Rating: Summary: HAD TO PUT IT DOWN! Review: On average I read a book a week. But after 3 weeks and 450 painstaking pages, I had to put this book down. This is coming from a person who has never put a book down without finishing it. Further, after wasting 3 weeks I couldn't believe that Wolfe was still developing his characters and to my dismay I couldn't for the life of me follow the plot. In fact, after 450 pages, I asked myself...what plot?I must say that after reading The Bonfire of the Vanities many years back I was extremely disappointed in A Man In Full and because I put it down, I'll never know who that man is, nor do I really care. How garbage like this gets published, and more importantly allowed to waste a slot on the bestseller list is beyond me. I'm off to read a real book and suggest that you do the same.
Rating: Summary: atlanta in full Review: Extremely well done story with great character development. Croker and Roger too White were portrayed wonderfully. The story reveals issues of a modern day Atlanta trying to maintain itself as a modern business capital yet struggling to distance itself from its genteel, antebellum past. Corporate, racial, business, moral, and sexual themes with a great story to boot. Difficult to put donw. Even more difficult to forget, especially as an Atlanta native.
Rating: Summary: A Grand Epic Review: This review is meant to help you decide whether or not you should read this book. If you like epic novels. Novels that are long, detailed, wander at times but tell a wonderful story you will like this book. If you like down and dirty, just get to the plot reading you will not like this at all. I loved Far Paviliions by MM Kaye. I hated Beloved and The English Patient. Tom Wolf is easy to read but he makes you think. This book is easy to follow but is much more than a plot and some characters. I hated the main character at the beginning but loved him at the end. The book is a fast read. Don't expect Hardy or Melville. It is modern American fiction written by a very entertaining author.
Rating: Summary: A man three quarters full Review: I loved reading many of the other reviews for this book. There is such a great variety of strong feeling that I can only hope it was what Wolfe was after. He certainly got under a lot of people's skin. The principle objections to this book, that the ending is weak and the story is too long and meandering, while both being true, don't really undermine its great strengths - wonderful writing, larger than life (though 'real') characters and a plot that not only highlights numerous real social issues but shows how they tend to rub up against one another in unexpected ways. In other words, there is a messiness to even the thematic aspects of the book that seems to be intentional and true to life. Wolfe can't help but exaggerate. That is what satirists do. Yet those who complain that the characters aren't real or are stereotypes seem to really mean that they don't like these people; 'real' people would be, I guess, someone they could identify with. Yet, if Wolfe had chosen Donald Trump or Ross Perot as his hero, could his description be any more 'believeable' or less stereotypic than his portrayal of Charlie Croker? Seems to me that the rich complexity of ego, selfishness and lack of self awareness that come to the fore in his characters (including those in Bonfire) is a very human, very common and very real thing. We are all unbelieveable stereotypes to some, but that doesn't make us less real. And I especially liked the reviewer who starts his review by saying 'Too many words.' This is so like the scene in 'Amadeus' when the King says to Mozart that his compositions have 'too many notes.' For those of us who love the bite and flash of Wolfe's writing, there can never be too many words, even when they don't add up to the full measure that Wolfe is striving for.
Rating: Summary: a wild ride Review: There are parts of this book that are great fun and a pleasure to read,it does run alittle long and takes a bizarre plot twist which reminds me of Steven Kings "rose madder" to a lesser degree.I fell in love with the Charles Croker character something you couldn't do if you had to deal with him in real life.But he was too comical,you will get a kick out of him, and others as well
Rating: Summary: what the dickens? Review: you've got to hand it to tom wolfe with this book. the scope is bigger than anyone else writing today and is earily, yet not unpleasantly, reminiscent of the most sprawling works of charles dickens. bleak house for the next century. let's hope hollywood doesn't even try to get its hands on this baby. should be compulsory for everyone to read wolfe - especially a man in full. bravo.
Rating: Summary: amazing Review: Although this book is not for the casual reader, it packs a fantastic wallop of details across the American continent. Wolfe has written convincing portraits of what happens in prisons, in the elite rich neighborhoods in Atlanta and also at other levels of society. His characters are arresting, and I personally found it difficult to set this book down. I loved the ending. I am a fan of Wolfe so I may be biased.....
Rating: Summary: Excellent choice Review: Excellent choice. This is one of the few books I've read which explores the male prespective. It is exiciting at every turn. I could not put it down.
Rating: Summary: Complete Pageturner Review: Perhaps one of the best books I've ever read! Wolfe tells 3 or 4 stories at once, and they're all enjoyable!
Rating: Summary: A Man in Full-enrapturing Review: When I find a novel that I really love I savor each sentence and paragraph and dread the last page like I dreaded the end of a summer vacation when I was a kid. No analysis needed-just open the first page and slip into the story. Someone asked me what the story was about and I realized I didn't know. Maybe when I give up and turn the last page I'll come to the surface and think about it.
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