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A Man in Full

A Man in Full

List Price: $28.95
Your Price: $19.69
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An intense,visual voyage
Review: Wolfe draws the reader into the story with his

attention to detail, a vivid use of repetitive

phrases and a dramatic flair for larger than life

characters.

The work reads like non-fiction. It is very

plausable. You are taken to Turpntine, the 29,000

acre quail farm of protagonist Charlie Coker, an

aging real estate developer with a debt load

even larger than his taste for big buildings,

expensive jet planes and a uniquely southern

plantation. Coker is the Archie Bunker of Atlanta

in the 90's. Wolfe weaves race relations, the

plight of one of the "little people" he employs,

lenders once falling over themselves to make

Charlie his next loan who now treat him as a

deadbeat and a host of other issues into a

delightful, realistic and dramatic literary

success.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: What can I say that hasn't been said already...
Review: I liked this book, but am not proud of it. Mr. Wolfe is certainly erudite, and he certainly spent enough time in Atlanta to become sufficiently possessed of the Tara vernaculor, but Good Lord, 760 pages?!? Ironically, the chapter I liked the best was somewhere in the mid-two digit range, when Mr. Croaker goes through the pseudo-workout in the PlannersBanc conference room with a stale danish in front of him. The remainder of the book was certainly entertaining, but this "fiction by the pound" phenomenon has GOT to stop. Mr. Wolfe's publishers should also reduce his royalties by 1% for every instance that "tout le monde" or a derivation of that phrase appears in this massive tome (especially considering it sounds less clever here than in _Bonfire_). I found the Conrad story distracting rather than additive, and I too felt cheated by the ending (but then again, so too did I feel cheated by _Bonfire_'s ending). By the way, the comparisons to _Bonfire_ might not be entirely fair, but if Mr. Wolfe is going to spend 11 years rewriting his last effort and surrounding it with azaleas and dogwood trees, he ought not be surprised.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: quick read,entertaining and current
Review: major inconsistency: p.54 speaks of a 5000 foot concrete runway... p81 the landing strip was an alley of asphalt... Mr. Wolfe, there is a.difference.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: a good read,..a true novel with shades of dickens.
Review: Many will criticise Wolfe for the book's ending or his failure to develop his female characters. However in my opinion these are flaws we must live with . Yes, this masterpiece is flawed, but it is still a very good read. Wolfe has a great eye and a great ear, hence many of his descriptions and his portrayal of various modern American English dialects [Oakland,Hawaian pidjin,Black Atlantan,"Below the Gnat Line Craker" etc] are a pure joy . Reading this I couldn't help thinking of much of Dickens' work ["Hard Times,"Our Mutual Friend " and "A Christmas Carol" all spring to mind] and Thackeray's "Vanity Fair". Tom Wolfe has made a bold attempt to paint the big picture. So what if he misses a few details? Let's just pray Hollywood doesn't miscast the screenplay as much as it did with "Bonfire of the Vanities". How about casting Nick Nolte as Charlie, Roger Guenvere Smith as Roger Too White and "the dark haired one" from "Friends" as Serena for starters ?

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: great character development; weak ending
Review: The book has wonderful "Wolf" descriptions and character development. Story is 700 pages of character development and 15 pages of wrap up. VERY disappointing ending with such a awesome build-up.

SPN

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Whirlwind of Fun
Review: This is the first Tom Wolfe book I've ever read, I'm ashamed to say. This will definitely not be the last. It was an incredible book throughout, the description of prison life was riveting, and I often found myself howling with laughter. Bravo!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: interesting but overlong tale
Review: kept my attention, though.. . until the disappointing epilogue . . . very well-written book . . . some of the passages nearly take your breath away. . . if you liked bonfire of the vanities, by wolfe, you'll like this; if you did not read bonfire, read it now! (i preferred that book to this one, though i must warn you--the film was terrible!)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: the audio version compels the listener to buy the book
Review: I love audio books because, being a serious bibliophile, I find that life gets in the way of reading. Hence, being able to listen to the book in my car makes such a great use of time. I am humbled by David Ogden Stiers' incredible ability to speak in so many voices. I actually forgot that it was not Charlie Croker speaking. Roger TooWhite's dilemmas came so eloquently to the listener as he spoke with the mayor that it was like watching a play with many talented actors performing. I will watch for more books read by this marvelously gifted man. The book itself was wonderful, and I am beginning to read it now. I know that even as I read the words, having heard it read by David Ogden Stiers will enhance each and every character.

Rating: 5 stars
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: 1 stars
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.


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