 | A WRITER'S WIT |  A. Einstein |
MY BOOK WORLD
Sittenfeld, Curtis. Prep: A Novel. New York: Random, 2005.
I’m not sure why, but I’m drawn to so-called campus novels—perhaps it is something against which I can hold up my own experiences of adolescence. This one takes place at a prep school, Ault, in Massachusetts. Prep, at least this school, is a cross between an all AP-class high school and a small college occupied by smartasses.
Sittenfeld, given that she is about thirty as she publishes this novel, is perhaps the proper age to recreate such a world, about a half a life ago. The memory is still sharp concerning details she uses: aromas of freshly pubescent boys and girls, smells of institutional food, smells arising amidst the chalk dust and musty books and papers of a long-established institution. She recreates the emotions of that age, yet instead of going home to your parents each night, you’re returning to a dorm to eke out a life with someone you either hate or someone you adore (maybe the sophomore year onward).
Lee Fiora, a fourteen-year-old frosh, is bright enough to be on scholarship, and yet she feels insecure much of the time. At her middle school in South Bend, Indiana, she was a genius, but at Ault she is just one among many—many who seem to be far more ambitious than she is, as well. They seem not to have holes in their education as she does in the field of math. Not only that, but most of the students hail from rich families from the Northeast, and even though some of them befriend her, she never feels quite at home with such people.
One might be jealous of Sittenfeld for writing such an engaging, successful novel the first time around if it weren’t such an enjoyable piece of literature to read. It isn’t just about a bunch of teenagers but it is about those teenagers’ education: academic, personal, literary, social, and cultural. In this novel, they seem to learn it all—in four short and quick years.
Up Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Wilfred Owen
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Garth Greenwell
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Lois Lowry
FRI: My Book World | Marie Benedict, The Queens of Crime: A Novel
I’m not sure why, but I’m drawn to so-called campus novels—perhaps it is something against which I can hold up my own experiences of adolescence. This one takes place at a prep school, Ault, in Massachusetts. Prep, at least this school, is a cross between an all AP-class high school and a small college occupied by smartasses.
Sittenfeld, given that she is about thirty as she publishes this novel, is perhaps the proper age to recreate such a world, about a half a life ago. The memory is still sharp concerning details she uses: aromas of freshly pubescent boys and girls, smells of institutional food, smells arising amidst the chalk dust and musty books and papers of a long-established institution. She recreates the emotions of that age, yet instead of going home to your parents each night, you’re returning to a dorm to eke out a life with someone you either hate or someone you adore (maybe the sophomore year onward).
Lee Fiora, a fourteen-year-old frosh, is bright enough to be on scholarship, and yet she feels insecure much of the time. At her middle school in South Bend, Indiana, she was a genius, but at Ault she is just one among many—many who seem to be far more ambitious than she is, as well. They seem not to have holes in their education as she does in the field of math. Not only that, but most of the students hail from rich families from the Northeast, and even though some of them befriend her, she never feels quite at home with such people.
One might be jealous of Sittenfeld for writing such an engaging, successful novel the first time around if it weren’t such an enjoyable piece of literature to read. It isn’t just about a bunch of teenagers but it is about those teenagers’ education: academic, personal, literary, social, and cultural. In this novel, they seem to learn it all—in four short and quick years.
Up Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Wilfred Owen
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Garth Greenwell
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Lois Lowry
FRI: My Book World | Marie Benedict, The Queens of Crime: A Novel
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