The Graduate (Paperback, New Impression)

The Graduate, Ben Braddock, is 21 and not too much younger than the author here. He comes home to California, to a new sports car, and the rather fatuous bromides of his parents. He is an "ivy covered status symbol" - but he is also "tired" and very bored. And boredom, no matter how symptomatic or emblematic it may be, is a literary pitfall; nothing equals nothing and it is hard to make it add up to something. In Ben's case, it leads to some desultory drinking, a little television, and finally his seduction by the wife of his father's partner, Mrs. Robinson. The situation becomes much messier when he meets her daughter, Elaine, falls in love with her, follows her obsessively to Berkeley, overrides all interference (the abusive Mrs. Robinson; the disapproving Mr. Robinson), and finally grabs her, literally, at the altar when she tries to marry someone else..... It is hard to judge Charles Webb's actual talent since almost all of his book is in dialogue, in fractional to minimal sentences many of which reduce to "No" and "I don't know" and "What", an all-purpose evasive word to avoid further interrogation. Next question: does youth speak to youth? (Kirkus Reviews)

'For twenty- one years I have been shuffling back and forth between classrooms and libraries. Now you tell me what the hell it's got me.' That's how Benjamin Braddock talked when he came down from university. Somehow it didn't seem to be what his father expected from a college education, and everyone was really appalled when Ben raped Mrs Robinson (that was her story anyway) and ran off with her daughter in the middle of her wedding to someone else... a brilliantly sordid tale of a young man's search for identity and a portrayal of the worst-behaved yet most sympathetic anti-hero of the day.

General

Imprint:	Penguin Books
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	April 1981
First published:	February 1973
Authors:	Charles Webb
Dimensions:	198 x 129 x 14mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - B-format
Pages:	191
Edition:	New Impression
ISBN-13:	978-0-14-002693-1
Categories:	Books > Fiction > General & literary fiction > Modern fiction
LSN:	0-14-002693-2
Barcode:	9780140026931

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