>
> awhile back we had a brief convo about the uses of fiction to make points
> about social life. i was complaining about the way I Am Charlotte Simmons
> was made to stand in for everything that goes on in universities today. It
> was, basically, the only evidence used to illustrate the idea of class
> reduced to culture. That's what I don't get: how can anyone justify using
> one book -- a work of fiction -- to illustrate the entire university system
> in the u.s. Is this normal in litcrit?
>
> shag
Well, any contemporary college student will recognize IACS as totally orthogonal to their experiences, so there's that problem. It's a hilarious read, though, both for that and because Wolfe is a genuinely good prose stylist. You get both laughing-at and laughing-with, which is a rare combination.