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The Graduate Charles Webb 9780743456456 Books

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The Graduate Charles Webb 9780743456456 Books

( My review is worth what you're paying for it. I'm just a regular person)

This book has importance in a cultural manner. Published in 1963 months before the Kennedy assassination, it captures the growing disillusionment of the younger generation in America at the time.
Benjamin can't put a name to his feelings of pointlessness at his planned future, simply because it was a time when it was socially taboo to address the meaning of middle class life.
By the time the famous film had been made in 1967 that disillusionment had reached the stage of a youth rebellion.

The affair with Mrs. Robinson and the following events do seem unbelievable in many ways. But this was a time young adults questioned their parents greater morality. Mrs. Robinson is made a rather unpleasant character to make this more acceptable to the reader. In a time before women worked outside the home in large numbers, little sympathy is given to Mrs Robinson. There is no pity for the Robinsons as a couple either. Trapped in a loveless marriage by the social norms of the time. They both clearly loved their daughter. I always felt they were rather harshly treated by the author. However this was true of the times, parents were harshly judged. Elaine rejects her Mother and the illusion her mother lives. In the end they symbolically reject the convention of even the church.

The parents of that generation had a war to catapult them into a speedy adulthood. The next generation took a good deal longer in some cases to find their way. This book beautifully reflects that time.


Tags : The Graduate [Charles Webb] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The basis for Mike Nichols' acclaimed 1967 film starring Dustin Hoffman -- and for successful stage productions in London and on Broadway -- this classic novel about a naive college graduate adrift in the shifting social and sexual mores of the 1960s captures with hilarity and insight the alienation of youth and the disillusionment of an era. <BR> <B>The Graduate</B> <BR> When Benjamin Braddock graduates from a small Eastern college and moves home to his parents' house,Charles Webb,The Graduate,Washington Square Press,0743456459,903614471,Bildungsromans,College graduates,College graduates;Fiction.,Love stories,Mistresses,Mistresses;Fiction.,Mothers and daughters,Mothers and daughters;Fiction.,Young men,FICTION General,FICTION Literary,Fiction,Fiction - General,Literary,FIC019000

The Graduate Charles Webb 9780743456456 Books Reviews

I did not enjoy this book. The characters were unable to effectively communicate with one another. This was frustrating to me.
Bought the book because I love the movie! Fast shipping, and looks great!
I saw the movie version of The Graduate long after it became a cultural phenomenon. At the time, I was a little confused as to why it became a cultural phenomenon. The characters are unappealing, the situations are ridiculous and there are seemingly endless scenes of Dustin Hoffman driving back and forth across bridges and highways in pursuit of his baffling obsession with Elaine. Frankly, once the classic scene of Anne Bancroft's leg on the chair was over, I was bored.

I expected the book to be better. Sadly, it's worse. There's really very little here that isn't in the movie. In fact, it reads so much like a movie script that at one point I did a Google search to make sure the book came first. There's almost no description of anyone or anything, no characterization, and--as in the movie--no reason to care about any of these people. I suppose the over-indulged, over-privileged, self-absorbed Benjamin appealed to the over-indulged, over-privileged, self-absorbed adolescents of the sixties, but it's a mystery to me why any adult would find this novel enjoyable.

Like the movie, the book is full of unappealing characters in implausible situations, but absent the talented actors in the movie, the book relies on cliches like clenched fists and hands thrown up in the air to convey emotions. Occasionally someone--usually Elaine--cries, but it reads more like stage business than real emotion. The book is almost exclusively dialogue and that dialogue is often silly, unrealistic and/or confusing

"Elaine?" he said.
"Tell me."
"But Elaine?" he said, holding his hands up beside himself. "I mean won't you come in the room."
"I don't trust you," she said.
"You don't?"
"Why are you here."
"Because I am!" he said, throwing his hands down beside, him but still not looking at her. [random comma in original]

And like that dialogue demonstrates, the novel consists of scene after scene of one character coercing another into doing something he or she does not want to. Whether it's something huge like having an affair (the initial seduction scene when Mrs. Robinson manipulates Benjamin into her bedroom is cringe-inducing) or something small like making someone walk into a room or sit in a chair when they've clearly said they don't want to. It's the novel No Means No was invented for.

