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Dartmouth Bookshelf
by Joe Rago
New York, New York
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Paullina Simons is the non-alum author of the pulpy romance-cum-thriller Red Leaves, set at Dartmouth |
There are at least a few first-rank Dartmouth writers, but nearly all of them had rather little to say about the College. It's more accurate to say that there are at least a few first-rank writers who were once Dartmouth undergraduates.
Robert Frost 1896, the College's preeminent literary figure, never commented deeply about his time in Hanover, which was brief and rebellious as a student, and a platform for his well-spun New England persona during the last decades of his life. Richard Eberhart 1926, another poet, took one Pulitzer to Frost's four, though he was just as reticent about Dartmouth. So were Theodor Geisel, M.D., class of '25, and Norman Maclean, class of '24 (the Dartmouth bit in "A River Runs Through It," the film, didn't appear in the novella). Budd Schulberg '36 had more to say about Hollywood than Hanover. The novels of Ben Ames Williams 1910 concern Mississippi or Maine; Louise Erdich '76 concentrates on Native American fiction. Dartmouth's many fine ecologists (a line stretching from George Perkins Marsh 1820 to the late English professor Noel Perrin, Williams '49) were understandably preoccupied by the Connecticut River Valley, not the school on its banks. With the exception of Richard Hovey 1885 -- the finest college lyricist, from any college, ever -- it's fair to say that most Dartmouth writers had other priorities.
This may explain why literature about the College, on the whole, is not particularly good. There are, by my count, at least a dozen novels that take place at Dartmouth, and it seems appropriate to start with the worst of the lot.
The first is called "Red Leaves," a pulpy romance-cum-thriller worthy of a Lifetime miniseries. The author, Paullina Simons, an Eastern European émigré, has no connection with the College, which "Red Leaves" (1996) apparently sets out to prove. The promotional copy says it all: "Everyone at Dartmouth College knows Kristina Kim, Conni Tobias, Albert Maplethorpe, and Jim Shaw. Attractive, intelligent, and poised for brilliant futures, they are campus elite . . . But it is more than camaraderie that unites the friends. Dark and seductive secrets bind the four to one another -- intense passions and simmering tensions that have building years. When those passions finally explode in the dead of a bitter cold night, a brutal act will be committed -- one that will reveal shocking truths about each of them." This is the overheated way of saying that the four protagonists spend most of their time having sex with each other.
Things go badly awry in the first few pages, as Miss Simons sets the scene. "Here on the driveway of Frankie's fraternity, Phi Beta Epsilon -- one of the least notable frat house on Webster Avenue or Frat Row, as the Dartmouth students called it -- Kristina never tied her hair." Or a bit of dialogue: "Well, then, let's go to EBA. They have Portugese muffins that are to die for." Despite being College students, no one seems to be happy. It also turns out that Jim is the editor of the Dartmouth Review, which, in my experience, has never been the domain of the "campus elite," much less the attractive campus elite. The ultimate secret of "Red Leaves" is too tedious to mention.
Another Dartmouth novel is called "Giant Killer," published in 1981 by Tom Hyman, the poor man's Robert Ludlum. After the CIA chief is assassinated by an operative code-named Cyclops, an everyman Dartmouth professor and his smart-aleck girlfriend are drawn into a web of intrigue, ultimately uncovering a sinister conspiracy bent on overthrowing the U.S. government. Like "Red Leaves," the book's ambitions are mostly cinematic. It's hard, for instance, to think of a single member of the computer science faculty who could carve a man-trap out of wooden stakes. Or fighting off a rabid boar.
Luckily, some of the other College novels are more successful . . .
Mr. Rago is an editor at the Wall Street Journal. This is the first installment of an occasional series.
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