RIP Tom Wolfe

[Steak Snabler]

Great writer. The Right Stuff is incredible.

Tom Wolfe, Pyrotechnic Nonfiction Writer and Novelist, Dies at 87

But you can add him to the "I didn't realize he was still alive" file.

 

[justgladtobehere]

A W&L alum.

Bonfire of the Vanities is a book I still think about, the plot, characters, themes, tiny details, almost 30 years after reading it.

 

[lcjjdnh]

One of the greats. I don’t have the most sophisticated tastes, granted, but perhaps my favorite author.

 

[Cosmo]

I really liked I Am Charlotte Simmons.

 

[Guy_Incognito]

A W&L alum.

Bonfire of the Vanities is a book I still think about, the plot, characters, themes, tiny details, almost 30 years after reading it.

RIP.
I hated that book. Maybe I should try it again, but I put it down 300 pages in. The way he wrote the wife - rewriting every line in her accent - was so grating. Maybe I was too young & immature.

 

[lcjjdnh]

I really liked I Am Charlotte Simmons.

Perhaps the reviews set my expectations low, but I thought this and even Back to Blood were underrated.

 

[Azrael]

To whom we all owe an immense debt. Rest.

 

[Neutral Corner]

"The Right Stuff" was amazing. I liked "The Electric Koolaid Acid Test" as well. All "Bonfire" did for me was to rub my nose in "The rich are different from you and I". I found it grating after a while, the description of the $300 a yard bed curtains and the like. It made it hard to muster much sympathy.

 

[Bronco77]

"A Man in Full" was pretty good, too, although it took me about two months to finish it.

He was one of two men I always associated with white suits. The other was Col. Sanders.

 

[typefitter]

The opening of The Right Stuff is a clinic. Rest in peace.

 

[lcjjdnh]

Let’s not forgot his sportswriting, too: The Last American Hero was one of the four features to lead off BASW of the Century.

 

[Neutral Corner]

Perhaps I come off a bit harsh above. I consider Wolfe a great writer, a man of letters. My gut level reaction to "Bonfire" is probably more to the society that he takes the reader inside of. I think that it was his talent for Sixties/Seventies dialogue that so attracted me to the early non-fiction. It's on a level with Elmore Leonard's, and that's high praise indeed.

 

[lcjjdnh]

Perhaps I come off a bit harsh above. I consider Wolfe a great writer, a man of letters. My gut level reaction to "Bonfire" is probably more to the society that he takes the reader inside of.

But isn’t it a satire of them—and for that matter pretty much everyone else in the book. I don’t think call the rich wives Social X-Rays was supposed to be flattering.

 

[Alma]

A great one. RIP.

 

[CD Boogie]

I really enjoyed A Man in Full and A Bonfire of the Vanities, which was serialized in Rolling Stone. I think the awful film adaptation has poisoned people against the book, which is too bad because I thought it was a spot-on piece for that time. I could have done without the hokey man in white bull****, which came off as trying too hard to create a persona or brand. Then again, maybe he was just lazy and figured it saved him from making sartorial decisions.

I am reading the Sticky Fingers biography of Jann Wenner and Wolfe came up, mentioning how he was a bit older than Hunter S. Thompson around the time of the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and I stopped to figure out how old he was. I figured he was 84 and getting up there. RIP.

 

[heyabbott]

Every time a black kid gets killed by police I think of Henry Lamb. Always an Honor Role Student! Every time Al Sharpton speaks, I picture Reverend Bacon. Bonfires is incredibly relevant today.
RIP to a great writer

 

[CD Boogie]

He was also just one of those people who never seemed to age. Like perpetually 60, even back in the 60s.

 

[Neutral Corner]

But isn’t it a satire of them—and for that matter pretty much everyone else in the book. I don’t think call the rich wives Social X-Rays was supposed to be flattering.

I read it shortly after it came out, and never went back to reread it, so my opinion was formed long ago and lacks detail now. The book made me feel uncomfortable and I found it unpalatable and hard to relate to. Perhaps I should, with the perspective of age.

 

[typefitter]

He was also just one of those people who never seemed to age. Like perpetually 60, even back in the 60s.

There is that weird phenomenon of people who look 40 their entire lives. Bad when they're 20. Great when they're 60. For sure he had that.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Let’s not forgot his sportswriting, too: The Last American Hero was one of the four features to lead off BASW of the Century.

Speaking of ...

The Last American Hero