Hooking Up - Hardcover

Wolfe, Tom

3.34

1,977 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0224061194 ISBN 13: 9780224061193

Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd, 2000

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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.

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Product Description:

RO60063988. HOOKING UP. 2000. In-8. Cartonn�. Etat d'usage, Couv. convenable, Dos satisfaisant, Int�rieur frais. 293 pages. Texte en anglais. Jaquette illustr�e en couleurs l�g�rement pass�e. Ex-libris "Bill Barnes" illustr� en noir et blanc.. Avec Jaquette. . . Classification Dewey : 820-Litt�ratures anglaise et anglo-saxonne

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

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