Charlie Tries to Participate in His Own Life in The Perks of Being a Wallflower

When I realized that it was Banned Books time again, I wondered what I could review to take part in the write-off. I haven’t read anything very controversial lately and I wanted it to be something fresh in my mind, so I figured this merited a trip to the library. A glance at the list of recently banned books turned up Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which has long intrigued me as I am a wallflower myself.

In this epistolary novel, a high school freshman named Charlie chronicles his year from August to August through a series of letters to an anonymous recipient who never writes back. He neither expects nor wants a response; he simply likes the idea of knowing that somewhere out there, another person knows his innermost thoughts. The idea that an actual individual is reading his words gives them focus. While he goes off on tangents from time to time, it’s generally pretty easy to follow his line of thinking.

Charlie is a sweet kid who feels more like an observer than a participant in his own life. The book opens with his recollection of his only friend’s suicide earlier in the year. It doesn’t take long to see that Charlie is a deeply sensitive soul who cries at the drop of a hat and who intently watches everyone around him and develops keen insights into how they operate while they barely notice his presence. He comes across as deeply naïve, empathetic and anxious, always thinking primarily of the good of others, always obsessing over what he might have done differently in a particular situation, never knowing how to refuse a request that makes him uncomfortable or initiate something that he wants to have happen. While I have never been in most of the gritty situations he describes, I often found his general way of reacting to things comparable to my own, especially in high school.

It helps that he spends so much of the book drawing in various references to pop culture. When one of his favorite memories involves watching the series finale of M*A*S*H and he includes a Simon and Garfunkel song on a mix tape, how can I not like this kid? The novel is also propelled by the reading of books, since Charlie’s English teacher, a hip young man who insists upon being called Bill outside of class, has given him a list of classics to ingest and write about as a sort of independent study. Charlie rarely goes into depth discussing these books, but they help provide a framework for the year.

Charlie’s home life is generally supportive. His mother dotes on him, while his father is more distant but never abusive, as Charlie is quick to point out lest his reader think he has it worse than he does. His macho older brother has just started his freshman year playing football for Penn State, a detail that made this Penn State Behrend alum smile, and his sister is a high school senior developing some very bad habits when it comes to boys. Their relationship is one of the most tumultuous and interesting of the book, and an early passage wonderfully illuminates the dynamic between them.

”I hate you.”
My sister said it different than she said it to my dad. She meant it with me. She really did.
“I love you,” was all I could say in return.

This exchange is typical of Charlie’s interactions with others. He always wants to think the best of people even when they have done terrible things. On the other hand, when he does something regrettable, he can’t stop beating himself up over it. When he does find some friends, he becomes the go-to shoulder to cry on, but while he enjoys his time with these vivacious people, he still often feels as though he is on the fringes, particularly when it comes to Sam, the senior who he considers the sweetest, most beautiful girl he has ever known.

If this book were a movie, it would most definitely be rated R. I can think of a dozen reasons why it might have been challenged, starting with the suicide. The book deals heavily with myriad aspects of teen sexuality, from Charlie’s first erotic dream – which he spends most of the year trying to forget – to the covert relationship between Sam’s brother Patrick and the quarterback of the high school football team. Throughout the year, Charlie is exposed to and sometimes ingests alcohol, marijuana and LSD, and he becomes thoroughly addicted to cigarettes. Other controversial topics that arise include molestation, domestic abuse, racism and abortion. Finally, while Charlie has a very clean mouth, he occasionally quotes the profanity of others, and most of it is pretty harsh.

If my first introduction to this book was that laundry list of topics, I doubt I’d be too interested in picking it up. As it was, I won’t pretend that some of the things I read didn’t make me squirm. However, Charlie’s compassion and idealism as he observes and weathers some very difficult issues keep this from being depressing or degrading. It also was a quick read, with the 210 pages only taking me a few hours to get through. While I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone younger than high school, I wouldn’t ban it either, and considering how many teens report feeling disenfranchised, I’m sure that many would relate to Charlie’s struggles to understand his place in the world. “I think everyone is special in their own way,” Charlie tells his unknown reader late in the book. “I really do.” Maybe that’s a message that a few wallflowers who feel that they have outgrown the affirmations of Mr. Rogers could stand to hear again.