The Big Read: The Graduate at 75

I was recently introduced to an American who gave away his money and material possessions and moved to Cambodia to live very simply in a small hot room with nothing but an empty fishbowl and a plastic rotating fan.

To my eye he looked somewhat tired and I could see too many of the bones in his wrist but he assured me he's happier than ever before. Life is simple, he said. He has no obligations and no burdens, and not every bowl needs a fish. I have to say he was persuasive. The thought of having nothing, and so nothing to fear, is as troublingly attractive to certain temperaments, like mine, as the edge of a roof is to someone, like me, who is afraid of heights.

Whenever I hear about someone making decisions like these, I want to skip to the ending to find out what happens, and above all to know: is he happy?

The man I met in Siem Reap made me promise not to write about him, even with a disguised name, even in a country he doesn't know, because while he doesn't have things, he still has privacy; he still has his own story.

So instead I'll tell you about Charles Webb, who at the age of 24 wrote The Graduate, which became the movie that made a star of Dustin Hoffman and has earned more than $100-million since 1967. The Graduate was a fine and lovely novel, the story of Benjamin Braddock, a young man rebelling against the world of money, corporate jobs and conformity, a bright young man seeking other values.

He's seduced by the older Mrs Robinson (who was 42 in the movie, which hardly seems that old, when you think about it, and was played by Anne Bancroft, who was 36 at the time), but falls in love with her daughter Elaine. He disrupts Elaine's wedding and the two kids give up everything and run away in a yellow bus with nothing but their love and her wedding dress, rolling stunned towards an uncertain future. For 47 years, audiences have wondered whether it's a happy ending.

There's more than a little Benjamin in Charles Webb. Charles married his sweetheart Eve, who now calls herself Fred in solidarity with a group of that name in California that supports men with low self-esteem. (It's unclear to me how someone calling herself Fred would bolster my self-esteem, but perhaps I am not Californian enough.)

Charles and Fred subsequently divorced to protest the institution of marriage, but have spent every day of the last 40-odd years together. They gave away their wedding gifts, then their personal possessions, then their house. They bought another house and gave that away too. They kept doing this until they had no more money to buy houses. They gave one house to a charity, another to their real estate agent, who gave it to his daughter, who apparently still lives in it, although she claims to have made some alterations.

Charles and Fred decided to live a life of simple, honest labour. They worked as house-cleaners and itinerant fruit-pickers and as the joint managers of a nudist colony. Charles wrote another book, which was filmed as Hope Springs with Colin Firth and Heather Graham, but gave away that money too.

They took their children out of the school system to home-school them at a time when that was illegal, and went on the run from the law. One of their sons is a lawyer today, and the other is a performance artist who once ate a copy of The Graduate, covered in cranberry sauce.

In 1999, the Webbs moved to England, although they knew no one there. Charles wrote a sequel to The Graduate but refused to publish it. Legally, the characters of the film were owned by the French media company Canal+, which would enable it to film the novel without consultation. Charles couldn't abandon Benjamin and Elaine and Mrs Robinson.

I want more than anything for Charles and Fred to be happy. In interviews they say they regret nothing, and I want to believe them. The latest news I have is that they're living in Hove in assisted housing. In 2001, Fred had a mental breakdown and now sometimes speaks in the voice of a five-year-old boy. Charles says he didn't like the five-year-old boy at first, but they're slowly becoming friends.

In 2007, to escape crushing debt, Charles finally published his sequel. It is called Home School and is about Ben and Elaine's struggles to educate their children outside schools. Mrs Robinson returns, now 53, and seduces one of the authorities. No one has read the book but me, and I wish I hadn't. No one wants to film it. Here's to you, Mr Webb. Not all stories have the endings we want.