I don't think he's the greatest writer ever or anything, but I do like Tom Wolfe. I can also totally respect his attitude towards the filming of BotV. I remember reading stories of Michael Crichton getting pissed off and throwing chairs and storming off the set of "Rising Sun." There's no sense in subjecting yourself to that as a writer. Just cash your check and move on.

Years ago, an interviewer once asked William Faulkner his opinion of what Hollywood had done to his books. "Hollywood hasn't done anything to my books," he answered, indicating the bookshelf behind him. "They're all still right over there."

Ace - I've read a few of Tom Wolfe's books and based on the content could tell he leaned to the right. His support or semi-support of Bush doesn't surprise me, though the fact it's public does. I recommend "A Man in Full" by the way. Long, but worth it.

I'm surprised you didn't know about Wolfe's political predilections, Ace. He's written articles for the American Spectator and The Weekly Standard before, also.

You absolutely MUST do yourself a favor and get your hands on a copy of two of his most famous essays (they basically made his reputation back when he was just starting), which usually come bundled together in one book. The first is called "Radical Chic," and is an utterly devastating documentary disembowelment of the pretentions of the New York liberal elite during the late 60's and its obsession with White Guilt, centering around a benefit party thrown by Leonard Bernstein for the Black Panthers. It's just the most perfectly mean (yet rather po-faced, which is its brilliance) essay you'll have had the pleasure of reading in quite some time. Even back then, when he was writing about Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and dropping acid (his first book was The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Wolfe fundamentally got it.

The second essay is called "Mau-Mauing the Flak-Catchers," and it mines a similar vein, this time in Oakland, again focusing on the ability of black "activists" (who were clearly obvious frauds, as described by Wolfe) to pressure, outright intimidate, and guilt-trip white liberal government establishment into throwing them piles of money, no strings attached.

Both essays say far more trenchant things about the peculiar state of race-relations in the Democratic party than nearly anything written in the next twenty years. Also: both are quick reads, an hour tops for each.

I didn't love "A Man In Full," but I did enjoy "Bonfire," and it's acerbic take on New York society. I took "The Right Stuff" out of the library a few years ago; let it gather dust and a hefty fine, before returning it unread. Guess I just wasn't in an astronaut place at the time. Maybe I should give it another shot.

Man that Tom Wolfe is one snappy dresser. Thats pretty much all i have to add to this thread.

The first is called "Radical Chic," and is an utterly devastating documentary disembowelment of the pretentions of the New York liberal elite during the late 60's and its obsession with White Guilt

I've read bits of that. I forgot about that essay, but still, just because someone ridicules liberal culture doesn't make him a non-liberal.

Look at Hunter S. Thompson, for example.

I mean, some people are just contrarians. Or pricks.

Another excellent book--though its so short it's more like a VERY long magazine article--is "From Bauhaus to Our House." An elegant putdown of modern architectural pretence.

Cordially...

All of Tom’s books are full of insightful observations about American society. And all of his books show that he is a poltical conservative.

Tom Wolfe is America’s greatest writer and I can hardly wait for his new book.

The Right Stuff is a great movie except for the way it treats Gus Grissom. It's ambiguous (and even slightly blaming,) re: the blown hatch. Later NASA investigations prior to the movie (and book,) showed that the hatch did malfunction. Grissom was later selected for the fateful Apollo I mission, proving NASA's faith in him.
The movie is stirring and would be one of my favorites, if not for it's malicious treatment of a great Amercian.

I read some of Bonfire but I can't remember any of it. I saw the movie The Right Stuff. Based on this, I am qualified to speak authoritatively about Tim Worf.

He is the single most writer that has ever. Furthermore, no other writer can in anyway more that he, as far as you know.

I heard, he ghost wrote "God is Dead" for Nietzsche, but only because Allah hasn't posted anything since the ALCS.

I have a lovely bunch of cocoanuts. Is the election over yet?

Wolfe is a southern boy. An oddly effete one, but he's a writer from Virginia, so there you go. He still knows a war when he sees one, and I'd like to sit around drinking and smoking with him.

Don't bother with MIF. He missed that one by a mile. If you do read MIF, understand that he's severely hating on the Southern aristocrat (a despicable character, no matter who's writing) and there's a lot of collateral damage.

The Right Stuff is brilliance, and you should be ashamed for not having that one under your belt. Hang your head.

To follow along with Trevor, I formed a pretty low opinion of the Right Stuff after reading Wolfe's treatment of Grissom. He didn’t panic. After Mercury, NASA picked Grissom for choice assignments, commanding the first Gemini and Apollo flights. Grissom knew that the Apollo flight was exceedingly dangerous and he died in the commander’s seat. He didn’t panic there either. Trevor is right – he was a great American.

When people ask my politics I often say I'm a Tom Wolfe Republican.

To the pair - Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing - recommended by Jeff B. above, I'd add The Painted Word. He takes modern art down to Chinatown simply by telling the truth about it. The three together make a very nice stiletto thrust into the vitals of modern snobocratic liberalism.

A Tom Wolfe novel and a Dylan autobiography come out within a month of each other and here I am reading blogs all day...

Well, tried as I might to spin my way out of embarassment, it does appear that I ought to have known the man leaned right, but I didn't.

What can I say? I'm a moron.

Nah, you were right the first time. Believe me, if faux-populism, say, were the ethic of some puffed up Midwesterners who backed up their beliefs with a sack of horseshit and a smile, Wolfe'd be the first one in line to write a scathing book about it.

He likes bringing folks down a notch or two. (Being a bond trader like Sherman, I have suffered a few of his slings and arrows.) He's no more conservative than a guy like Bill O'Reilly, though he does seem to understand the threat posed by Islamo-nutters.

The effete literati HATE Wolfe, he's been skewering them for years. MUST READ: his essay In the Land of the Rococo Marxists (from Hooking Up), in which he traces the intellectual vacuity of the liberal elite. On Sontag's 1967 Partisan Rvw essay which breathlessly gushed 'The white race is THE cancer of human history':

"Who was this woman? Who & what? An anthropological epidemiologist? A renowned authority on the history of cultures, a synthesizer of the magnitude of Max Weber, a Joachim Wach, a Sir James Frazer, an Arnold Toynbee?

"Actually, she was just another scribbler who spent her life signing up for protest meetings & lumbering to the podium encumbered by her prose style, which had a handicapped sticker valid at Partisan Review. Perhaps she was exceptionally hell-bent on proving Marshall McLuhan's line about indignation endowing the idiot with dignity, but otherwise she was just a typical American intellectual of the post-World War II period."