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Books and Cooks December 1999

A Man in Full

Our rating: 3.25 cups of tea!
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 A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe

Discussion date: December 17, 1999. 7:30--meeting, 6:30--Christmas music and mingling.

Discussion place: Lyn's place. 

Menu: Champagne, cheese, crackers, Susannah's cranberry torte, etc. . .

Activity: Books and Cooks gift exchange. $10 cap. 

The Man in Full homepage at www.tomwolfe.com, including excerpts.

Robot Wisdom's page of Tom Wolfe resources.

Salon Magazine's review
"A Man in Full" is already a supersize swig of literary testosterone, Wolfe's exhaustive and exhausting manifesto of masculinity at the millennium. It has subplots about real estate wheeler-dealers, stressed-out bankers, blue-blooded African-American politicians with fabulous suits and priceless collections of Yoruba art, illegal Asian immigrants, superfluous discarded wives and blue-collar workers, but the question at the heart of the novel is what makes a man a real man, a man's man, a man in full. Like his hero Charlie Croker, Wolfe lets us know he has "masculinity to burn." He sorts out the "true Male Animals" from the passive wimps. His preferred men look like bulls or lions, with rippling muscles, thick necks and huge forearms. Black or white, rich or poor, they are combat-ready, eager to turn every business transaction, social occasion and sporting event into a struggle for male conquest. Readers should not be slow to get the repellent point.

But Wolfe has more than machismo up his sleeve. Since the '80s, he has been anticipating a Third Great Awakening, an American religious movement born out of luxury, narcissism and greed. In 1995, Wolfe was predicting a spiritual revival for the millennium. The '90s, he argued, were the decade of moral fever rather than money fever. In August 1996, Wolfe had a quintuple heart bypass operation, followed by a prolonged depression from which he was rescued by Dr. Paul McHugh, psychiatrist in chief of the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and the main dedicatee of "A Man in Full." His survey of decadent end-of-the-century American masculinity is also a quest for religious transcendence, pursued through a trio of larger-than-life protagonists.

Amazon says: 
Of course, a detailed plot summary would be about as long as your average minimalist novel. Suffice it to say that A Man in Full is packed with the sort of splendid set pieces we've come to expect from Wolfe. A quail hunt on Charlie's 29,000-acre plantation, a stuffed-shirt evening at the symphony, a politically loaded press conference--the author assembles these scenes with contagious delight. The book is also very, very funny. The law firms, like upper-crust powerhouse Fogg Nackers Rendering & Lean, are straight out of Dickens, and Wolfe brings even his minor characters, like professional hick Opey McCorkle, to vivid life:

The Books and Cooks A Man in Full Informal Reading Guide
(member-generated questions in no particular order)

  • Were the characters in this novel 3-dimensional or were they caricatures?

  • Do you think this is a realistic portrait of modern day America?

  • Did we really get a sense of what the philosophy of stoicism was about? Were any of the characters true stoics?

  • Do you think Wolfe has equal ability to portray the rich characters and the poor characters?

  • What do you think minority response (African-American especially) would be to the very obviously stereotyped characters in this book, especially given Wolfe's white, southern slant? 

  • Who is your favorite character?

  • What did you think would happen between Conrad and Croker?

  • Is stoicism presented as a sensible desirable philosophy? Is it meant to be? 

  • Are the names meant to symbolize the people? (E.g., Charlie Croker the cracker, Conrad the con-vict, Roger White, etc.) Which ones aren't I thinking of?

This Page Last Revised: November 21, 2000.