Rating: 
Summary: A Great American Novel!
Review: Tom Wolfe not only understands today's America as well as anyone, he has the nerve to try to put everything about it into one novel. As in Bonfire of the Vanities, he tells a convoluted, but compelling story involving people from all levels of society, with lots of hilarious and spectacular scenes, and many dead-on character types. He touches all the bases of our contemporary life: money and status, race relations(and money), relations between the sexes (and money), politics (and money) -- you name it. Okay, it takes a little while for the plot really to get going, but there's so much in this book -- literally dozens of scenes, descriptions, observations, that are so perfect that if even only a few of them appeared in some other novel they would make it memorable (the workout scene; the Turpmtine scenes; the prison scenes)-- that it's well worth the ride. While as a native New Yorker I loved Bonfires, I think in this book Wolfe is even better -- his tone is a little less shrill and manic, and he manages to blend some respect for his main characters (where appropriate) along with the satire. Wolfe is our Dickens; having read his dissections of the Big Apple and the New South, I can only hope that he considers taking on Washington DC next (provided he can come up with a fictional plot stranger than reality).
Rating: 
Summary: How did this book ever get published?
Review: This has got to be one of the most ridiculous story lines I have ever picked up. It appears that Wolfe had three or four partial story ideas he had been working on and crammed all of them into this mess, with a forced relationship and interaction. The rendering of the characters is shallow at best and generally unbelievable. Wolfe has given us the deed to this book in lieu of foreclosure because this attempt is intellectually and artistically bankrupt.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazon purchase saves 30% on 70% of a novel.
Review: The 30% savings via Amazon compensates for the last 200 pages where Wolfe puts forth 70% effort. It is as if Wolfe had to go to the bathroom, but his publisher would not let him leave the typewriter until the novel was finished. Please let us have an ending as well thought out as the majority of the book, or just have Wolfe stop in midsentence on page 502 and type "GOOD GOD THATS ENOUGH". "In Full" is a page turner, but the plodding, muddled end smacks of a 15 year old on his first date who suddenly finds himself "on third base", nervously sweating the question "Now what am I supposed to do?"
Rating:
Summary: Bonfire It's Not.
Review: 'Bonfire of the Vanities' was a book that was made extraordinarily rich by Wolfe's detail descriptions of places and events. Unfortunately, 'A Man In Full' gives you the impression that Wolfe listed 200 things he wanted to describe and then wrote a book to showcase those descriptions. It is boring, long, and pompous. I won't give it away to anyone I know because I don't want them to get mad at me.
Rating: 
Summary: Another Bonfire--Not
Review: I just loved Bonfire of the Vanities. I read it several years ago, and still think of it often (Master of the Universe!!! I have days like that!!). I was positively relishing the thought of A Man in Full. I bought it and deliberately kept myself from reading it for a couple of weeks just so I could look forward to it. Then when I finally started in--Yuck. I put it down in the middle in disgust. The characters were so completely unappealing that I didn't want to spend time with them. I forced myself to pick the book up again and finish. The last 300 pages were not so bad. Maybe if the book were a little shorter it would be more fun.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing - a testament to powerful book PR machines!
Review: Wolfe attempted to write the novel capturing the mood of the 90's, but perhaps his own lack of writing depth best exemplified the shallowness of this past decade. Wolfe's strength is his power of observation and conveying this in words. The book is strongest in these short moments: dinner at the Plantation, Conrad in jail, etc. However, the rest of the book never gets rolling and never engages the reader. Crocker's dilemma is hardly a situation on which to rest a 700-page novel. And if the book was less a comment on today's society, but a vignette to demonstrate the principles of Stoicism, it failed as well. The salty air of the Hamptons and heat of the Georgia summer must have gotten to Tom. Having enjoyed Wolfe's work in the past, I only hope this is not his last.
Rating:
Summary: A sweeping, satirical look at late 20th life in U.S.
Review: This is one of the best books I have ever read, and I've read many of them. Through characters that span the spectrum of American life, Wolfe explpores the moral/spiritual gaps that develop in a society with so much wealth, freedoms and opportunities. As the story develops, those that have the most wealth and power become increasing miserable, while a principled young idealist discovers happiness through an ancient spiritual code. This book is significant in that it reaffirms that a spiritual aspect to life is a necessary means to achieving happiness regardless of one's wealth or freedom. Character, it seems, still matters in late 20th century America.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't pick it up after I put it down.
Review: Too many words. And too many repeated. Like loins and megalomaniachal. That nobody sees Martha is either because she's a woman and her loins are too old, or she's not black. If she were black Wolff would have pointed her out for us, again and again. Wouldn't develop her but sure would point her out. Instead we read over and over about nobody seeing Martha. Charlie the blow-hard on the other hand can't get enough page time. Even though we understand him just by looking at the cover. He's a caricature out of central casting with an "I'M A SYMBOL LOOK AT ME" bad knee.Don't bother reading past the earthquake. Conrad isn't the only one to lose his book in a fault. What a cowardly way to avoid a true test of Conrad's mettle. What fate awaited him in the pod that Wolff was spared having to write? Earthquakes occur when you're losing at Monopoly and you're ten years old. Is that the only reason Conrad and Croker Foods was in California? Why not coastal Georgia and have a hurricane? Oh yeah, that Hiasson thing, wouldn't want to be plagarizing. Though it would have been funnier throughout. Something about the critics applauding the "sprawling social commentary" bugged me. Peepgas owned a Hyundai. Conrad had a Honda Excel. How did that mistake get past the publisher, was that Wolff's poor understanding of cheap cars, or the editor's? In other words if Wolff got that wrong what else is wrong that I can't verify. Like those lingo's he seemed so proud to be a master of.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful characters in great settings, but very poor ending
Review: Tom Woolf can so vividly draw me into scenes I continue to experience them long after putting the book down. There are scenes from Bonfire of the Vanities that I still FEEL after ten years. Woolf has once again captured this art in A Man in Full. He develops multi-dimensional characters and places them in scenes that are at the same time sad and very funny. Unfortunately, he finishes it all off with a pitiful ending. The resolution of the novel's main tension was shallow at best and Woolf uses a short epilogue to quickly tie up all loose ends. It made me think that Woolf quit and someone else wrote the last 150 pages. If you can get over the ending, the experience is definitely worth your time.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining and Forgetable
Review: I give the book three stars for entertainment value, but that's all. Wolfe has a talent for portraying the quirks of American society in a funny and insightful way. This makes his non-fiction so great. His novels, though, seem to be nothing more than Wolfe reporting on situations that, out of necessity, happen to be fictional. The ending eliminates the chance that this book can be anything more than entertainment. I wonder if a flood or other such natural disaster destroyed the manuscript of the original ending, forcing Wolfe to throw together the ending we got in a couple of hours in order to make deadline.
|
