuck Patois from the day she arrived at Dupont, but it was not until spending hour after hour after hour cooped up in this SUV that she reliazed how cool it apparently was to use shit in every way possible: to mean possessions ("Where's your shit?"), lies or misleading explanations ("Are you shitting me?" "We need a shit detector"), drunk ("shit-faced"), trouble ("in deep shit"), ineptitude ("could play point guard for shit"), care about ("give a shit"), rude, thoughtless, disloyal ("really shitty thing to do"), not kidding ("no shit?"), obnoxiously unpleasant ("he's a real shit"), mindless conversation ("talking shit", "shooting the shit"), confusing story ("or some such shit"), drugs ("you bring the shit?), to egest ("take a shit"), to fart in such a way that it becomes partly egestion ("shart"), a trivial matter ("a piece a shit"), unpleasantly surprised ("he about shit a brick"), ignorance ("he don't know shit"), pompous man ("the big shit", "that shitcake"), hopeless situation ("up Shit Creek"), disappointment ("oh, shit!"), startling ("holy shit!"), unacceptable, inedible ("shit on a shingle"), strategy ("oh, that shit again"), feces, literally ("shit"), slum ("some shithook neighborhood"), meaningless ("that don't mean shit"), et cetera ("and massages and shit"), self-important ("he thinks he's some shit"), predictably ("sure as shit"), very ("mean as shit"), verbal abuse ("gave me shit"), violence ("before the shit came down" or "hit the fan", "dont start no shit", "won't be no shit"). ....

It's almost like a South Park episode only no one kills Kenny and the dialogue is far less entertaining. Somehow, I don't think the man in the flawless white suit was going for that effect.