Into Eyes Affixed not so Afar - The Perks of being a Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower was an interesting book.  I felt the same about this book at first as I did with The Hunger Games.  It seemed very slow and uninteresting to me.  However, it took me after halfway through the book to discover how I felt for it, and it wasn't good.  I had a contempt for the novel, but not because it remained uninteresting.  I think the content was very well done and I would've enjoyed it more, had it not related to me so much.  Reading the book resurfaced unwanted residual emotions from a darker time in my life.  Had I not experienced some of the things in the book, I would have enjoyed it much more.

I didn't have many questions that went unanswered after I finished the novel.  Most of my questions were based on content that would be answered if I kept reading.  The stream of consciousness writing style threw me off at first.  It brought the questions of his mental condition.  I believed that maybe he was autistic or something of the sort because of the short, choppy thought process.  There was also a lot of repetition in Charlie's writing.  His favorite word seems to be "incidentally" because it shows up so often at first, mostly at the end of letters.  The September 18, 1991 letter shows an example of this at the end when Charlie says, "Oh, incidentally, my sister asked for her "Autumn Leaves" mix tape back" (Chbosky 13).  Another example is the following letter on September 29, 1991 that states, "Incidentally, I only have one cavity..." (18).  This changes over the course of the novel, as his writing improves.  I just found it repetitive and it almost made me question his true age, as his writing seemed so much younger than a freshmen in high school.

I am not going to delve into my deep personal connections with the reading.  My past and my connections here belong to me, and to no extent do I want to share them.  However, I'll put one that stood out more than anything to me.  Charlie's letter from December 21, 1991 and January 1, 1992 gave insight that I understood all too well.  I have, and have had, extremely intense struggles with depression and anxiety.  The poem Charlie read that described the suicide of its character immediately struck home with me (70-73).  I hated that poem for getting to my head because it surfaced an entire apocalypse of emotions from a far away place.  But that had not nearly the same effect on me as the quote from January 1, 1992: "But the thing is that I can hear Sam and Craig having sex, and for the first time in my life, I understand the end of that poem. / And I never wanted to.  You have to believe me" (96). I have struggled with suicide in the past, so this quote made me set the book down and not read for a while.  I ended up having to clear my head and get away from it.  It raised questions about what Charlie really wanted from life.  I wondered if he wanted to be understood and believed.  Or possibly if he wanted the same normality his friends experienced.  I've struggled with questions like these too, so this part of the text hit too far home with me.  Too many connections to a novel is unsettling for me.

There are some points where I agree with the author's portrayal of adolescents, and there are some I don't.  I went to a high school that had way more drug problems than was formally recognized by parents, police, and the school system itself.  I can agree with the drug use and its frequency in the novel, however I never was exposed to ONLY marijuana and pills.  My school also had problems with heroin, meth, cocaine, and LSD.  We did have problems with alcohol, but it was not nearly as popular as the drug use was.  I feel that the teenage parties with the drinking and the drugs were exaggerated.  Even though our school had massive drug dealers and alcohol issues, almost every party was supervised by a parent, so that those things were not accessible.  The novel made both the "good" kids - like Charlie, Sam, and Patrick - and "bad" kids - like Bob - seem like crazy drug users.  It made all teenagers out to be involved in drug and alcohol use.  Although my school had a massive amount of these kinds of teenagers, not all of them were like that.  So I understand the adolescents' portrayal to a point, but not so much beyond that.

This text, at least for me, has very little in common with The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and The Hunger Games.  The plot type doesn't feel like it fits in with the other two.  With our former readings, the plot is very similar.  The protagonist is chosen to be different from the rest of the crowd to achieve a difficult task set upon them by a higher force, accomplish their goal while facing hardships and difficulties, and return to a comfortable place.  For Arthur, from Diary, he attended a new, difficult school with social challenges and financial hardships.  He lost his friends, made new friends, and regained his old friends by the end of the book.  Katniss, from The Hunger Games, was chosen to participate in the games, faced starvation, illnesses, injuries, and ended up winning the games to come home.  This seems different than Perks.  Charlie constantly faces challenges without ever being the chosen one.  Unlike the other two books were the climax happened between the middle and the end, the climax in Perks happened in the last few pages of the story.  It was almost as if all of Charlie's biggest challenges occurred before the novel started, but we didn't learn of them until the end.  I think The Perks of Being a Wallflower is unlike any other novel I read, from its plot to its stream-of-consciousness writing style.

The issues, characteristics, and concepts in regards to adolescents that stem from this piece include many different topics.  Among these, the greatest of the topics are depression, drug and alcohol use, abuse in all of its forms, and identity issues.  Throughout the entire novel, we are informally presented with depression in the subtext of Charlie's letters.  He doesn't come right out and claim his depression, but instead gives us hints by exhibiting the signs of depression.  An example comes in the beginning of his April 29, 1992 letter.  On page 142 he states:

I wish I could report that it's getting better, but unfortunately it isn't.  It's hard, too, because we've started school again, and I can't go to the places where I used to go.  And it can't be like it was. And I wasn't ready to say good-bye just yet.

To tell you the truth, I've just been avoiding everything.

The idea that he is avoiding certain places and things that were of interest to him are among many of the signs that arises with depression.  When it comes to the idea of drug and alcohol use, we see a lot of it with Patrick and Charlie toward the end.  Charlie tells us about Patrick's declining behavior after his fallout with Brad.  Charlie recalls, "We drink a lot.  Actually it's more like Patrick drinks, and I sip" (161).  Patrick attempts to drown away his problems with alcohol, while Charlie hides his behind his drug of choice - cigarettes.  There are way too many incidents of abuse to just chose one.  Abuse is highlighted in many different forms.  Physical abuse is evident when Charlie's sister is hit by her boyfriend, or with Charlie's mother and grandfather.  Mental and emotional abuse comes unknowingly in Charlie and Mary Elizabeth's relationship, when Mary only wants to talk about herself, and it wears on Charlie after a time.  Sexual abuse runs rampant in the novel.  From Charlie and his Aunt Helen, to the rape scene, and even in Charlie's sister's relationship when she decides to get an abortion.  This is probably the most prominent issue in the novel.  When it come to self-identity, I think that's what the novel was based on.  With Charlie being a "wallflower," he lacks the idea of being his own person.  His novel doesn't tell his story as much as it does the people around him.  I think by Charlie soaking in his friends' stories, he forgets himself and doesn't create his own persona.  It's even mentioned in the novel that he doesn't "participate," which is what I think I mean. 

The entire novel was excellently written, captivating, and organized.  I just wished my experienced differed from those in the novel.  Maybe I would have enjoyed it more.