A Man in Full

Rating:
Summary: Iconoclastic
Review: Above all, I liked it. It kept my attention, and was hilarious in places. Perhaps the best funny scene was the meeting at Coach McNutt's house, where the major protagonist, Charlie Croker, meets the All-American running back and his lawyer. Part of the amusement is the reaction to Mrs. McNutt, a sexy trophy wife, while she serves the powerful men. The story line meanders through various incidents-the workout meeting, where mighty but bankrupt Charlie is reduced to a sweating cripple by greedy bankers; the quail hunt, which shows the disdain of beautiful young women for powerful men; the meetings of the black Mayor and wannabe Roger Too White, who plan deft manipulations while striving to appear blacker than black to their "African American" constituents; the jail scene, where violence and hatred are uncovered, raw; and the equine climax in the breeding barn, which portrays sex at its lustiest. On and on through 700 pages these incidents are used to define the characters as stereotypical elements of the society that Wolfe disapproves. The characters, even Connie, the only good guy, remain stereotypes, but the skewering of ignorance, class-conscious ambition, and conspicuous consumption, which they depict is worthwhile and highly entertaining. Does Wolfe like anything? Well, he likes women as flesh, and he appreciates sensitive, sympathetic women, but he doesn't find many in Atlanta, nor in California. And he likes honesty, but doesn't find much of that either. The presentation of Stoicism as a rediscovered religion falls a little flat, as Wolfe himself recognizes. If Stoicism is to save the world, it will have to do so in individuals, as it did for Connie and for Charlie Croker. One can predict that feminists and gays will hate this book, and the less secure among American blacks and liberals will be insulted. Also bankers, lawyers, social climbers and other frivolous flotsam of modern society. But for my part, I appreciated a book that honors work and honesty while discarding material possessions and unfulfilling relationships.

Rating:
Summary: Great characterization; less than perfect plot
Review: In a Man in Full, Tom Wolfe attempts to chronicle the many problems people -- primarily men -- face in late 20th century America. The book documents the stories of a billionare real estate tycoon facing bankruptcy, a down-on-his-luck blue collar worker struggling to make ends meet, a midlevel bank employee tormented by his perpetual failure to advance in the corporate world, and an African American attorney attempting to balance his relations to the White corporate establishment while somehow improving his connection to "his people." Ever the meticulous journalist who studies his subjects exhaustively before writing, Wolfe does an excellent job developing these characters and their many problems. Also, he throws in some great scenes depicting such diverse events as a bank workout session, a forced horse breeding session, and a vivid prison show down.

The book ultimately asks: "What is life all about, what are we really struggling to attain in this crazy world of ours?" Therefore, it is a book with meaning, a book that makes you think.

As to the underlying story line that ties all the characters and events together, I have to say it could be better. The ending too could have been more thoroughly fleshed out. Nevertheless, I highly recommend the book for its excellent documentation of the problems people face in America today, its many well-crafted, entertaining scenes, and the questions it ultimately asks the reader to consider.

Rating:
Summary: Yes, it IS a masterpiece ...
Review: This is an extraordinary novel, definitely superior to "Bonfire of the Vanities," a book I regard highly. Without reading it, it would seem impossible to bring together such disparate themes as Stoic philosophy, the breeding of thoroughbred race horses, day-to-day life in jail, etc., etc., especially given Wolfe's eye for detail and extraordinary skill at presentation. I know (or knew) nothing about the breeding of horses, but I do know a good bit about jail. Wolfe is dead-on accurate. (I hasten to point out that I've never been incarcerated or arrested, but I've done a lot of jail-counseling.)

At 742 pages, the book quite frankly did not seem long. I read it in just a few sessions. I can nit-pick it; I got a little tired of the way Wolfe showed off his knowledge of architecture, for example. Nevertheless, Wolfe is an extraordinarily talented writer, and I cannot but see that this book establishes him as the premier American novelist writing today.

Rating:
Summary: "MAN" does not live up to expectations
Review: Though this book contains many excellent passages which are a pleasure to read, it wanders off course, contains filler and ultimately has an unbelievable plot structure. It does not meet the expectations raised by BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES. Once they hype has died down and the word gets out from people who have read the novel, it should drop from the best seller lists.

