Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely great writing
Review: The reader who disliked "Bonfire of the Vanities" will dislike "A Man In Full."If the primary purpose of this book is to entertain the reader, then Wolfe has succeeded mightily. His writing ability is without peer, and he develops a story with genius. "A Man In Full" is a fast-paced frolic. Wolfe's wit and humor are on full display. Many people have apparently been disappointed by the book's ending; I must agree that it was somewhat of a letdown. Nevertheless, the journey to the end was what mattered. I do not need any sort of "payoff" ending where everyone gets his just desserts. The book, irrespective of what I think should have happened to the characters, was thoroughly enjoyable. The question regarding whether this is literature may be another matter. Some feel that it ain't; others disagree. That determination would best be left to the critics, omniscient as they are. Tom Wolfe is held to an unfair standard. Apparently, when a reader finishes this book and realizes that it isn't the next "The Great Gatsby," he feels the need to run down its author for what the book isn't. Before you deign it necessary to diminish Wolfe, realize that professional wrestling's own Mankind has received high praise and high marks at this web site for a book that Warren from "There's Something About Mary" could've written.
Rating: 
Summary: The message here
Review: Reviews seem to miss the point of this book, which is, in the aggregate, the male characters in this work and their core characteristics represent "A Man in Full." Name the male attribute and it is here: competitiveness, honor, dishonor, preening self-importance, flawed heroism, tragedy and fall from grace, the desire to be remembered, dominance, aggression, the search for philosophical truth, moral courage, self-doubt, fear of aging, feebleness and death, the resilience of youth, physical strength and weakness, stature and the fear of losing it, social and business gamesmanship and one-upsmanship, leadership, cowardice, guilt, political machination, arrogance, war-like-behavior, chest-beating machismo, ego, testosterone-driven desire, redemption, even luck ... all of it is here. This work is more a sprawling, often self-indulgent exercise in exploration of what makes a man, specifically the American male, than it is a novel with a focused plot, orderly character development and exposition. Hence the oddly unsatisfying, abbreviated ending, as if Mr. Wolfe ran out of avenues of maleness to explore and simply ended it.
Rating:
Summary: Not his best
Review: The story was interesting enough for me to finish it, but it is not one of his best. There are a number of dead spots in the story and it lacks the spark of some of his other works.
Rating: 
Summary: The motifs in this book
Review: The novel "A Man in Full" of Tom Wolfe is not to be categorised. So it is not written for a special readership. In its complexity it shows many aspects of American society.
It deals with the importance of money, sexuality, racism, religion, politics and crime.
The book has many main characters, but the most important one is Charlie Croker. He is a real estate developer, whose status symbol is money. When he loses everything he is afraid of being ostracized by the high society of Atlanta, Georgia. Because of this he becomes the puppet of politics. He shall support a black football star who is accused of having raped a white girl - the daughter of another rich businessman. But then he meets Conrad whose life has been changed by Charlie's fate. And now it is his turn to change Charlie's attitudes by his belief in the Stoic's philosophy. The reader gets to know a lot about this religion.
This book is not funny to read for feminists because women are just some kind of status symbol in the South American world which is shown here. They have got to be beautiful, but unintelligent.
It is not possible to say if the important motifs in this book are shown in the way Wolfe thinks about them. He shows this society in such a complexity as someone who would belong to it or at least does not see it distantly would not be able to tell. But he does not make the reader dislike a character from the very first moment or to adore one through the whole story. The different or changing attitudes of the characters make them more believable. And it shows that you cannot judge people in such a short time - if you do not know about their past, their problems and aims.
The novel is nice to read out of private interest. But it is much too complex to read it in school because there are too many main characters to be able to keep track of them and their development as perfectly as it is asked for.
Rating:
Summary: Flawed ending, but still a captivating book
Review: From the very beginning, a Man in Full is absolutely captivating. Wolfe creates many completely different characters who are intriguing in their own right, but I was also very keen to see how he would weave them all together. In California, there is Conrad Hensley, a decent man who cares about his family, but manages to end up in jail. Wolfe's description of the jail is remarkably vivid and contrasts splendidly with the wealth of Charlie Croker, an industrialist doomed for bankruptcy.. Although Charlie is the main character, he is by no means as interesting as Conrad. All the subplots are eventually wound together through the alleged raping of one of Croker's friend's daughter by a black football star. Race does prove to be a major theme in the book, as is Stoic philosophy and wealth. I found the ending a little disappointing given the first seven hundred pages - Wolfe sets himself a near impossible taks in weaving the subplots. He also does little to explain Crocker's sudden move towards Stoic philosphy. In spite of this flaw, A Man in Full is a remarkable book and I enjoyed every page.
