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About two-thirds through this book, I remember thinking, "This is why I like Hemingway. If he had written this, the book would be less than 400 pages (instead of over 700) and the story would hit with a harder impact."
But after finishing this epic, and thinking about the many themes that run through it, it could not have been done any other way. There's just too much material, too many lives, covered in detail to edit any further.
Mr. Wolfe did an incredible amount of research for this book, and it shows. I've lived in Richmond and the East Bay, and I can tell you he nails those areas cold. I have never lived in Atlanta, but I lived in Savannah twice, have spent time in Atlanta, know a lot of people (black and white) from there, and his writing rings true with what I know. That carries over to everything else in the book, I'm sure, from his discussion of Stoic philosophers to top-of-the-line private jets and plantation life.
The book is the story of two men from opposite sides of the country and even further apart in social standing and wealth, and what happens when a situation that threatens to tear Atlanta apart draws them together. This is social satire at it's best. Mr. Wolfe skewers many sacred cows and does it as well as, this reader thinks, anyone in history has done it.
If you want light reading, pick something else up. This is true literature, on the level of Fitzgerald, Faulkner and Hemingway, and if this doesn't make you think, you've got the IQ of a rock so go back to your Inside Edition for thoughtful analysis.
One mark of true literature is that it is very likely that every reader will pick up on something that applies to his/her life that the next person will not really see. (Actually, this is true of any art form, not just literature.)
I don't want to give anything away in the book, but let me give a (very) personal example of what I mean. One of the main charcters comes to realize that he is doing what he is doing, fighting to hold on to all his wealth and property and trophy wife, because he is so afraid of what others will think if he loses it all - not because he really cares about those "things" (and I hate to be this cold, but a trophy wife is just another possession to a man like this.)
Now, I am a person who has always said that he doesn't care what other's think. It used to be so, but I think it's changed the last few years. I find myself fighting tooth-and-nail to hold on to what I've got, traveling all over the country to find the best-paying contracts I can despite the fact I hate doing so, when the odds, if I am honest with myself, have been stacked impossibly against me ever since I lost everything in the divorce settlement but the debts (please read my divorce reform editorial if you have not yet done so.) Why am I acting against my true nature? Self-image, and the image I want to project to others, even though I would most likely be much happier if I just let it go.
Will I have the courage to change, to say the hell with what others think of me if I'm driving a Kia instead of a sports car, and wearing clothes from Wal-mart instead of Macy's and Nordstrom's? I doubt it.
I'd like to hear your reactions and thoughts on what makes a "Man in Full." I think something in the book, whether you're male or female, white or a person of color, whatever, will touch you.
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