A Man in Full

Rating:
Summary: Funny, Funny but ...
Review: Very funny stuff. I laughed out loud many times which in itself was worth the time and money for me. It just seemed that the author or editor or publisher or somebody said "Hey, its getting way too long. You need to find a way to end this thing NOW." So the ending was disappointing and almost shocking in its abruptness and change of style.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing, shallow
Review: Gave up reading this. Fell asleep. There's a lot of ground covered in this book, but so what? Spare me the detailed descriptions of hardwood, jewelry, clothing and sex between horses. This book is a mile wide and an inch deep.

Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: The first 400 pages of A Man in Full were brilliant. After that, I don't think he knew what to do with his characters. As well, during the writing of the book, Wolfe went through a life altering experience (a massive heart attack and subsequent depression), which show through in the preachiness of Conrad. Wolfe couldn't write directly about God, because he wouldn't be taken seriously by his readers, so instead, he writes about Zeus, but the message is the same. It ends up a sort of Ayn Rand meets God philosophy. Finally, Wolfe had no idea how he was going to wrap up the story, so he has two of his characters sit down together, for one to "tell the other a story." He uses this device a little earlier in the book, too, to solve the problem of the rape, but it turns out both unsympathetic to date rape victims and stilted writing.

Rating:
Summary: Well done Author Wolfe...Bravo and Kudos to a "Book in Full"
Review: What more can be said? Wolfe has done it again. This time he has described the Atlanta scene of the rich and powerful. Now that I have finished reading the book, I already miss the characters. Perhaps Mr. Wolfe could set a "bon" fire under the movie studios to get the book to screen....quick. Nicholson no doubt.... as the lead character. Matt Damon as the young convict. Nicole Kidman as the wife...Would make a wicked script. Worth a read. Even General Sherman would have taken the time from setting flames to Atlanta to read this one. Well done Mr. Wolfe...worth the wait.

Rating:
Summary: Not Impressive
Review: Almost 800 pages, this story is dramatically over-developed in some areas, woefully under-developed in others and at the end of the book, things just end. It's almost as if Mr. Wolfe's publisher said "Enough already! We have too many pages to print as it is!". Before I read this book, I was considering buying his other books...no more.

Rating:
Summary: It was worth the wait
Review: The last book I enjoyed as much was Texasville. Although I thought it was impossible to like Charlie at the start of this story, I was very pleased with his stoic behavior in the closing pages. Although the book deals with serious subjects, Wolfe's characteristic humor is found in nearly every chapter. I like to be entertained and learn something in every book I read. In this book I was constantly being entertained by the array of characters, and their adventures into horse breeding, prison life, hunting and politics. I hope that Wolfe has started on his book of the 2000's, so we do not have to wait another 11 years.

Rating:
Summary: A must read but Wolfe needs a closer.
Review: Last evening, I completed Tom Wolfe's, A Man in Full, while my wife stoically brought in the dogs, washed the dishes and tried to ignore me ignoring my various responsibilities, problems, progeny and households tasks. I suppose I've read most of what Wolfe has written since his earliest days at Rolling Stone and various other well-meaning magazines. I suppose I'm a fan. Not in the sense of a fan driven rabid by a college football team or a particular beer. More in the sense of a baseball fan who suffers in silence during defeat and who feels a charge of electricity when the closer comes out of the bullpen with his jacket pulled over his pitching arm and the other sleeve hanging down his back like a flaccid windsock. My fault with Wolfe in general and with A Man in Full in particular is this: Wolfe doesn't seem to know how to close. He opens brilliantly, manages to avoid the doldrums common in the middle of most modern novels and sweeps us to a fever pitch in the late innings. But Wolfe's short pieces, this novel and, perhaps even his career, seem to bump and drift near the end before just giving out like an empty canoe drifting into calm water. Actually, Wolfe wrote a great ending for this novel. But it comes and goes without notice while the novel runs out of steam. In my view, the emotions expressed by the wife of the protagonist during her husband's very public rediscovery of his lost character would have been the right place to slap the return key on his electric Underwood and call it a day. But, Wolfe plunges forward, wrapping up all the loose ends, telling us that which we could have better imagined or puzzled over on our own for months to come. As a fan, I suppose I must fault his editor or his publisher. Wolfe doesn't really even seem to be present at the end of the novel. He's off doing something else -- if not physically then at least mentally. Perhaps Wolfe should hire a closer -- someone to come in at the end of his novel and decide where to put the final period. This is a quibble, actually. If you wonder if you should read A Man in Full then you probably won't and you probably shouldn't. It's a must read for fans and foes of Wolfe alike and for anyone who wants to understand the modern South and the modern novel. But you won't really miss anything if you just slam the book shut at the point where Charlie Croker's wife feels her pity and sorrow and go on about your business just as Wolfe should have done. Bill Fletcher [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Starts out promising, ends disappointingly
Review: The first 2/3 of the book are great -- in-depth plot, interesting characters, sumptuous descriptions. However, by the last third of the book, it seems as if the author doesn't know what to do with the characters. How they come together in the end seems contrived, not natural and the ending is totally off-the-wall. Someone who could write 500 pages of excellent plots, descriptions, etc., could have come up with a better ending.

Rating:
Summary: Tom Wolfe strikes again, but again fails to develop women
Review: Tom Wolfe gives us a witty tour of the inner workings of the city of Atlanta. Along the way he introduces us to the political and social forces that have shaped the city. As usual, Wolfe is incredibly sensitve to racial issues, which makes his failure to develop the females characters even more glaring. Wolfe gives us a token woman to ponder, the discarded "first wife" of lead character Charlie Croker. The subejct matter--high stakes finance, real estate, municipal politics, and college athletics-- fails to justify Wolfe's lack of interest in the role women play in today's society--in Atlanta or elsewhere. Wolfe also creates a number of the supporting characters that are almost one-dimensional -- one wonders whether he has another book in the planning stages to pick up the story line. Overall, it is an enjoyable, if long read.

Rating:
Summary: Don't expect literature. But a fun social history of the 90
Review: A lot of people will go on and on about how this book dosen't measure up with truly great works of literature, etc, etc. But look, Wolfe isn't a literary artist -- he's a dead-accurate chronicler of the social phonemena that characterize individual decades in the recent history of this wacky nation of ours. Wolfe has perfect pitch when it comes to describing the hallmarks of an era (seems he syncs up with decades). "A Man In Full" is not "100 Years of Solitude", but it is tremendously entertaining, compelling, reading and rings no false notes. READ THIS BOOK before the movie ruins it.