The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby [Paperback]

Tom Wolfe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 24, 2009

"An excellent book by a genius," said Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., of this now classic exploration of the 1960s from the founder of new journalism.

 

"This is a book that will be a sharp pleasure to reread years from now, when it will bring back, like a falcon in the sky of memory, a whole world that is currently jetting and jazzing its way somewhere or other."--Newsweek

 

 

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The "streamline baby" in Tom Wolfe's 1965 debut book is a hot rod, but the car's candy colors and wild lines can't match the prose style Wolfe devised to describe them. The title essay--Wolfe's first magazine article--launched the New Journalism, partly because its original title was "There Goes (Varoom! Varoom!) That Kandy-Kolored (Thphhhhhh!) Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (Rahghhh!) Around the Bend (Brummmmmmmmmmmmmmm)..." His voice was more shocking than any subculture he uncovered. Until Wolfe (Ph.D., Yale), nobody struck gold by applying Ph.D.-speak to lowbrow subjects. Kurt Vonnegut famously called this an "excellent book by a genius who will do anything to get attention."

Now that everybody does what Wolfe did, his early essays smack less of genius. But attention must be paid to this pioneering peek into King Pop's tomb. The most startling thing is how soberly sensible most of the prose now appears, except for the title of the first essay, "Las Vegas (What?) Las Vegas (Can't Hear You! Too Noisy) Las Vegas!!!" which anticipates the far superior Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Mostly, these articles seem like straightforward introductions to some of the signal figures of the early '60s: hot-rod designer Big Daddy Roth, surf guitarist Dick Dale, teen recording tycoon Phil Spector, Andy Warhol debutante Baby Jane Holzer, the Cassius Clay-era Muhammad Ali. We even glimpse the Beatles in a profile of the yappy DJ Murray the K in "The Fifth Beatle."

The last half of the book focuses more on New York and its denizens' endless combat for social status. The last piece, "The Big League Complex," is like a 1964 warm-up exercise for The Bonfire of the Vanities. --Tim Appelo --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Might well be required reading in courses with names like American studies."--Time Magazine

 

"I'm always rereading Tom Wolfe's The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby."--David Gates

 

"Tom Wolfe is a terrific writer."--The Washington Monthly

 

"Wolfe can do things with words and settings that few writers are capable of matching."--Tom Walker, The Denver Post

 

"The man's done the impossible. He--Yes!--understands America!"--Houston Chronicle

"His eye and ear for detailed observation are incomparable; and observation is to the satirist what bullets are to a gun."--The Boston Sunday Globe

 

 

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Picador; First Edition edition (November 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312429126
• ISBN-13: 978-0312429126
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #257,435 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tom Wolfe is the author of more than a dozen books, among them such contemporary classics as The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, The Bonfire of the Vanities, and A Man in Full. A native of Richmond, Virginia, he earned his B.A. at Washington and Lee University and a Ph.D. in American studies at Yale. He lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Ultimate Bathroom Book, May 31, 2006

By 

jjlaw "jjlaw" - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (Paperback)

This is a collection of short tales about contemporary New York and America written in the early 1960s. As you might expect, Wolfe is a little more rough around the edges here, and so there is a little hit and miss. However, The Last American Hero, about driver Junior Johnson and the early beginnings of NASCAR, is breathtaking - here are the true buds of Wolfe's ideas on American Masculinity that were to flower in The Right Stuff.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Get It If You Can Find It - Fantastic Read!, November 20, 2004

By 

Trevor Seigler (South Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (Paperback)

Tom Wolfe began his career as a "New Journalist" with this book back in 1965, and when I discovered it some thirty years later I instantly became a fan of what this man is sellin'. The articles collected in here range a wide variety of topics, and even the duller pieces are punctuated with traces of brilliance.

The most memorable for me (seeing as I haven't read it in a few years) deal with some interesting and illuminating topics, both of their time and somehow relevant today:

The title piece dealing with custom cars (what's the hottest reality show staple besides weddings and home decor?)

Phil Spector's oddness (chilling in light of his recent legal troubles)

The beginnings of what would become NASCAR (now the biggest sport in the South)

Cassius Clay AKA Muhammed Ali (the role of the black athelete in American society is still being worked out)

Vegas' rise from the desert

There are countless others, products of their time and yet transcending eras to speak to us today. Again, not every piece works, but it's a credit to the book as a whole that I can't recall which ones were failures.

If you can find this, get it. You'll look at thinks differently afterwords...

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but a bit of a slow read, August 15, 2001

By 

Dean Johnston (Saskatoon, Sk, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (Audio Cassette)

Being a huge fan of the other two Tom Wolfe books I've read, "The Bonfire of the Vanities" and "A Man In Full", I was naturally curious to read Wolfe's first book. Unfortunately, I didn't find it to be as sharp or witty as his more recent work, possibly due to this one being non-fiction. I found it to essentially be a set of rambling observations about the state of life in America in the 60's. His choices of subject are clever and put a whole new spin on my view of the United States of the mid-twentieth century but on the whole I found large stretches of the book to be quite dry and, in my opinion, unnecessarily convoluted.