Wolfe the author does manage to shine in the realm of dialogue and linguistic nuance, and the level of detail he picks up, from the extensive research he is famous for, pays off a number of times. Particularly astute is his inclusion of “Sarc1, 2 and 3,” graduated forms of sarcasm that forestall their victim’s realization of mockery. And college movie buffs will enjoy his inclusion of Frank the Tank’s now famous mantra “It tastes so good when it hits your lips!” which is not explained, adding more to Wolfe’s credentials as an eager ear for detail.

But even Wolfe’s love of language goes too far, often serving as a tool to preposterously caricature his chosen subjects. “The year’s prevailing college creole,” he writes, is something called “Fuck Patois,” a language centered around—you guessed it—that most descriptive of four-letter words. Wolfe does get it right here, at least initially; college students swear an awful lot, and create new and intricate forms of words that used to only have a few. But he gets too giddy when he includes the telltale word seventeen times in a half-page of dialogue. And his imitation rap by the fictionally famous “Doctor Dis” that churns beneath every sweaty dance party is hilarious, though it’s not supposed to be: “spears her haunches Dirty Sanchez dude what wants her nude and slutty pseudo-ruts her butt so rudely taunts her.” Word.

And then there is the sex. A word before opening this greasy, sweaty, gyrating can of worms. Wolfe has a purpose here, which is set out even before the novel begins. In an untitled section before the novel’s Prologue we are told of Victor Ransome Starling, Charlotte’s Nobel Prizewinning professor. His famous experiment on cats demonstrated that control animals in the presence of those biologically induced to engage in rampant sex did so too simply because of environmental pressures to conform. “In that moment,” Wolfe writes, “originated a discovery that has since radically altered the understanding of animal and human behaviour: the existence—indeed, pervasiveness—of ‘cultural para-stimuli.’”

Pervasiveness is right. If you buy Wolfe’s view of college students, every one of them, from the lowly virgin Adam Gellin to the satisfied stud Jojo, and even our dear Charlotte, is pressured relentlessly by their environment to believe sex is the end all of existence. In this world no one, no matter how lofty his or her sense of self, can escape the “ripped” grip of lust. We are all of us frenzied cats, unable to buck the tide of hormonal rampage that courses through our veins and coed halls.

A sample of Wolfian stream of consciousness makes his view nauseatingly clear: Charlotte forces her way through a dance floor “between the revelers, who bobbed and shrieked and ululated and exulted in bawling music drunken screaming stroboscopic girls in slices boys dry-humping in-heat bitches he’s not cool got little dickie his cum dumpster is what she is oh fuck that sucks it’s so ghetto scarfed a whole line with a green straw from the heel of her Manolo gotta get laid.”

Does this language and this sentiment exist in college? Of course it does, but it’s not new, and it’s not everything. But Wolfe seems to think it is new, or at least, that the language has changed so dramatically as to signal a serious downward departure from the “decent” sexual undercurrents of yesteryear’s undergraduates. Yet even if it had, the pervasiveness of sex in Charlotte Simmons eclipses nearly all else—academic pursuits in a supposed elite institution, genuine friendships, even romantic relationships.

All that’s left is a social order with an antiquated hierarchy (Nerds versus Jocks with Frat Boys thrown in), a few funny depictions of keggers and tailgating and the thumping, omnipresent bass of Doctor Dis. It is not enough from an author so dedicated to rigorously depicting the carnival of the American scene. While researching college life, it seems Wolfe leaned too close to the speakers while jotting down notes, for his vaunted hearing has failed him.