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Summary: The Modern South
Review: Tom Wolfe's Man In Full makes must reading for anyone seeking to understand the Zeitgeist of America in the late 1990's. I would not call this literature, but the novel certainly is high journalism that almost obtains it.I felt at first cheated by the stereotypes and the abrupt ending. However, the more I reflect on the characters the more I realize that these surface types often ring true. As unbelievable as Croker becoming an evangelist for Stoicism may seem- does anyone leave the Piedmont Driving Club for that?, I could not help but think of Pat Robertson. Robertson was at Washington & Lee University with Wolfe, and his family was certainly welcome at the Country Club of Virginia- Richmond's equivalent of the Atlanta bastion of gentility. And look at him now, he is as likely to show up at the CCV as the future mayor Roger Too White is at the Piedmont Driving Club. Jonathan Yardley compared Wolfe to John O'hara, and this comparison works. O'hara laid bare the pretensions of Northeast society as has Wolfe the South, and in the process said much about our country as a whole. We do not have enough writers engaging the world in which we live, and thankfully, Wolfe is. If we had fewer naval gazers as authors, people might begin looking for real substance in individuals, not the stereotypes that pass as such. Of course, this demands we look not only at others but ourselves- a courage stifled by a celebrity culture- and what Croker does at the end. This seems the message, though convuluted at times, of Wolfe's novel, and it is one worth heeding.
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Summary: The Dickens of our age
Review: Hundreds of years from now, readers will regard Tom Wolfe as the Dickens of our age. He captures perfectly the timbre, tone and angst of our era.
Rating: 
Summary: THIS BOOK DID NOT MAKE ME SWEAT.
Review: TOM WOLFE MAY BE SEARCHING FOR LITERARY IMMORTALITY WITH "A MAN IN FULL", HOWEVER I THINK HE NEEDS TRY AGAIN. THERE WAS A GREAT DEAL OF QUANITY AND NOT MUCH QUALITY. I FEEL ALL HIS CHARACTERS LOST THIER IMPACT TOWARDS THE END OF THE STORY. TOM WOLFE HAS A "FOUNTAINHEAD" IN HIM BUT NOT THIS TIME AROUND,
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Summary: Wolfe's writing is superlative, but the ending unrealistic.
Review: Certainly Tom Wolfe's new novel is a must read. However, the ending leaves a lot to be desired. Wolfe did little to prepare the reader for a sermon-type finish to an otherwise interesting novel. Although the living of the wealthy, and the racial struggles of America today are portrayed in detail, Wolfe's final message does not cut it. Further, secondary characters are not given enough inner-descriptions to allow the reader to know them for what they really are.
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Summary: Written with the next movie in mind.
Review: After terrific focus on one of the great development jobs in creating a vivid central player, the last chapters fall off in dismissing "the man in full" to a truncated ending. The obligatory narrative rapid wrap up is handed off to lessor characters. The ending fizzles after all of those hard earned pages. We want more of Charlie.
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Summary: A hugely ambitious panaromic view of modern America
Review: Tom Wolfe is one of my favorite writers, although he-- like any other writer-- has his faults. But at least, unlike most other modern fiction writers, he sets his sights high and keeps his feet firmly grounded in reality. You know for a fact that not a sentence in this novel was written without Wolfe doing meticulous research out in the field: i.e., amidst the fascinating tapestry of quirky, ever-changing subcultures that constitute the USA at the close of the century. No magical realism or airy, groundless personal introspection here, thank heavens! Man in Full takes us from the top of Atlanta society to the fringes of the San Francisco Bay Area, and we're introduced to an engrossing cast of characters from a Hawaiian prisoner in California to the upper-middle-class black kids partying at Freaknik and on and on. The ending is a letdown, and Wolfe succumbs to the most ancient and creaky of plot devices to close the book. but along the way you're in for a wild ride! Wolfe should be commended for being one of the few modern American writers who attempt to portray the details of American culture as they really are-- in all their horror and glory.
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Summary: enjoyable, but...
Review: First 500 pages were great, but then TW must have realized that it'd take another 1000 pages to finish it in the same style and tempo. From page 500 onwards it is a down hill spiral, and a let down. Terrific passages make the book worth reading, but more was expected like some climax or coherent end.
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Summary: Tommy Boy's Lost His Edge
Review: Compared to Wolfe's earlier work, this is weak. Many of the characters feel unauthentic. The resolution was not well thought-out. The narrative structure is unnecessarily disjointed. There are some good moments, but it doesn't feel like Tommy Boy's having fun in this one. Still, it could have been worse. I would buy it again, and read it again. Unlike Wolfe's earlier work, however, this one now disappear into my bookshelves, never to be heard from again.
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Summary: Unfortunately, captured the true essence of Atlanta, !!!
Review: I am a native Atlantan and though the book is not being well recieved here, I wonder why?, if the shoe fits wear it!!! Well it fits all to well, from the politics, to the racial overtones, to the "Buckhead Betty's" and coporate Atlanta. I enjoyed the book, but it did not keep me up nights reading it. Mr. Wolfe can be somewhat verbose and the ending was very disappointing...
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Summary: Le mot juste... not
Review: It was wonderful, of course, but--Dan sometimes thought that the writer was a little ... _careless_ ... a bit ... _sloppy_ ... On page 199, he read, "There was only the hexagonal shape to remind you that it was a stop sign." _Hexagonal?_ An anxiety tugged at the edge of his mind. Hexagonal meant... SIX sides... Could--could the writer have made such a gaffe? Such a _humiliating_ gaffe? On page 359! There it was! Again! The ripped up book becomes a "pathetic stack of folios." Could he have possibly meant to say ... _signatures?_
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