Rating:
Summary: Another Great Book from America's Greatest Author!
Review: I just finished A Man in Full last night. And while it seems to start as merely an updated, Southern-fried version of Bonfire of the Vanities, it ultimately delivers a far better punch. Certainly, Tom Wolfe continues to be one of the most "fun" authors to read, as he embellishes each page with humor and personalities that are easy to imagine. In fact, I can think of no other author whose prose is as delicious to read; Wolfe has an eye for creating humorous, realistic situations and dialogue. What really sets this book apart is the depth of the characters (which far exceeds Bonfire's more stereotypical cast) and the story line concerning one particular character, Conrad Hensley. I'm not going to give any of the plot away, but the juxtaposition of Hensley's lower middle class Bay Area battle to survive with that of the Atlanta social and political movers and shakers (an updated version of Bonfire's "social x-rays") was gripping, and I found myself eagerly anticipating each passage about Hensley. Factor in the increasingly intertwining paths of the characters, and you have a climax that moves; if it disappoints a little, that's only because no payoff could have justified such a powerful buildup. Tom Wolfe fans will love this book. In fact, I would think that anyone who likes to read fiction will love this book. No other writer (except maybe T. Boyle) writes with as much zest or captures with as much insight and humor the inner workings of American society circa the late 20th century.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: The biggest compliment I can give to Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full" is acknowledging that if I somehow found myself transported 100 or 500 years into the future and wanted to give people an idea of what life in American was like at the close of the 20th century, I would just as soon give them a copy of this novel as I would a historical textbook. Writing equally well about characters at varying places along the socio-economic spectrum, Wolfe perfectly captures the mood, attitude, and cultural condition of contemporary America. Reading this book today, approximately six years after its original publish date, one almost has to look at Wolfe as a prophet, as one of the novel's major subplots involving a famous black athlete accused of raping a beautiful, rich, white girl has an eerie similarity to a current legal case involving a particular Los Angeles Lakers superstar. Another compliment to this wonderful novel is that while many characters are obviously intended to represent certain stereotypes (the egomaniacal, overbearing multimillionaire, the trophy wife vs. the cast-aside first wife, the working class stiff who can't seem to catch a break, the wimpy middle-management type, etc), few of the characters ever appear to be anything less than fully developed 3-dimensional characters. By delving deep into the psyches of his characters, Wolfe is able to make characters who could easily have come off as clichés into oddly sympathetic figures. It is difficult to try to condense the breadth and depth of this 700+ page (hardcover edition) novel into a few short paragraphs, so I will conclude by simply stating that while this book was a successful bestseller, it seems to me that this is the sort of great work that will be even better appreciated years from now than it may have been in its own time.
Rating:
Summary: Not his best
Review: The book was interesting enough for me to finish it, but it is not one of his best. There are a number of very slow spots in the story and it lacks the spark of some of his other works.
Rating:
Summary: A story that stays with you
Review: I first read this book three years ago, then just re-read it again this week. I hadn't realized how many vignettes, put firmly into my head in that original reading, have stayed with me all this time. Conrad, humiliated by his wife's attitude toward him, suffers ever-more-increasing rage at the treatment of his car by a tow service; Croker's attempts to impress his guests by showing them a horse-breeding session; Roger White's first meeting with the insolent Fareek; the list goes on and on. The story is not particularly surprising or shocking, but the way Wolfe tells it is the attraction. His descriptions of social dynamics and the characters' emotions are pure genius. And where a lesser writer would have good triumphing over all, you never know who's going to win in a Wolfe novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Why the Hurry?
Review: This was a very good read, with colorful characters, and good character development for the most part. But the ending of the book was rushed. It was conventional and pat . . . the last few chapters went by so fast, I had to re-read part of it to see if I wasn't missing something, and I wasn't. The end of the book made what came before almost trite and meaningless.
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