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Wilting wallflowers >> The MTV generation gets hyper-sensitive by JULIET WATERS
I feel like a cynical, jaded old teenager saying this, but the only word I could have used at 15 to describe that feeling would have been "stoned." And everyone being really stoned is the only way I could have gotten away with a word like "infinite." But these are the '90s, or specifically, the late '90s. Five years ago it seemed like everything I saw on TV portrayed teenagers as pathological rage machines. When they weren't leading rape gangs down the halls of their high school, they were sitting in courtrooms discovering that "murder is bad," the same way we learned about the consequences of shoplifting. Then a little over a year ago the pendulum swung, and there was Dawson's Creek. Suddenly teenagers have become these excruciatingly sensitive and articulate people who negotiate relationships as though they've been in therapy since the age of two. They flounce out of rooms because there's "too much subtext." And those who don't know what "subtext" means learn by having a torrid affair with their English teacher, causing a small town scandal, then as dénouement, looking the word up in the dictionary. Nevertheless, after you've read Stephen Chbosky's first novel, the second release from MTV books, the kids from the Creek will seem like the callous, mindless thugs of yesteryear. We learn early on that Charlie, the Wallflower of the title, is "special." He's in advanced English classes, and he's "pretty emotional." The novel is told in the form of letters Charlie is writing to an anonymous friend, which he invariably signs "Love always, Charlie." He tells his friend about things that happen in his life. Like when Sean, one of the kids in his gym class threatens to give him a "swirlie" (i.e. stick his head, in the toilet and flush it), Charlie tells Sean that he seems really unhappy. This makes Sean so mad he starts hitting Charlie. Unfortunately, Charlie has no choice but to "really hurt" him (something he knows how to do because his older brother taught him to go for the knees, throat and eyes.) Afterwards, Charlie can't stop crying, so now kids at school look at him funny. But Charlie recovers from complex personal problems as routinely as most kids reach new skill levels in Nintendo. There are no chapter headings, but if there were they would read: Charlie's friend commits suicide, Charlie's sister's boyfriend hits her, Charlie witnesses a date rape, Charlie's new friend turns out to be gay, Charlie's first girlfriend is a dominating feminist and probably a repressed lesbian, Charlie becomes a cafeteria ninja after mean boys call his friend a faggot. Wallflower reads like some kind of surreal Judy Blume for boys: it's pretty emotional. Mostly, though, it's just pretty and emotional, not to mention vacuous and formulaic. The only thing that kept me going was at mid-point Charlie's loving parents send him "back to his psychiatrist." Is this subtext? Does the artificial note in Charlie's voice mean he's a closet psycho and at some point will pull out a rifle and start shootin'? No, those were the good old days. The psychiatrist is there to help him through the climax of the novel. This is when suddenly, miraculously, the senior he's in love with lets him get to third base. Charlie realizes he's not ready for more. Traumatized by this epiphany, he has to be institutionalised for several weeks. But he emerges in the last few pages stronger and smarter. Summer is over and he's no longer afraid of becoming a sophomore. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, MTV Pocket Books, pb, 213 p,. $17.75
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"There is a feeling that I had Friday night," says Charlie, the 15-year-old narrator of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, "after the homecoming game that I don't know if I will ever be able to describe except to say that it is warm.... the feeling I had happened when Sam told Patrick to find a station on the radio... finally he found this really amazing song about this boy, and and we all got quiet... after the song finished, I said something. 'I feel infinite.' And Sam and Patrick looked at me like I said the greatest thing they ever heard. Because the song was that great and because we all really paid attention to it. Five minutes of a lifetime were truly spent, and we felt young in a good way."