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Title: The Graduate by Charles Webb, William Hope ISBN: 0-7540-0861-4 Publisher: Chivers Press Ltd Pub. Date: July, 2002 Format: Audio Cassette

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Average Customer Rating: 2.7 (23 reviews)

Rating: 2
Summary: Bad writing makes the story secondary.
Comment: This book is the exception to my rule that the movies never measure up to the books they are based on. It's difficult to get into this book because the writing is so awful. Charles Webb doesn't know how to write about events or emotions without resorting to making the characters talk about what's going on, which would be fine if the dialogue weren't so boring and repetetive. Webb writes like a foreign student in his second year of of English - commas and question marks are used unevenly, and whenever there is dialogue, it's usually followed by the words "she said," "Benjamin said," "Mrs. Robinson said."

"What is it," Benjamin said. "Some kind of rubber suit?"
Mr. Arnold laughed. "It's a diving suit," he said.
"Oh," Benjamin said, and began returning it to the box.
"You're not through yet," his father said, pulling it back up and holding it. "Keep digging."
"Isn't this exciting," Mrs. Arnold said.

The story itself is good, but I found it hard to concentrate on the book's good points when the writing was so painfully bad. I bought this book at a used book sale and am planning to give it away to a book drive soon.

Rating: 5
Summary: An American Classic
Comment: As for all those extremely negative Swiss reviews, I guess this book and the white suburban upper middle class American sub-culture it so accurately portrays do not come across as funny and as true to people from other cultures. That's understandable; I may not be able to fully relate to an accurate tale of European life. This apparent lack of universality is a valid complaint. But the book sure rings true to me. Benjamin's frustration and rebellion are all part of the normal search for meaning and self-fulfillment that many people go through. It's a classic American coming-of-age story complete with a profound identity crisis. And the discussion between Ben and his father about fighting fires and sleeping with prostitutes in frozen fields -- well, it wasn't in the movie and it makes me laugh out loud each time I read it. That part alone makes the book worthwhile.

Rating: 4
Summary: They don't get it: it's existential
Comment: The other reviewers don't seem to realize that this book is an existential tale. It concerns a person's powerlessness to stop what is happening around them. See also "The Incredible Shrinking Man" for another existential story. The existential movement has pretty well died out (thank God!).

As to the style of writing, I dare anyone to slam this book and praise Hemingway. They are very much alike.

A good book, and similar to the movie (which used most of the dialog). Except for the movie making Carl "the makeout king", it ends the same way.