The Graduate

1963, undated but probably 1967 edition, from Signet
Charles Webb
The Graduate
Original price unknown, purchase price $1.35
Very worn paperback
C-

"Brilliant...sardonic, ludicrously funny." 
"Now a hilarious Motion Picture."

If you strip away the fantastic Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack and the impressive cast, you're left with the story of a young man who reluctantly has an affair with an older woman* and then "falls in love" with her daughter.  Even that sounds more interesting than what you get, a book that is almost pure dialogue, and not very good dialogue at that.  Not to mention that Benjamin's stalking of the admittedly (but understandably) ambivalent Elaine is even less excusable when there's no insight into what any of the characters are feeling.  The closest we get is we're told that Mr. Robinson is distraught, but we don't see it. 

Is the book funny?  A little I guess, although the best line, "Plastics," is only in the Buck Henry screenplay.  I also think that Benjamin's alienation is conveyed better when we actually see the trappings of upper-middle-class suburbia.  (Webb is not big on description.)  And yet, as the inspiration for the movie, and a (not very detailed) record of California in the early 1960s, the book is of some note, so I won't give it a lower grade than The Affairs of Gidget.

*Mrs. Robinson would qualify as the original MILF, except she's more of a MISBIMASWF (Mom I'm So Bored I Might As Well F).