Issue date: 11/30/01 Section: Features

Media Credit: Profile Staff

Being a student at Hendrix, it is hard to find time to read books outside of those assigned in class. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a light, effortless read, and one I believe worth checking out. Stephen Chbosky is primarily known for writing screenplays, many of which have won awards, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower is his first attempt at prose.

In places the book reads like the screenplay of an after-school special, but I cannot deny that I enjoyed reading it. The book has been called a "Catcher in the Rye for the new millennium." The person that said this must have never read The Catcher in the Rye. J. D. Salinger's famous work is good. That is, it is a good story that is also well-written. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is like Salinger's novel in that it is a coming-of-age story, but genre is the only thing they have in common.

The novel is a collection of letters written by 15 year old Charlie to an anonymous recipient who has never met him. He addresses the subjects of generic teen-angst drama—grades, dating, alcohol, identity—but he also includes some things you would not find in your average after-school special. There are letters that deal with abortion, pot, LSD, wet dreams, homosexuality and physical and sexual abuse. Charlie writes about most of these subjects from personal experience.

The epistolary format of the book allows the reader to access information that would not be provided in diary entries; however, the letters lack depth and self-reflection. Charlie explains in his letters the events that occur in his life, but he stops short of explaining how he is affected by them. For example, to the discovery of masturbation he responds, "Wow!". I am wowed that he did not discover the joys of autoerotic stimulation until he was 15 and that a friend had to tell him what it is and how to do it.

The letters begin with his first year of high school and end with the beginning of his sophomore year. For a student considered by his English teacher to be "gifted" and "special", his writing shows little improvement over the course of a year. When he uses big words like "adroit" and "corpulent," he puts quotation marks around them to draw attention to what he has learned. All that the quotation marks draw attention to is the poor diction used around them. Charlie describes his father: "My dad works a lot and is an honest man;" his crush: "She is very smart and fun;" his brother: "He is a very good football player and likes his car." This gifted 10th grader writes like a remedial 6th grader.

Still, I found the book engaging and I enjoyed it the first time around. I do not want to like this book, but I cannot deny that it has caught my fancy. It is easy to read, but that does not make the experience of reading the novel any less rewarding. It is good the way macaroni and cheese is good: there is nothing that is too exciting, it tastes a little manufactured, but it is familiar and likeable. And sometimes that is all you want.

The book has touches of insight that make it worth reading. In his last letter Charlie writes, "I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there." The words are simple, but they are wise. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a modern day bildungsroman, and, while the writing is just a step above Jewel's poetry, it is worth a read.

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