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A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe

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A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe Read and Download Ebook A Man in Full... A Man in Full Tom Wolfe PDF File: A Man in Full... 1 Read and Download Ebook A Man in Full... A Man in Full Tom Wolfe A Man in Full Tom Wolfe The setting is Atlanta, Georgia — a racially mixed, late-century boomtown full of fresh wealth and wily politicians. The protagonist is Charles Croker, once a college football star, now a late-middle-aged Atlanta conglomerate king whose outsize ego has at last hit up against reality. Charlie has a 29,000 acre quail- shooting plantation, a young and demanding second wife, and a half-empty office complex with a staggering load of debt. Meanwhile, Conrad Hensley, idealistic young father of two, is laid off from his job at the Croker Global Foods warehouse near Oakland and finds himself spiraling into the lower depths of the American legal system. And back in Atlanta, when star Georgia Tech running back Fareek “the Canon” Fanon, a homegrown product of the city’s slums, is accused of date-raping the daughter of a pillar of the white establishment, upscale black lawyer Roger White II is asked to represent Fanon and help keep the city’s delicate racial balance from blowing sky-high. Networks of illegal Asian immigrants crisscrossing the continent, daily life behind bars, shady real estate syndicates — Wolfe shows us contemporary America with all the verve, wit, and insight that have made him our most admired novelist. Charlie Croker’s deliverance from his tribulations provides an unforgettable denouement to the most widely awaited, hilarious and telling novel America has seen in ages — Tom Wolfe’s most outstanding achievement to date. A Man in Full Details Date : Published October 30th 2001 by Dial Press Trade Paperback (first published November 1st 1998) ISBN : 9780553381337 Author : Tom Wolfe Format : Paperback 704 pages Genre : Fiction, Literature, Novels, Contemporary Download A Man in Full ...pdf Read Online A Man in Full ...pdf Download and Read Free Online A Man in Full Tom Wolfe PDF File: A Man in Full... 2 Read and Download Ebook A Man in Full... From Reader Review A Man in Full for online ebook Perry says A major whiff at satire of Atlanta society. Wholly unlikable cast of characters, all made of sticks, within jagged story lines, seemingly pasted together. The book displays a significant disconnectedness with or misunderstanding of Southern U.S. culture in a way that is inexcusable in satire. Moreover, the thematic thread of Stoicism appeared mostly forced and, more significantly, exposed illogicality and gaping gaps in the novel's arc. The worst of the three Tom Wolfe novels I've read (Bonfire of the Vanities, 5 stars; I Am Charlotte Simmons, 3 stars). In a word, Sad. The novel as a whole, not its story or me upon finishing it. And, bad. Daniel says Ah, what to say about this book that the other reviewers haven't already said? One thing - this book seems to be present wherever used books are sold. Every old shop has a surplus of them. It's always on the dollar shelves at book sales. Even at the local thrift stores, it's there, sitting right next to Lonesome Dove and Tim Allen's autobiography. This book must find its way to second-hand shelves because it's both big AND mainstream. In the age of quick-selling novellas, there aren't many authors who dare to produce leviathan-sized novels. Sure, there's Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, and David Foster Wallace. They all have their own digressive coffee-house style, their fanciful artsyness. Some people read their novels for bragging rights. They place them in conspicuous spots as conversation pieces. When you finish "Against the Day," or "Underworld," or "Mason- Dixon," you don't want to forget your accomplishment. Some prefer to revel in it and lord it over others. Perhaps this is why Wallace and Pynchon don't make it to thrift store shelves as frequently as Wolfe. "A Man in Full" is a different kind of big book. It is extremely earnest and unaffected. In some ways, it belongs more to the traditions of the 19th century than to the 20th. Tom Wolfe avoids the narrative flourishes of his contemporaries and uses old-fashioned and unsubtle plot devices. The cast of characters is Dickensian - there's a tycoon, a young worker, a scheming banker, a well- heeled lady, and a debutante. There's a prison break, a bankers' shakedown, many backroom deals, dramatic changes of heart. Wolfe uses lots of satirical wordplay, which when applied to 20th century