Meriam Raouf STAFF WRITER

If you’re an author, and your book gets put on the New York Times Best Seller list, and suddenly it becomes against your religion to sell your novel, I’m not sure where you would hide. I’m pretty sure there’s a little broom closet in the statue of liberty’s nose for situations like that, but it’s not that roomy, and I’m pretty sure you have to rent a P.O. box to get mail. It’s no “cupboard under the stairs” situation and the landlord is rabid, but the view’s not bad. Anyway, as soon as that label is put on a book, it becomes the “hot young thing” in the form of novels. You’re not going to have the same religious zombie-like following as did Rowling or Tolkien, but you’re going to get a baker’s dozen of intellectual hipsters trailing you, cigarette and coffee in hand, possibly with some respectable “normal” New Yorkers too. And okay, you won’t get the soccer mom following that Oprah does, but there’s still some power behind that recommendation—mom pants versus fedora hats.

So I’m holding the latest of these picks, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, which is complete with witty title and contemporary cover picture. From what I previewed, the book seems interesting enough with its “keep you interested while you do laundry” exterior while possibly hiding more meaning underneath—it got recommended for a reason right? Again, that’s me assuming I know anything about where the book after two minutes of skimming or just because of who recommended it—très infomercial. Having been in an Amy Winehouse-like funk more mercurial than Kramer doing standup, it felt good to be in a familiar place, even if the south winds of the tornado that is finding thoughtful gifts and new flats (before my old ones disintegrate while I’m walking) still reach me. There is a comfort in being able to walk around in a store and browse books, even if you’re a little on the clock in a ritual that is all too supermarket sweep-ish. That show is just one long advertisement, with running. Do they get new vegetables every week for the background to their polite elevator conversations?

As an art/lit student, any mention of the words mainstream or conformity gives me brain freeze, recuperation from which is not too easy or fast. So I put down the book and the words “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” pop into my head for some reason paired with the words “In the Land of Women” (don’t stop reading because I mentioned that movie boys) for some reason—memory is weird like that. I find myself distracted as ever (refers to the funk of before) biting my nails, about to look up the title, when I’m stopped by someone who works in the store who helps me find it. At this time, I realize I’m still holding the other book, so I attempt to stack the book away, only to realize that I’m standing right next to someone who works there, which is the kind of embarrassing that people watch on YouTube when they get lost in the vortex of related videos. After finding a compulsively clean and undamaged copy of the book, I walk to the front, thinking about how strange it is that this title just materialized in my head for no reason. Maybe because the author’s last name makes me feel like I’m reading Chomsky if I blur my eyes.

I just have myself wrapped up in a sort of worry—is everything universal? This morning I was taking an English final for the term. The story they picked for the DBQ was “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, who, if he wore spandex, I’m sure my brother would get a figurine of. I kind of squealed (in my head, I was in a quiet auditorium keep in mind) when I read the author and title, like an insecure freshman that just found her friends at a party. The story is really beautiful for those of you who haven’t read it—it’s about how much streaming and advertising there is constantly, and how it interrupts any constant thought processes (my phone just vibrated), about standardization and a lot more than I can mention. So I’m reading this story, and once again getting my heartstrings used as a punching bag by Vonnegut. As Vonnegut’s taking my emotional lunch money, I find tears in my eyes (don’t call me a sap, read it first) and start writing, in a 5 paragraph essay form, about three points I think Vonnegut’s trying to make, even though he’s making like a thousand, and focusing on one point might actually be more powerful. Whatever, I’ve dealt with this before. As I’m writing about how standardization is deadly, I look up from my cardboard (they make us write on boards in an auditorium because that way we can all take them at once). About one hundred kids sit in the auditorium and on the stage, with number two pencils, with identical tests, and teachers pacing the floor like security guards. I erase the word “standard.” That’s like being in the KKK and speaking out against racism. After 90 minutes (even though the test is much shorter), they let us out, and I hear someone behind us talking: “It was so easy! That story! All you had to do was paraphrase! Yeah, number ten? Yeah I put that too!”

I turn around an I must have instinctively shot them some sort of dirty look, seeing as I felt like they just spit in my hypothetical little sister’s face, stomped on my camera, and insulted my heritage. They reduced a story so beautiful to one of the seven deadly sins: paraphrasing. What I want to know is after the grades are in and the applications are out, did those kids really learn anything about the story? Maybe externally, but I don’t feel like the story got through their skin the way it should. It just feels like the motives of today’s generation is totally distorted by what we’re told—what Vonnegut warned us about.

I’m just lost in the college application process—there’s no “how do you feel about paraphrasing” essay. I heard a kid talking this morning about how he’s “applying to Yale just because it’s a good school.” What scares me more than anything about that statement is the use of the word “good”—why form your own opinion when someone else’s is already finished, right? This isn’t to say that doing the opposite of public opinion because you’re so hipster you think it’s ironic is good either—that’s the same problem, only in reverse. Plus the books on the NYT list are usually pretty good. Without the independence of forming an individual opinion, there’s fear of a universal truth, which is like having a unisex strip club—it’s an oxy moron, a pretty weird one at that.