Considering how many people in our society experience college, I find it interesting just how few novels are written with collegiate settings. I recently finished the book “Loner” by Teddy Wayne, which offers quite a frightening perspective on certain people and places around us. This novel is not a cute 200-page story that takes place at an elite university, but is instead a disturbing portrait of a notable chunk of our culture. What makes this book successful is its dynamic main character, a Harvard University freshman named David Federman. To call Federman a first-class narcissist, entitled braggart, unreliable narrator and know-it-all would be putting it lightly.
The following of an egoist as he navigates through early adulthood is not new to literature. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “This Side of Paradise” follows the self-centered Amory Blaine through his disastrous love life while at Princeton University, and James Joyce’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” tells the tale of Stephen Dedalus, a young Dubliner who comes face-to-face with heavy issues concerning religion and politics as he comes of age in his university years. We all remember being struck by Holden Caulfield’s uncomfortably relatable voice in J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye,” but it is precisely this ability to relate with flawed characters that allows us to truly evaluate ourselves from the outside. What made Holden Caulfield a disturbing character wasn’t his typical adolescent cynicism and unfailing selfishness, but the fact that we all saw a little of ourselves in his brutally honest narration. Literature often presents characters with the same nasty flaws we all possess.
In “Loner,” David Federman evokes a Caulfield-like cynicism, but he is also a chilling narcissist with almost primal levels of envy. From constantly criticizing his closest peers to feigning an interest in someone just to be closer to their roommate, David does some terrible things. The thing is, though, he does things any one of us could do. We may not all reach the same unnatural levels of manipulation and dishonesty (with others, as well as ourselves) as David, but we often come close. Most of the time, David is a freak to be observed from afar, but every once and while he would say or do something that I could see myself doing, which can be quite unsettling.
Part of what can make a story an economic success, in the eyes of publishers, is its ability to relate to the masses, and in an increasingly globalized world; it appears that this once-impossible task is becoming easier.
A major concern of anti-globalists is the idea of “cultural homogenization,” which is simply a reduction in cultural variety. As our political ties and economies become more and more interconnected and interdependent, there is a growing fear that the people of earth will eventually merge into one, ugly glob of homogenous culture, preferences and experiences. But is a culture really a culture if it’s the only one?
Regardless of the answer to that question, diversity of life and experience are a part of what makes the world fascinating, but couldn’t a homogenous culture make profits much easier for publishers of entertainment and art? As consumers, we tend to wade toward art that is familiar and relatable. The personal connection felt from any relation is pleasant and comforting, and if this feeling can be evoked from a book or song, then we are undoubtedly going to flock toward art that makes us feel such a way.
Whether the world is currently merging into one like-minded mass, I admire literature’s ability to transcend what we think of as culture and tap into the much richer resource of the overall human experience. I may not eat the same foods or celebrate the same holidays as a French counterpart across the sea, but I’m sure we both have experienced many of the same things: failure, success, joy, devastation or love. It is these underlying emotions that literature pries out from the depths of us and forces us to face head-on. And for that, I am thankful, for I know it is good for us all.
Andrew Hall is a UF business administration junior. His column appears on Fridays.
