Listen, Chip, I have a question: What were you trying to prove by writing an entire novel about a kid's freshman year at "State" without ever once mentioning the actual name of the university? Of course, being from Pennsylvania, I had you at the Rathskeller reference. Penn State students had you at the first mention of Mifflin Hall. The kitschy reference to the Beaver Bus Terminal topped if off. Those poor people in Idaho and Wisconsin, though, with no frame of reference--they probably just thought you were making this stuff up as you went along, spicing in these details for artistic show. Poor them. And when Himillsey (I didn't check the spelling on that and don't care if it's wrong, Chip, because I'm still mad at you and all authors who give characters unpronouncable names) gets a waffle shaped like "the school mascot," my Pennsylvania pride just blossomed from my bosom: Yes, the nittany lion! How cute.
You have to give Chip a break--writing about freshman year at college is tough. Even in the fifties, when being eighteen was just a smidge less complicated than it is now, the scope of the experience can be overwhelming. I suppose you can come at it from a few angles: You could step back and try to get the whole act--the juggler (in this case, the nameless Art Major, eventually nicknamed, in order, Spewy and Happy) and the million new people, places, ideas, and beer brands he's trying to rotate, or focus on one aspect, zero in on one of the objects he's juggling.
Chip takes the second, and I applaud him there. I don't think I can sit through one more college novel that's all about fraternities, sex, drugs, alcohol, and jilted relationships. These seem to come out by the thousands, so it's no wonder kids get to college and look on these things called "classes" in a bit of confusion. They don't seem to make it into any of the movies. But they ARE what you're paying for, and Chip chooses to base the book around two of Happy's classes: Intro to Drawing and Intro to Graphic Design (AKA Commerical Art). Don't worry, there's a good scene of Happy vomiting his first binge out the window of a proto-hippie's car and even a vaguely homosexual scene of him straddling his drunk, unconscious professor in his bed and taking a picture of his dick. Good old Hap doesn't get laid his first year (it IS the fifties) but there are are some offhand references to sex (Himillsey AKA "Mills" apparently gets around, notably with her and Happy's Tough Cop Graphic Design Professor), but there is at least one good frat party, although, unlike most college novels and movies, it's presented as only a small part of college life instead the whole point of going in the first place. Thank God. Reality--what a concept.
Most of the characters are sort of cookie-cutter. Happy, the naive kid from The East, Maybelle, the even more naive down-home Georgia peach, and even Mills the Unpronouncable, who's presented as a quirky nonconformist, quickly fits the bill of the angry rebel nauseatingly-unique cool girl who's really dreadfully insecure on the inside and is just bursting to unload some of it on Happy. Mills has her funny moments, like when she carves midterm answers onto pencils and calls them "Dodd Cheat-n-Chews." Incidentally, she also introduces the novel's puzzling title, in the form of one of her pieces on exhibit: an empty pedestal, intended as a mockery of "modern" art, which she subtitles "The Seventh Circle of the Cheese Monkeys." The issue of the title is up to you to decode: At the end, I had about five different perfectly acceptable theses about what it signified, but eventually decided it was the final critique of modern literature, with me trying to figure out its meaning just like all the idiot art critics that Mills hates trying to figure out the meaning of "abstract" Picassos. A stretch? Sure. But this is Summer, not AP English.
The best character, by far, is the Graphic Design professor, Winter Sorbeck. Maybe I related to Happy's situation because I had a teacher like Winter once: Absolutely Unforgiving, Sarcastic, Makes Kids Cry, but, in the end, it's all tough love. You end up worshipping him, partly because you know that no one can ever scare you again. It's over. The poor teacher that will stand in front of you after him--they've got nothing. Life seems pretty easy, at least academically, after someone like Winter Sorbeck. He's the kind of guy whose class you off-handedly mention having passed at parties: "Yeah, I got a B in Sorbie's. Tough, but I guess I succeeded." Unlike some other critiques of this novel, I wasn't bothered by Winter's late arrival. He's introduced just as Mills the Unpronouncable's arrogance and self-righteousness starts to grate. It's enjoyable to hear him tell her that she likes "to fart [her] fake fictions and let everyone get a whiff." He only shows up in the second part of the book ("Spring Semeseter"), but the funniest parts involve him. One hilarious episode involves matches and Bestine (if you don't get it, look it up.) Another has them in the middle of central Pennsylvania, designing messages that will get them picked up by strangers (boy, can you imagine an assignment like that now?). There's more. Even if you think the rest of the novel is crap--it's not, but it's not Tolstoy, either--read it for Winter Sorbeck. Of course, if you read it, that'll be obvious.
The end seemed sort of contrived--I won't give it away, but it sort of seemed like he got tired of the story and quickly finished it so he could move on to something else. Some of the references to artists and use of slang started getting denser at the end, until I had to read some of Mills' famous rants a few times to wade my way through all the witticisms. Still, especially for a college student, it's a fun, easy read. And even in the slightly awkward parts, I remembered my favorite part of the book, at the very beginning: "Majoring in Art at the state university appealed to me because I have always hated Art, and I had a hunch if any school would treat the subject with the proper disdain, it would be the one that was run by the government. Of course I was right." Chip definitely treats college with the proper disdain--the sequel picks up after Happy is already graduated. It's always freshman year. What do people do during, say, sophomore year, besides recover from freshman year? The mystery remains.
Just as a final aside: Chip convinced the publishers to add in a deleted chapter at the end of the softcover edition about a sorority initiation rite in a nursing home, and it's HILARIOUS. Read it right after Page 74. As for the entire novel, you won't regret it, overall--good beach read.
CAUTIOUSLY RECOMMENDED
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