- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Picador USA; First Picador USA Edition edition (12 Oct 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312420234
- ISBN-13: 978-0312420239
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 14 x 2.1 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,167,090 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Hooking Up
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More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Tom Wolfe's Hooking Up is an oleo of reportage, fiction, and acrimonious name calling. This last, of course, makes for the best reading. In "My Three Stooges", Wolfe reviles the three big men of American letters--Updike, Mailer and Irving--who cast aspersions on his second novel. Apparently, "the allergens for jealousy were present. Both Updike and Mailer had books out at the same time as A Man in Full, and theirs had sunk without a bubble. With Irving there was the Dickens factor". Wolfe gets in a lot of figures about what a big hit his book was with the reading public, and a few gentle reminders about other writers who were big hits of their time, little guys like Mark Twain and Tolstoy.
Equally bitter fun are his two famous 1965 satires from the New York Herald Tribune. As always, Wolfe's titles lead you a good way into the actual stories: "Tiny Mummies! The True Story of the Ruler of 43rd Street's Land of the Walking Dead!" and "Lost in the Whichy Thickets: The New Yorker". Wolfe, clothes horse of note, gets off some of his best cracks at the expense of New Yorker editor William Shawn's fashion sense: "He always seems to have on about twenty layers of clothes, about three button-up sweaters, four vests, a couple of shirts, two ties, it looks that way, a dark shapeless suit over the whole ensemble, and white cotton socks". The rest of the reported pieces are unexceptional, and while the novella, Ambush at Fort Bragg, makes the most of its setting--a Dateline-like newsmagazine--it lacks the irresistible momentum required to drag most readers into a novella. Still, it's fun to watch the author reprise his lifelong role of unlikely underdog: Between his sniping at the literary elite and his mocking of the precious New Yorker set, Tom Wolfe makes like a defender of the common man. --Claire Dederer --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Product Description
By the year 2000 the term "working class" had fallen into disuse in the United States, and "proletariat" was so obsolete it was known only to a few bitter Marxist academics with wire hair sprouting out of their ears. The average electrician, air-conditioning mechanic or burglar-alarm repairman lived a life that would have made the Sun King blink..."So begins 'Hooking Up', the first of the brilliant pieces in Tom Wolfe's new collection. Wolfe ranges from coast to coast chronicling everything from the sexual mores of teenagers to fundamental changes in the way human beings now regard themselves, thanks to the hot new fields of genetics and neuroscience. Hooking Up also includes Ambush at Fort Bragg, Wolfe's novella about 'sting TV', and 'U.R. Here', a story about a New York artist who triumphs precisely because of his total lack of talent. Funny, often savagely so, hard-hitting, wise, Wolfe remains a unique chronicler of America, and its future in a new age.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As a great admirer of much of Tom wolfe's work (especially the two huge novels) I was expecting quite a lot from this collection. Unfortunately it is a very mixed and uneven read. Starting with an excellent piece on the developers of much of the high tech revolution and also containing a reasonable "novella"
On the other hand we do have a lengthy reaction to the critcism of a Man in Full by other heavyweight novelists, which whilst valid points were made, sounded like a lenghty and petulant rant and was frankly very broing
Other pieces touch on philosiphy, science and jounalism. Interesting to some maybe, but not always that gripping to me, although his fine sense of humour does shine through.
On the other hand we do have a lengthy reaction to the critcism of a Man in Full by other heavyweight novelists, which whilst valid points were made, sounded like a lenghty and petulant rant and was frankly very broing
Other pieces touch on philosiphy, science and jounalism. Interesting to some maybe, but not always that gripping to me, although his fine sense of humour does shine through.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Tom Wolfe could make the telehone directory interesting. Here he brings his exuberant prose to bear on a range of matters from the important to the trivial. A biographical essay on the founder of Intel doesn't sound a gripping prospect but Wolfe turns it into a classic story of All American success - he gives it a narrative drive focussed on an honest individual with a vision conquering over the cynical establishment in New York. A continuing obsession for Wolfe - which is there in many of these pieces - is the success of the American Dream - energetic, new, creative, democratic - against the stifling European traditions of old money, cynicism, safety, order, etc. I enjoyed that piece, and the essays on the new Darwinism - again he makes it work by personalising it into a battle between particular academics. The novella Ambush at Forth Worth is throughly enjoyable if slight. The piece in which he lays into John Irving, Norman Mailer, and John Updike is irresistable, but shows Wolfe's vanity and trivial tendencies at their worst - surely he sees how lame he sounds when bragging about the quality of his novel based on some of the reviews, and the number of sales!
1 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Unlike other reviewer,I haven`t read his two big books,but big fan of his New Journalism (read in late 70s,growing up in the U.K.). I`ll disagree with him about the `Three Stooges` piece about Man In Full...it`s the kind of literary crticism I like; gossipy,thoughtful,and educative about the tough business of writing. The rest I can live without,being all too rooted in American issues...also he seems to be turning into a bit of a P.J. O` Rourke,and some of his journalism/thought on European/British cultural issues might ne interesting.
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