The version makes this dreck even more annoying. There are missing lines, misspelled words, confusingly written dialog (two characters' words are often rendered in the same line) and the occasional symbol instead of letter "?o." rather than "No." But it was not completely without entertaining moments. The moment when Mr. Braddock finally reaches his limit and smacks his selfish brat of a son was gratifying. (Sadly, he only apologizes rather than repeating the action.) The second most entertaining moment occurs in Santa Barbara. It's the biggest As You Know, Bob moment ever and it comes in a letter addressed to a man named Bob. Perfect. I laughed out loud.
The 1967 film THE GRADUATE, directed by Mike Nichols, had a brilliant script and iconic performances that seemed to define the 1960s frustration with status quo hypocrisy, and it remains greatly admired today—but Charles Webb’s original 1963 novel is often overlooked in comparison. Which is a pity, because the novel is often as witty as the film.

The premise is extremely well known. Benjamin Braddock is a recent college graduate, the son of well-to-do parents, who has become suddenly disillusioned with the life he is now expected to live. The wife of his father’s law partner, Mrs. Robinson, asks Benjamin to drive her home from a party celebrating his graduation—and when he does so, she throws herself at him. Benjamin is shocked, but he ultimately decides to take her up on the offer, and their affair continues for quite some time … until Benjamin suddenly, and unwillingly, falls in love with Mrs. Robinson’s daughter Elaine, a turn of events that sets everyone on a path to public scandal.

At the time, Webb’s novel was favorably compared to Saliger’s CATCHER IN THE RYE, and it is very much a portrait of disillusioned and rebellious youth. There are exceptions, but if you come to the novel from the film, you’ll find the film follows the novel closely in terms of plot. But that is not necessarily the case in terms of character. Webb doesn’t spend a great deal of time describing Benjamin, Mrs. Robinson, or Elaine—or any of the characters that people the book. We know their ages, and in some instances, we know their professions, but his writing leans hard on dialogue, and we are left to imagine what they look like, how they talk and walk, for ourselves. The greatest difference, I think, is in Mrs. Robinson. As played in the film by Anne Bancroft, she has a cool and predatory quality; in the novel she seems somewhat more house-wife-ish. The latter is, I think, somewhat more disturbing, because it implies her behavior is actually a commonplace for housewives and mothers everywhere.

THE GRADUATE is an interesting novel, fairly short, quickly read, and I enjoyed it. Even so, it is a rare instance of a good novel that became a better film. Recommended, but the film is the essential of the two.

GFT, Reviewer
( My review is worth what you're paying for it. I'm just a regular person)

This book has importance in a cultural manner. Published in 1963 months before the Kennedy assassination, it captures the growing disillusionment of the younger generation in America at the time.
Benjamin can't put a name to his feelings of pointlessness at his planned future, simply because it was a time when it was socially taboo to address the meaning of middle class life.
By the time the famous film had been made in 1967 that disillusionment had reached the stage of a youth rebellion.

The affair with Mrs. Robinson and the following events do seem unbelievable in many ways. But this was a time young adults questioned their parents greater morality. Mrs. Robinson is made a rather unpleasant character to make this more acceptable to the reader. In a time before women worked outside the home in large numbers, little sympathy is given to Mrs Robinson. There is no pity for the Robinsons as a couple either. Trapped in a loveless marriage by the social norms of the time. They both clearly loved their daughter. I always felt they were rather harshly treated by the author. However this was true of the times, parents were harshly judged. Elaine rejects her Mother and the illusion her mother lives. In the end they symbolically reject the convention of even the church.

The parents of that generation had a war to catapult them into a speedy adulthood. The next generation took a good deal longer in some cases to find their way. This book beautifully reflects that time.