Thursday, April 14, 2011
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
I've read about 50 pages so far in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. One of the first things I noticed was that Stephen Chbosky has his own, unique style of writing. The story is told through Charlie, a freshman in high school. He tells about his experiences through letters to an unknown recipient. Each letter begins with "Dear Friend,". The only real clue we get (so far) about who this recipient is, and why he's writing to him/her, is at the beginning of the first letter. Charlie says: "I am writing to you because she said you listen and understand..." He goes on to say that he does not want the recipient to know who he is, nor find him. The letters are very informal and not always gramatically correct. I think this helps Chbosky to portray the full personality of Charlie, and in some ways, it makes the story more realistic. He writes like many teenager would casually write, instead of writing with an extensive vocabulary and perfect mechanics. I think his writing style is really interesting and the story is better because of it. How do you think this writing style helps or takes away from the story? What do you think of his writing style?
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I think that the point of this writing style is meant to allow the reader to read between the lines and figure out some of the things that Charlie does not seem to fully understand or necessarily see and this shows his innocence. For example, (sorry if you have not read this far) at the Christmas Party where he reads the poem that his friend Michael gave him before he commited suicide, he may not have realized that it may have been Michael vociferating about how he feels. Another instance is with the "special" brownies at his first high school party where you are left to figure out what was different about them. I like the fluidness of the story with each letter, each one kind of leaving off with the last and not skipping long distances. I also like how he writes very literally and does not seem to care that some of the things he is writing about are very explicite and overall it has been a good book to read.
ReplyDeleteI also like the way he writes. It is interesting that he writes with such informalness, yet the reader is still intrigued enough by the actual content of the story to never put the book down. I think that the character, Charlie, is so lovable! He is clearly so very naive about some ways of life, but it is interesting to see the voyage of understanding that he goes through.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Kevben. You do have to read through the lines a bit to get the whole story, but I think that it makes the book that much more interesting.