A Man in Full

Rating:
Summary: Rolling Stone magazine printed a few pages of this book
Review: If you subscribe to Rolling Stone Magazine than you might have read a four page excertion from "A man in Full," that was printed in this months issue. After reading these four or five pages, I despritally wanted to rush out and buy this book. I could have read the entire thing because I was so into the magical writing style of Tom Wolfe. I cannot wait to read this book and others that will follow. He is one of my favorite authors and I hope he continues to write great wonderfull books. "The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test" was a great piece of work also.

Rating:
Summary: Some good parts, some worthless parts
Review: I loved loved loved loved loved all the parts/bits about Charlie Croker. I couldn't get enough of him.

All the parts about Conrad can be COMPLETELY skipped and you'll still know exactly what's going on at the end. That's what I did.



Rating:
Summary: Social commentary at its finest; poor ending
Review: The other reviewers here have pegged this book accurately: great book until the contrived wrapping-up of the characters. (I won't even use the word "ending".) The topics and social commentary of the book are the purpose of this book - not its plot or dialogue.

If you haven't read Wolfe, this book is full of what he does best - set-pieces. His descriptions of a situation and the people in them are so penetrating, amusing and apt that you will feel like time is rushing by as you read. The depiction of Conrad in a California prison is so scary and real that many have wondered where Wolfe did his sentence. And Croker at the art exhibition, wondering out loud just why pictures of people engaged in various disgusting homo-erotic poses is being fobbed off as avant-garde art, is priceless.

Wolfe also does a great job of presenting characters that, although imperfect, suck you into their world and find you hoping they can hold out against the godless forces of modern culture around them. And with over 1000 pages, you should expect in-depth development.

One of the apparent themes of this book is that 2 of the primary characters use the philosophy of Stoicism as their guide to living a worthy life. This is simply a metaphor for Christianity presented so as not to detract from the social commentary. Don't get hung up on why Stoicism seems to play such a role.

This book also does an incredible job of detailing Atlanta and Southern politics. You'll receive an excellent grounding in the politics of race and dependence through reading this.

Overall, a wonderful, thought-provoking novel that damns the current culture to the oblivion it so richly deserves and seeks.



Rating:
Summary: Wolfe as a Mentor
Review: After spending the fall semester on a regiment of about 500 pages of text-book style, required reading per week I did not feel encumbered trying to tackle this book on a 2100 mile trip over winter break-in fact, I relished it.

As much as this is a great read, a great plot, and a great social demonstration, Tom Wolfe is able to teach the reader something remarkable-how to think. We are often taught the best way to learn is by example. Charlie, Conrad, Peepgrass, and Roger are all unique in their thought processes. And by using the multi-character, limited omniscient writing format the reader is not told how to interpret the plot, but instead is allowed to make decisions by examining the thought process of each character. In their minds, the characters are always making logical, reasoned decisions; if nothing else, the reader is able to understand.

Tom Wolfe has accomplished a marvelous masterpiece that has put me on the road to read his other works. I would recommend that you do the same.

Rating:
Summary: unlike the stoics, I choose to complain
Review: What a great story line. Colorful and believable characters. I found it engrossing... right up to the last 2 chapters. Did the author lose his way? Was he trying to end the book before it became 1000 pages? Was it purposeful? A commentary on some ridiculous aspects of society? I dont know, but after reading the book night after night, looking forward to the next time I could pick it up and finding all sorts of relevant use for the characters and the prose, I felt let down by the ending. The characters deserved more.

Rating:
Summary: A Full Masterpiece
Review: Takes on racial identity, materialism, arrogant capitalism, prison, revolution, homosexuality, the Southern identity, modern woman, modern man, athletics, racial politics, class warfare, modern music (one of the young men listens to the Pus Casserole but subverts the Gen-whatever stereotype by defending one of the triumvirate protagonists, Conrad, when Conrad gets fired: "He's got a wife and two kids! He was savin' up for a house!"), and many other aspects of modern life. Throw in some Greek philosophy and the rise and fall of three men, Conrad, Charlie Croker, and Roger White, and you have a winning novel.

Rating:
Summary: Modern Man
Review: This novel addresses the question of modern manhood; specifically it addresses the question of how to be a man in the modern/postmodern world. Wolfe recognizes that the erosion of traditional gender, societal, and familial roles over the past century has left a vacuum of purpose in the lives of modern individuals. They can no longer look to religion, tradition, or culture to direct their decisions or to refine their character. So where can a modern man turn for advice on how to live? In desperation the characters in A Man in Full turn to the past and discover that the quest for purpose may not be a modern problem, and that the troublesome solution may have always been within their grasp.

This novel shows a different side to Tom Wolfe in that several of the characters are actually likeable. Wolfe has a reputation for poking fun at everything and everyone, but in A Man in Full the three main characters, as flawed as they are, evoke sympathy and understanding from the reader. Conrad's car trouble episode, for example, is the best representation of the frustrations of working poverty that I have ever read. As always Wolfe exhibits his signature style of defining modern American culture in great documentary detail, from the grandiose to the miniscule, with searing insight. The novel tends to be over-documentary at times which slows down the narrative, and the ending seems clipped and a bit unnatural. Overall, though, this novel is an instant classic, and proves that Wolfe is the best writer of his generation. A.


Rating:
Summary: The Greatest American Writer of the Last Half-Century
Review: Tom Wolfe is without a doubt the greatest American writer of his generation. In fact, with the exception of a few luminaries like Alexander Solzhenitsyn, he is probably among the few truly great writers that the world has produced in the last fifty or so years. His books stand out like mountains compared with all of the modernist garbage of the Irvings and the Salingers. Tom Wolfe is not a writer on the level of a Dickens or a Tolstoy, though he sometimes comes pretty darn close. But compared with what has passed for literature for so long now, he really is as good as it gets.
A Man in Full is a complicated story. A very unlikely set of characters are drawn together by the alleged rape of a rich white college girl by a black athlete. Wolfe describes the entire situation with superb realism, showing you how things really work in the new millenium in America. Wolfe proves again that truth is always stranger than fiction, as he describes one absurd situation after another that can instantly be recognized as a real part of modern-day America. Anyone who is a true literature fan owes it to themselves to check out this work.

Rating:
Summary: And... The Story in Full?
Review: This unwieldy 'Brave New Journalism' left us more than bewildered. Where's the Beef? Our visit to this town turned up precious little that resembled MIF. Other reviewers made the same observation. Looks like the character this work reveals is named on the cover... why can't Mr. Wolfe bring us The Story in Full?

Rating:
Summary: A Novel in Full!
Review: To compare A Man in Full to The Bonfire of the Vanities is inevitable. Where 'Vanities' gave us sparkling gems like 'Social Xrays' and 'Lemon Tarts', A Man in Full gives us fascinating portraits of characters even at the cost of a satisfying story
(read: neat beginning, fat middle, no loose ends end).
The story deals primarily with the latter life of Charlie Croker - a real estate erstwhile tycoon who has fallen into debt. At the end he is faced with a Judasian situation - support a black sportman who is accused of date raping his friends daughter and get rid of his business debt OR side with his friend and lose everything.
The novel is peopled with characters who you can 'see' in your mind. The bankers, the young trophy wife, Charlie ( test: if the novel were a movie - who best to play Charlie Croker?), the meatpacker turned Zeus enthusiast, Martha - Charlie's ex wife, Ray Peepgass, etc... Read this book not so much for the end which seems like a balloon deflating defeatedly but for the range and colour of the characters. Nobody does it better.