popular culture seems slightly contrived (viz. Wolfe's take on rap music.) But for my money, there's not a better name for a banker than Raymond Peepgass. And the tycoon's faux-plantation is named Turpmtine. Turp-em-tine. At first the characters' interactions are hopelessly stereotypical. The tycoon is egotistical and tone-deaf, causing the self-loathing banker to plot his downfall. The tycoon's ex wife, though living in glorious southern style, feels lonely and despondent in her middle years. Then, through a combination of implausible events, PDF File: A Man in Full... 3 Read and Download Ebook A Man in Full... the lives of the worker and the tycoon collide and in this collision Wolfe reveals his moral message, which is (appropriately) couched in classical philosophy. The themes Wolfe chooses to address - race, power, greed, redemption, and the state of American society - are baldly exposed in the first few chapters of "A Man in Full." Wolfe loves front-line reportage, and his unsubtle style is one of his strengths. There are many spot-on observations in this book, and were it not for its similarity to "Bonfire of the Vanities," "A Man in Full" might have been more widely admired for its perceptiveness. But back to the size of the book. Set against a row of contemporary fiction, this hardcover makes other books look off-puttingly puny. It is big enough to give most 20th century fiction an inferiority complex. Yet it's not a book people keep around to brag about. It is an ambitious book and very engaging to read, but it's not a literary ground-breaker. It can't claim the creative cachet of a Pynchon or a Wallace. It contains no shocking conspiracy theories for readers to discuss at dinner parties; it doesn't "subvert the literary paradigm" or do anything radical with the language. It is, however, a very insightful and entertaining read, very much worth the 750 pages it fills. For its un-cynical examination of well-worn topics, it is a significant and relevant book worthy of anyone's shelves. Jerry says Tom Wolfe can write. The Right Stuff and Bonfire of the Vanities are two great examples. There are many bright spots in "A Man In Full", for instance, Conrad (the protagonist) ends up in Santa Rita jail, and must struggle surviving in that hostile environment. I thought that was quite well done until fate intervened and conveniently got him out of a bad situation. But all in all, the plot is so convoluted, and the prose is so filled with extraneous minutia, that I struggled to get through it. This was my third try, having given up twice previously. Since it is one of my 2011 challenge books, I gave it another go, and finally finished it. The most disappointing thing is that this could have been so much better with some dedicated editing. Cut 200 pages and get to the point a lot quicker! This would probably be pretty good as a Readers Digest Condensed story. Can't recommend it otherwise. F.R. says Firstly, one has to doff the cap to Tom Wolfe’s prose style. The writing throughout this long book remains at a consistently high level, and even chapters which I later considered superfluous were brilliantly written. Absolutely there were points where you could see his research poking through, segments where Wolfe proved he’d learnt something in such fine detail and wanted the reader to know that – but the fact that it was rendered so beautifully in English allowed me to accept these little lectures. He is an excellent stylist. So I have no problems with the writing in ‘A Man in Full’, but I do have reservations about it as a work of fiction. PDF File: A Man in Full... 4 Read and Download Ebook A Man in Full... Wolfe’s adherence to a Victorian novel is admirable, the old idea of looking at life at every strata and weaving these different strands all together. But I think in this instance he hasn’t brought these elements together that well, and I am suspicious as to how much empathy he has – even with his journalist’s hat on – with some of the areas he tackles. This is a book about a real estate tycoon named Charlie Croker who is about to go bankrupt; it’s also about an alleged rape by a black athlete of the daughter of a white businessman; it’s about black politics in Georgia; it’s about a man on the breadline falling foul of the law; it’s about dumped first wives; it’s about a banker whose life has crashed and latterly it’s about how the works of the Stoics can be made to apply in the late stages of the 20th century. I know that these varying strands do ostensibly come together at the end, but I wasn’t convinced by that convergence or by the conclusions reached from it.
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