Tom Wolfe
writes about manhood from two perspectives: one, where
holding on to principles is a must no matter what it takes; the other, where power,
possessions, sexuality, foxiness, bigness is more preferable, no matter how you
get them.
Although a novelist, Tom Wolfe is called
the Father of New Journalism. He introduced literary elements in newswriting
like embedded sounds, pauses, thoughts so that the image is made more clear and
vivid, and interesting to the reader. He did this for featurized news. “On the
road, you can see all these – varroom, varroom – cars of many colors- with
flames aflaming, hot on the road.” This was the kind of language Tom Wolfe
introduced to liven up the usual way of newswriting.
As opposed to news, novels provide more
leeway for the writer to go creative, and Wolfe exploits that much liberty in
this book. For example, his subjects at times are personified animals coupled
with the proper adjectives. That would be the subject for the moment, and
it is made more fun for the reader. An example: “Creepy Mouse no longer cared
to cut off that deprecating remark. All he wanted was to go sleep on his
waiting bed. Step gimp, step gimp, step gimp, step gimp.”
A jailhouse in this book went: “The pod was going scrack scrack scrack
scrrrraaaacccckkkk thra-GOOM glug glug glug glug motherfucker motherfucker
motherfucker.” The first sounds referred to old, squeaking electric fans on
walls, and the second one referred to toilet bowls being flushed. The rooms
were so close to each other that every sound is audible to one and all in this
jailhouse.
First published in 1998 by Bantam Books
Canada, the novel informs the readers about realities in life like Get-out-the-vote
money which practice sounds universal and coming in so many forms. It is not,
after all, confined to countries of lesser stature. The book impresses that the
whites have the money but the blacks have the power. This is underscored in
elections, of course. In third-world countries like the Philippines, the
parallel is expressed in terms of socio-economic levels. The bottom of the
political spectrum is full and pregnant with the poor. During election times,
their power is felt, and the Get-out-the-vote money is very much a reality. No
matter how rich you are, the power is still not yours, for it belongs to the
have-nots. We cannot pretend to be innocent about this.
The author is very much knowledgeable about the food
industry, particularly freezing and how work is carried on with ice and ice
blocks. He also knows much about gangs and gang wars and jailhouse life. Tom
Wolfe addressed pollution in the air waves that normally is brushed aside by
journalists. There are songs that teach wrong values and yet people pick them
up, repeat them, and pass them on to generations. The lyrics can take on
some sinister power and people believe in them and actualize them. For example, some
songs carry disrespect for mothers and women in general, the loss of hope in
life with nothing to offer, the ready surrender to the powerful, beauty in
saying goodbye to hope, and the like.
The book is very rich with localisms,
giving it much color. Though his character Charlie Crocker is white, he uses
the language of the blacks or African-Americans, most of whom serve in his
quail plantation.
Against preferences of some contemporary
writers, the novel contains so many back stories and long introductions, but
they do not distract the reader; rather they are the parts that give much
texture to the story to be more enjoyable.
If there is something simple and most
logical that the book could teach, it is about hands. Delicate hands
are for delicate jobs like typing or encoding; hardened and developed hands are
for heavy and weighted work. Each hand to its own size and capability. If you
look for work, make use of the size of your hands and their strength to fit the
job you are applying for.
For novel writers, this would be the
question: With 34 chapters of 742 pages, how did the author structure the
middle part so as not to drag and be able to hold on to the reader’s interest? It
is easy to do a beginning and ending, but a middle part with so thick a book is
a puzzle.
Tom Wolfe had a character named Conrad Hensley
that represented good conscience. This Conrad balances off the crooks and their
crocked ways in the book. In Chapter 5, he is introduced as a worker in the
Suicidal Freezer Unit of Crocker Global Food Industries.
He is found again in Chapter 11 where the
author placed his inner cliff hanger. Working skillfully on Conrad Hensley, Tom
Wolfe involved the feelings of the reader in a sustained... sustained...
sustained deeper and deeper emotional level, with life and its rugged spikes entangling
Conrad in every turn so that he could fall, fall, fall, but he keeps at it,
standing tall. Nevertheless, someone is found flat on the ground with blood oozing
from his head - and Conrad was seen standing by. Read this chapter and see if
nothing happens to you!
Five chapters later, Conrad is in prison
who doesn’t want to plead guilty for felony so that he could be pardoned. He
says he isn’t guilty and there’s nothing to pardon, and so he remains in prison.
He learns about jailhouse life. He learns how to tackle goons “using da mouth,”
miraculously escaping from an impending homosexual rape.
Six chapters later, there is an earthquake
breaking the prison grounds so that Conrad escapes. Six chapters more and he
finds another copy of the book, The Stoics,
the first of which he lost in jail. He continues reading it to the end, and
embraces the principles of the Stoics since by nature Conrad is a kind soul who
wouldn’t lie simply to save his butt.
In the next chapter, Tom Wolfe makes him
unite with the rich-but-now-bankrupt Charlie Crocker who is full of dilemma.
Conrad relays the principles to Crocker and together they travel the same
path, the same philosophy.
In other words, the author enters Conrad in
the chapters now and then, rewarding the reader, and urging him to go forward
to find the end of it.
The book would end in a happily-thereafter
mode if it stopped with Charlie Crocker’s speech, giving up all his possessions
to his creditors, showing equanimity
amidst it all, revealing the ugly head of politics. He was being used to
cosmeticize the damaged reputation of an obnoxious football player that made an
institution so proud. In exchange for that favor, the powers that be would
restructure his bank loans and lay off him. By this time, however, Crocker has lost
all interest in possessions and so bared to the public the attempt to engage him
to cover-up for a celebrated fool.
Crocker becomes a changed man, but the
story did not end with his telling speech. It ends talking about a bad example
– a man of the world. And with that, it tends to leave a bitter after-taste in the mouth. Why
did Tom Wolfe have to go on? This is how being macho is described today and it stares you in the
face!
The author had added an Epilogue and in
this part Roger White is propped up like he is the main character – the
lawyer that had wanted Crocker to lie, the one that enjoyed people looking at
him and patting his back like it was a virtue scheming to save a rascal. “What
about congress?” you hear him saying in the last chapter or Epilogue. He entertains
running for politics after having had a little taste of some earthly glory.
It would take time to understand that Tom
Wolfe is making a statement here. He is not entertaining in the Epilogue, having
done that in the 33 earlier chapters. Manhood to the world is being worldly-wise
but not valuing character. Crocker finds out how to be man in full just like
Conrad. He doesn’t lie in exchange for laying creditors off him and his properties
which he now considers as mere trifles. Tranquility can be found in standing
for truth, not in being rich and powerful. Our lives are merely borrowed, he
quotes a philosopher. If you lose yours, it is but a mere shank with a quart of
blood, and you don’t really lose anything. At the end of the day, all you
really own is your character and scheme of life.
While Crocker becomes a changed man for the
better, recognizing “the spark of life placed his soul,” thus becoming a man in
full, Roger White is also changing but in another direction. He finds public recognition
enjoyable, just like the promise of advancement, power, and possessions - all
that interested a worldly man. As described by philosophers, Roger White would
be one who thinks of himself as “all belly and flesh and animal desire, giving
way to animal impulses at the expense of the spark of life” in him. Clearly,
the Epilogue wants to showcase greed. It is not at all connected with true
manhood; it is the opposite of it.