Rating:
Summary: "MAN" not up to expectations
Review: Though this long novel contains many excellent passages which are a pleasure to read, it also wanders off course, contains filler and ultimately has an unbelievabe plot structure. It will not achieve the success of BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES and will probably fall from the bestseller lists when the hype has died down and enough people have read it for the word to get out.

Rating:
Summary: Not Bonfires, but close
Review: I flew through this novel in two days,never quite sure where it was all leading at any given point, but racing to get there. Then a major let-down as Wolfe wraps everything up in the last few pages in a nice neat (too neat)ending. The characterizations are great, the weaving of the various storylines is skillful and the writing is excellent,detailed and funny - but the end left me flat. I closed the cover wondering if Wolfe got tired of writing these characters or if the joke was on me. Nonetheless - it was a great two day read! Wolfe has added a new dimension to the characterization of society women to accompany his 'social X-rays' of Bonfire fame - the boys with breasts - great imagery.

Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: Stayed up all night. Buy it, you'll love it. Wolfe at his finest

Rating:
Summary: "Saddlebags" supplants "Astronauts go to Houston"
Review: In "The Right Stuff" there's a chapter about Lyndon Johnson's moving the space program from Cape Canaveral to Houston. Houston puts on a great party for the seven heroes of space exploration, described in what was until now my all-time favorite chapter of narrative skewering. Peepgass, walking wounded after the war, is a character at least as in-your-face as Herb Snout from Kar Kastle, but nuanced for the millenium.

Rating:
Summary: Over-rated and based on a flimsy premise
Review: As a sixth-generation Atlanta native I couldn't wait to read Tom Wolfe's take on my city. I was disappointed to discover his preoccupation with cartoonish southern stereotypes. Main character Charlie Croaker belongs on an episode of Dukes of Hazards, not in a novel pretending to be an authentic examination of the modern south. And I couldn't buy the premise that an accusation of black-white date-rape would constitute any serious threat to Atlanta's racial harmony, which has survived far worse without any such fireworks. All in all, I thought the book was full of cheap southern-bashing caricatures, overblown prose, and ridiculously macho-loving scenes. One more reference to manly men and men in the full sap of their youth and I'd have tossed this book out the window of my Buckhead townhouse or my plantation manor, since Tom Wolfe seems convinced that all us southerners fit one extreme or the other. A Man in Full would be better titled "A Man Too Full Of Himself," and the man would be Tom Wolfe.

Rating:
Summary: Lots of words...for what?
Review: I can't rave about this book. The powerful scenes, like the one describing Charlie Croker's encounter with a rattlesnake, a horse breeding scene,or the prison scenes, as well as some very dead-on humorous scenes, such as the description of the meeting and conversation between Croker and the football player, don't offset the problems.

The thing really is just too damn long, and the problem, I think lies in the same thing that gives the book strength (isn't that so often the way)- the descriptions. Wolfe just goes on and on and on and on, for example, about the ins and outs of the Atlanta landscape. By the end of this book, even someone unfamiliar with the city would be able to find their way around without a roadmap, I've no doubt. And for what purpose? Too often in this book, you get the feeling that the lengthy descriptions - of landscapes, interiors, and even people's physical appearance- are present less to serve the story and Wolfe's theme than to say, "Hey! Look what I saw and how well I describe it!"

I also think some of the subplots could have been cut, streamlines and made us (me at least) a little less impatient by p. 600 to see how the whole thing would be resolved.

Finally, and this is very sad to report - the end of this book is really, really lame. Shockingly lame - as in a lengthy chapter in which two of the major characters sit around and have a conversation in which they wrap up plot points: "Hey, what happened to Mrs. Croker?" "Oh well, let me tell you...." I was stunned by the use of such a creaky device.

So is this book worth reading? Yes. It's entertaining and absorbing. But is it the novel of the year? Does it really present us with a panorama of American life at the end of the century? Not at all - it gives us the story of rich Georgians, some poor Georgians, and people living on the edge in Alameda County. I think what happens in the end is that unrelenting specificity of Wolfe's prose, which has its own powerful value, nevertheless works to prevent this book from being about much more than the events he describes within. It's a fine line - great fiction draws us because of the specificity of the narration...but then, within the context of that story about specific people and places, the moral vision of the writer points us to something more about reality itself, which then functions as a revelation and illumination in our own lives - it's this last part that Tom Wolfe just hasn't gotten down yet. We can tell he's got the sensibility and the conviction, but he's not quite mastered the meshing of his prodigious talents of observation with the vision.