I've always been irritated by the fact that all anyone ever remembers about The Graduate is the seduction of the protagonist by the archetypal Older Woman Mrs Robinson. While of course this is a pivotal aspect of the story, the book and film have so much more to say about alienation and obsession. I reread the novel recently and was particularly taken by its anti-consumerist stance, especially given it was published in 1963, before the ideas it presented became truly trendy.
These themes are picked up again in Home School, which stands alone as a well-conceived continuation of the lives of the characters first introduced in The Graduate 44 years ago. The book is set 11 years after the tumultuous events of that novel. Ben and Elaine are still together and now have two young boys whom they are teaching at home so that they don't have to go through the educational system that Ben is still chafing against.
Home School is a fine example of Webb's droll style and ability to record the minutia of life we cling to in stressful times; the arguments while making coffee or brushing teeth, the need to maintain the quotidian while our lives threaten to fall apart. The story takes some surprising turns and I had a strong sense that these characters mean as much to Webb now as to the young man who wrote the first novel so many years ago. Certainly there is a youthful vigour in the writing, and the book is at times laugh out loud funny.
This is not some pointless cash-in sequel, but a fine and mature novel that complements its predecessor but can be read without any knowledge of what went before.
And yes, Ben and the marvellously monstrous Mrs Robinson have a rather interesting trip down memory lane that brings the novel to a deeply satisfying conclusion. Home School
In Charles Webb's superb new book "Home School," a clever and thoroughly entertaining sequel to his classic novel "The Graduate," a lot has happened since Benjamin Braddock rescued the fair Elaine Robinson from the prospect of a loveless marriage and eloped with her to parts unknown 40+ years ago. And yet Webb's new story of the happy couple is as fresh and satirical as ever.
Set in 1974, in Westchester County, New York, where Ben and Elaine moved into her late father's house to elude the depraved Mrs. Robinson, "Home School" opens with a simple plot device that shows the main characters still struggling to maintain their idealism and integrity in a world of suburban conformity. Their first challenge is how to beat the local school authorities who are insisting that Ben and Elaine abandon their then-experimental approach to teaching their children, Jason and Matt, at home.
Faced with an implacable deadline to return the boys to standardized classes, Ben resorts to desperate measures and makes a late-night phone call to his nemesis, Mrs. Robinson, so that he can enlist her help in a plan to blackmail the school principal with a sex scandal. For her part, Mrs. Robinson - now calling herself "Nan" and long since denied contact with her grandsons - agrees. But from the beginning it's clear that she is scheming to use this as an opportunity to pursue her own mischievous goals by getting her own guest room where she can insinuate herself back into the Braddocks' lives.
To complicate matters further, Ben and Elaine are also subjected to a visit by some very eccentric friends who share their interest in home-schooling, although with decidedly different results for their messed-up offspring. In fact, Garth and Goya prove to be a couple of "professional hippy" slackers who are as annoying as they are smug. This creates even more household tension as Goya has an awkward habit of continuing to breast-feed her nine-year-old daughter, Nefertiti, and older son Aaron, to the evident discomfort of their hosts. Much to Elaine's dismay, however, Ben apparently feels that Garth and Goya are fellow free-thinkers on the subject of enlightened education, and he is initially reluctant to ask them to leave.
The rest of this slight but charming tale revolves around the drama inherent in restoring family harmony, standing up for one's beliefs, and trying to find some balance between the two. If the plot sounds superficial, it isn't, and the author's ear for dialogue has rarely been better. Webb does a particularly nice job of giving Elaine some of the best lines in the book, and showing how Ben's rather nefarious methods of making his case return to haunt him in the end. Throughout the story, there are fascinating narrative threads that explore everything from the modern obsession with consumerism and the importance of valuing authenticity over phoniness to the need for people to remain true to their own principles, regardless of the cost. And yet the writing is so brisk and filled with a sense of good humor that it does not come across as didactic or tedious. On the contrary, the events described are conveyed in a natural style that never feels contrived or mannered.
As Mrs. Robinson observes in the final pages, "Love turns some men's minds to mush," but "Home School" mines a rich vein of comedy in that essential truth. Indeed, Webb sets up a kind of poetic justice in his last, ironic plot twist, where Ben is faced with a horrible choice in which it appears he can only save his marriage by being unfaithful to his wife. The way he negotiates that test of his character leads to the novel's most satisfying conclusion, and one that readers are as apt to remember as they do the last scene of "The Graduate."
For more than a generation, cynics and romantics alike have wondered what became of Ben and Elaine after that bus sped them from the church where they so narrowly escaped the materialistic fate of their parents. Now we know the final chapters of their lives together turned out to be as rewarding as anyone could have hoped when their marriage began. Thank you, Mr. Webb, for a job well done. The promise that your most famous lovers once represented seems fulfilled, and their place in contemporary fiction assured. - 1960s Women - The Graduate - Mrs Robinson - Cultural Revolution'
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