Tom Wolfe once remarked to a writer profiling him for The Guardian, "I do think that if you are not having a fight with somebody then you are not sure whether you are alive when you wake up in the morning." This is comforting to hear, because if Tom Wolfe didn't enjoy a good fight, his life might be a living hell.

Scarcely a year goes by when The Man in White is not engaged in an ever-escalating war of words with his many detractors. Sometimes he's responding to direct attacks on his writings (both his novels and his essays) and sometimes he just decides the waters of the East Side are a little too calm for his liking. He has ripped into The New Yorker (famously suggesting that the magazine is run by "tiny mummies") and lambasted the pretentiousness of modern art (referring to the art community as an "art village") and the death of modern architecture.

In 1989, after the publication of his first novel, "The Bonfire of the Vanities," he turned his critical eye to the literary profession in the seminal essay "Stalking the Billion-footed Beast," a blistering assault on the autobiographical metafiction that had become so prevalent during the '80s. Wolfe called for a return of the "full-blooded realism" of Balzac and Zora, saying that the only way for American authors to save their craft would be through going out into the world and reporting on what they learn, much like Wolfe had done with "Bonfire."

In 1998, Wolfe published "A Man in Full," his study of the New South and the modern American man. The book was a hit with critics and the public alike (it earned Wolfe a spot on the cover of Time), but it was largely overshadowed by a feud that erupted between Wolfe, John Irving and John Updike after Irving and Updike both attacked "A Man in Full." Updike said that the book was "entertainment, not literature." Irving said Wolfe's writing "makes you wince" and is "journalistic hyperbole." In the fall of 1999, Irving spent a book tour giving a series of shrill, increasingly incoherent interviews about why reading Tom Wolfe is "like reading a bad magazine." Wolfe, ever the scrapper, responded that "Irving needs to get off his bottom and leave that farm in Vermont or wherever it is and start living again." He also dismissed Updike and Norman Mailer (another Wolfe hater) as "two old bags of bones." Ouch.

With his new novel, "I Am Charlotte Simmons" (now available in paperback from Farrar, Straus and Giroux), the author produces a book specifically designed to bring the Wolfe haters out of the woodwork. Wolfe admitted as much in an interview with The Badger Herald, saying he was attracted by what he termed "The Sensational Factor" of writing about sex on campus. In this respect, Wolfe certainly scored a slam-dunk. When the book was first released in November of 2004, it sparked heated debates amongst critics. Some publications (including The New Yorker) took it as a sign that Tom Wolfe had finally lost touch with the world. Where does this 74-year-old guy get off writing a book about teenage debauchery, from the point of view of a naíve, 18-year-old girl no less? The gall! The madness! Other critics, including Time and The Washington Post, were much more kind, saying that "I Am Charlotte Simmons" may just be Wolfe's finest achievement as a novelist. Ironically, they cited Wolfe's decision to branch out and write about college from the perspective of an 18-year-old girl as evidence that Wolfe may be the most daring and inventive living American novelist.

So what's the real deal with "I Am Charlotte Simmons?" Is it another Wolfe masterpiece, or is it the epic misfire many claim. In the end, the truth about "I Am Charlotte Simmons" lies somewhere in between: the book is flawed and wonderful; reading it is simultaneously a frustrating and exhilarating experience. In the end though, whatever you think, you'll put the book down glad to have read it.

The biggest question that comes up whenever anybody discusses "I Am Charlotte Simmons" is: why? Why did Tom Wolfe, King of the Upper East Side, decide to direct his critical eye to the modern university? Wolfe remarked to me that, along with the juicy nature of modern college life, he was also interested after seeing "how little was written about what goes on in these coed dorms. There was nothing written from inside to tell what it was like to have these nubile young boys and girls living across from one another." He also noted that "ethical standards no longer come from churches, they come from colleges … the women's movement and the tolerance of people of all kinds came from college."

This, of course, is the central thesis of "I Am Charlotte Simmons": life on college campuses has become so corrupt, so seedy, that it is churning out a generation of losers and cretins. This, of course, is not exactly a radical notion. For centuries, intellectuals from cultures around the world have been saying that the university system is teetering on the edge of irrelevance. As of this writing, it appears as if the university system is still going strong: the empire still stands, as it were. It is unlikely that "I Am Charlotte Simmons" is going to have any significant impact on college life, either. But Wolfe is the first writer to make the threat seem real.

In Wolfe's view, the modern college campus is a beer-drenched war zone, teeming with hate and madness. Wolfe's trademark ram-bam staccato writing style and rule-bending punctuation, both of which can be overwhelming, finds a perfect home in "I Am Charlotte Simmons": it creates a never-ending stream of tension and fear. Students are not humans, but wild animals: the men are testosterone-charged, sex-mad lunatics. Women are nothing more than common whores. Athletes are dumb jocks. Professors are uninvolved in student life. Coaches are users with million-dollar paychecks. This was part of the criticism when the book came out in November. Liberal intellectuals, still licking their wounds over the 2004 presidential election results, crowed that Wolfe was a snarky puritan, a man totally out of his element, just trying to fuel his own conservative agenda by reviving the idea of Big, Bad Liberal University. This last claim is the one that perplexes Wolfe the most. He laughs off "[liberals] who saw this as a political book and saw it as an attack on the sexual revolution." Indeed, Wolfe is too smart, too dispassionate to take sides. He wants to put everybody through the wringer in this book, and that's the major problem with his novel: he's so eager to roast everybody that he forgets to give his book any kind of soul.

Of course, Wolfe argues that the "future of the modern novel is in a highly detailed realism based on reporting." That's what Wolfe has been doing, and doing well, for 40 years. Still, Wolfe seems to have forgotten in "I Am Charlotte Simmons" that he is not a reporter anymore: he's a novelist who works like a reporter. I understand the value of having a withering gaze as a reporter, and I understand that Wolfe is writing this book largely to show the Updikes and the Irvings that his brand of literary reporting is indeed legitimate, but this robs the book of a lot of the emotional impact it could have had. I realize Wolfe is not about going for cheap emotions and sentimentality, but by the last scene, I was longing to feel something, anything, for the characters other than disgust.

"I Am Charlotte Simmons" is not a book you read, it's a book you experience. Oh, and what an experience it is. Sure, the characters may not be as fully formed as you might like, but that's not what Wolfe is after. He's not interested in writing a finely honed character study. His ambitions are far too great. He wants this book to be a kinetic experience. Wolfe's book is like hooking a car battery up to your brain and flicking the switch.

If John Grisham is literary junk food, Tom Wolfe is literary cocaine. In an era full of what Wolfe termed "literary anorexia," "I Am Charlotte Simmons" may be one of the most refreshing books written in years: it's a big, bold, profane, occasionally flawed, but more often than not, brilliant novel. It has the wit of "Bonfire" and the scope of "A Man in Full." More than anything though, what separates "I Am Charlotte Simmons" from most other books being released by major authors is that it feels alive. It feels as if somebody put some of his soul into this book. That's what great literature is all about.

Grade: AB