Customer Reviews

Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine

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Worth buying for the cartoon "Utility Workers on Third Avenue" alone - didn't know Wolfe was such a talented sketch artist.

Wolfe might well be the world's greatest living writer. Evidence? He is the author of three unmatched masterpieces on post-war America: The Right Stuff, Radical Chic and Bonfire of the Vanities. The quality of most of his other writings is also extremely high. Take his overlong, turgid, absolute worst book - Man in Full - and its still better than most. In 20th century American writing there is Fitzgerald and Wolfe, and then the rest.

This is a collection of writings from and about the 1970s - as Wolfe coined it, the Me decade. What is satisfying about reading Wolfe's earlier magazine work here is seeing how some particular ideas of his - on masculinity, on the all-consuming importance of fashion - that later blossomed in his longer works were first proposed, developed and tweaked along the road. What you realise is that Wolfe is a writer that worked on his craft relentlessly, spinning ideas and motifs that would eventually resurface again and again. At heart Wolfe is not really a 'writer' at all, but a philosopher of sorts. Where are we? How did we get here? and Why did we get here? are all the questions he asks - and can answer. Mauve Gloves focuses on the 1970s - why were grown men and women lying face down on a thick carpet in a hotel conference room moaning about their hemorroids? Wolfe thinks he has the answers. He is also scary when he predicts the future here - who was calling in the early 1970s the rise of fundamental Christianity in American politics (and attributing it to LSD)? For Wolfe LSD gave rise to a new righteousness in American youth, fundamentalism (or even neo-conservatism) simply being the middle-aged righteousness without the substance abuse. There is just no one else out there who could think like this. Tom Wolfe - American genius.

When an author's canon includes such masterpieces as "The Bonfire of the Vanities" and "The Right Stuff," it is easy to overlook his lesser-known, albeit no less brilliant, earlier work. "Mauve Gloves and Madmen, Clutter and Vine" includes a handful of Wolfe's classic essays from the mid-1970s, including the title piece (which close Wolfe readers will notice he reprised in a "Bonfire" passage),"The Me Decade," and the hilarious "Street Fighters." Any Wolfe fan looking for something to nibble on while they await the long-overdue "A Man In Full" will thoroughly enjoy this book.

Mauve Gloves and Madmen, Clutter and Vine is a collection of essays published in the mid-70s that embody the New Journalism movement which Tom Wolfe helped to found. In New Journalism, the author intermingles literary technique with traditional journalism in order to bring the reader into the piece and make them feel as though they were experiencing it first-hand as opposed to simply reading someone else's account. As one might expect, Tom Wolfe is a more than the titular leader of this movement, he's one of its grand masters.

The book begins with the tale of a well-known but unnamed writer who is ritualistically going over last month's bank statement, canceled checks, and unpaid bills. While the expenses mount and are suggestive of living above one's means, the writer isn't unnerved as most readers would be. In fact, he is nearly ecstatic. Money spent on flowers (from the florists Clutter & Vine) and caterers (Mauve Gloves and Madmen) for a cocktail party is evidence that he's "made it." He doesn't have to be like his immigrant father who worked as a tailor for years. He needn't do manual labor at all. He's educated and successful and free to write books and articles about the repressive nature of America vis-a-vis the underclass. Needless to say, the irony is completely lost on our renowned author.

Other sketches follow and, while not always directly related thematically, they nonetheless paint a picture of the times. Famously, it is in one of the articles contained in this collection that Mr. Wolfe coined the phrase "The Me Decade" to describe the 1970s. As with any form of journalism, the choice of topics, the way they are presented, etc. reflect the perspective of the journalist and his editors. With Tom Wolfe, his perspective is clear and entertainingly presented. Wolfe's virtuosity with literary mise-en-scene is what differentiates him from his contemporaries. Whether you actually remember the 70's or not, you'll feel as though you do after reading this work.

Before The Right Stuff, Wolfe published this collection of his unique essays, enhanced with his biting illustrations. Whether word or line, his pen is wickedly clever and embarrassingly insightful. His piece in this collection on aircraft carrier pilots, "The Truest Sport: Jousting with Sam and Charlie," is clearly the precursor to his block-buster account of the Apollo astronauts. Wolfe has always had the perfect eye for the right stuff, and has been decades ahead of his times, as he is obviously and ironically well-aware, judging from his illustrated essay "The Man Who Always Peaked Too Soon." From Bauhaus to candy-colored tangerine-flake hand-crafted hot-rods, to hippy glitterati on the Magic Bus, to hot-shot pilots, Wolfe's word-pictures are always perfectly ahead of his and our times.

I became hooked on Tom Wolfe's writing with "A Man in Full." That book was enough to convince me he is America's greatest living novelist. "Mauve Gloves and Madmen, Clutter and Vine" is an entertaining collection of short stories and essays. It is shocking in its variety with a story on fighter pilots in Vietnam, an essay poking fun at a popular writer, an essay defining the Me Generation, and a hilarious story called "The Street Fighters." Wolfe is a master and this short book is no exception. To be honest his "to do list" would probably be great reading as well. Although this is not my favorite Wolfe work so far, it is still wonderful.