By
Lisa Birnbach, et al
Millions of people read The Official Preppy Handbook in the 1980s, and if they didn't hide under the porch, they set off into the world of college to experience the life so irreverently described in this book.
If the jacked-up online price is any indication, The Official Preppy Handbook has either become a classic, a collection of essays about a strange world, or a primer from those who believe this book sums up colleges on the whole. Colleges only skew in the direction of this model occasionally, and the book dismisses the vast majority of American colleges as decidedly non-prep. Published in 1981, the famous satire of Ivy League colleges is full of anecdotes, caricatures, absurd lists, illustrations and photos aimed at lampooning Ivy League self-consciousness and enlightening everyone who has had the sense to stay away. How it morphed into a book about college in general is a mystery.
The humor is undeniable. That's evident in the number of knock-offs that followed in its wake, enough to rival Elvis imitators. The list includes The Official Politically Correct handbook, The Official Sexually Correct Handbook, The Official Stockbroker's Handbook, a Yettie Handbook, even a British version, The Sloane Ranger Handbook with a photo of Princess Di on the cover and onward. Today, The Official Preppy Handbook has been handed down to today's kids, and the question of who takes it seriously as a college primer, and who treats copies as collectibles is difficult to gauge. When parents want their kids to attend a liberal arts college, their kids receive it as a primer.
If the kids are smart, they'll see the market value and flip it on the Internet. It won't teach you a darn thing about college. It's a revenge book. Preppiness offends the authors -- the book makes preppies look like the eunuch monks of a Ming harem. Like any kiss-and-tell book, it's chock full of reasons to deplore these people, but it's a complete pumpkin-head book, full of bondage and confusion.The irony of selling a high-priced college education in the age of free information is lost on many people. The crowd of applicants for entrance to status colleges is big and their anxiety is superfluous. Since knowledge is free, are these colleges selling Smoke and Mirrors? Maybe that accounts for the popularity of The Official Preppy Handbook. It's irreverence is appealing.
