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Summary: Perhaps our most important book
Review: A lesson on how to save a good book! I loved the character development and the way the plot held promise for a tremendous end. Fulfullment! The most believeable ending I may have ever read!
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Summary: Amazingly good fiction!
Review: tom wolfe draws fantastic characters, especially to this Atlantan. Since the book is set in my city, it seems especially true to life and powerful. I'd recommend it to Atlantans and those of you who don't live in my fair city.
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Summary: A promising begining, but a pathetic ending
Review: A Man in Full starts off with tremendous promise. Wolfe again weaves the same rich tapestry of characters, who intersect in and out of one another's lives, much as he did in Bonfire. I was really looking forward to a delicious climax. But less than half way through the book, we get lost. Instead, the players who seemed to offer the possibility of such rich texture muddle about as charicatures of themselves, or of players we've seen before in Bonfire or in other moral panderings. Even the names of the characters are there to beat you over the head with Wolfe's point: the sniveling sycophant named Peepgas (honest, I'm not making this up), or the successful black lawyer, Roger White, who is challenged by his "blacker than thou" friend, the Mayor of Atlanta. Ultimately, the ending is beyond disappointment. My advice: read the first 1/2, then put it down and imagine your own ending. You'll be much happier than if you suffer through the last 300-400 pages.
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Summary: ...shanks akimbo!
Review: After enjoying the first half of the much anticipated book, this reader felt that Mr.Wolf sold short on his delivery of a solid ending. Did he tire of writing? Was he "chicken" to have his characters latch onto mainstream reliigon? Must he resort to fantasy after creating the reality of the man in full? Or was he simply tired ? Maybe another ten years of work might have sealed a better fate for our characters. Too many things left "akimbo!!! Too many questions left unanswered! What is all the hype about Tom Wolfe about ??? ...And what are all these exclamation points trying to convey !!!!
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Summary: Poor format for a lesson on standing up for what you believe
Review: With a nice starting plot and an interesting lead character the book traps you into thinking that lag equals suspence. Lag, later in the story, actually turns out to be the author's wondering about in blind search of a story to fit his ending and moral lesson.Stereotyped characters make the demographic rifts as subtle as a garbage truck on a baseball diamond. I quickly became tired of the repeated moral lesson from the Job-like character that abandoned his family and then spread the word to the lead character, who then left his family, to preach the word of Zeus. If it sounds bad, its because it is. Re-read a book you like rather than venture into this story of depthless characters and soapbox preaching.
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Summary: Once Again Our Literary Lion
Review: Tom Wolfe proves once again, as he did in the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test or Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, Bonfires of the Vanities, et al, that he is, after all, a journalist, a journalist reporting the sad fact that 1000 years in the history of mankind has passed without altering the basic dynamic of human existence: force and counterforce. Charlie Croker's life was, as was Sherman McCoy's, a chimera,an illusion of force and power evaporating in the face of stonger forces that could not be denied. Each character a player in a game of his own making, set against other players, not really knowing anymore about the game that one simple rule: win. Force vs. Counterforce. Whether in the Alameda County Jail or in Buckhead, the battle continues, as it did 1000 years ago, as it will for 1000 more. The Atlanta skyline, it seems, is to be admired for its intrisnic beauty, for it represents the culmination of all technology, but the sad fact is that the people who populate these buildings are only crying out in the dark, alone, fearful, and, like Charlie Croker, one step away from meeting their worst fears. Charlie Croker is an Everyman, albiet an idiosyncratic individual, striving to survive in a world of his own making set against others trapped in the same sad paradigm. More pathetic than tragic: no hope is held out in the book that Charlie Croker could have escaped the paradigm; having lost his sense of self, he desperately fills the void with another: Zeus, a belief system, a religion, anything to avoid surrender.
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Summary: Don't BelieveThe Negative Hype
Review: There has been a recent backlash against this book. It is not fair. It seems that this book is being judged against an impossible standard. If everyone would take a step back and look at this book, they would realize that Tom Wolfe has created a larger-than-life portrayal of late-20th century life. The Charlie Croker character exists in every big city in the country, and the current politically correct movement is brilliantly lampooned. A Man In Full is literature at its finest.
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Summary: Magnificent!
Review: This book was so amazing i couldn't leave it at home. I carried it with me (which wasn't easy considering it's 700+ pages and it's a hardcover) everywhere... hoping for a traffic jam or a long subway ride so I could get a chance to read. Definitely worth the wait!!!!!
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Summary: Great Promise.... No Delivery!
Review: A lesson on how to ruin a good book! I loved the character development and the way the plot held promise for a tremendous end. Disappointment! The most non-believeable ending I may have ever read!
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Summary: Wolfe Wow Writers Everywhere
Review: Tom Wolfe has done it again. A Man in Full completes the cycle. Wolfe's high-spirited description of the decline and fall of Atlanta real estate developer Charlie Croker is the hands-down literary event of the year....He's hip-deep in rave reviews....'He stirs debate and makes people think,' says Joyce Carol Oates. 'I love and admire the man, and this book is the greatest he has written. People should send him money and other things,' gushes Ken Kesey. Folks, you must read this book to be able to keep up with the party talk. Make no mistake, this one will be talked about and debated at parties for years to come.
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