Customer Reviews

The Pump House Gang

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Tom Wolfe is brilliant in capturing a generation's feel. This collection of short stories describes the socialites, the freaks and the trend-setters. Wolfe's language manages to show the physical as well as the atmosphere within a few short sentences. If you liked his wit in "The Electric Cool-Aid Acid Test" and his observations (social x-rays) in "Bonfire of the Vaities," you will love this collection of social critical essays.

Tom Wolfe pursues the idea that many Americans and Brits since World War II have been checking out of mainstream status competition in favor of pursuing status within distinct subcultures. This plays out in some interesting ways--most notably Wolfe watches Natalie Wood pursue status in a more traditional way by acquiring knowledge of art and even some Old Masters, while others play their own status game around photographing celebrities, in this case Wood herself. Essays on Hugh Hefner, California surf culture, and London mods are also worthwhile, as is a comic piece on Wolfe's misadventures with an "automated hotel". Wolfe does bog down at times, however, in the minute stylistic details of the groups he covers; if you are not that interested in style in and of itself, your eyes may glaze over those passages. Still, this is a good read for anyone interested in subcultures (especially of the 1960s) and status-seeking.

Noted author Wolfe wrote this series of short stories in the mid 60s which describe a changing America, leaving the European framework of class structure and elegance for something different. Something that would evolve in our country even to today where people cared less about systems of status. It was a fascinating period which Wolfe identified and captured earlier that most social observers.

But, the stories are widely diverse from a group of surfers in La Jolla who have no desire to hold normal jobs, to Hugh Hefner's "nose thumbing" to sexual society, to new work habits of young adults living in London. And this is some of the problems with the book. You may like some stories but they are so diverse, you may loathe others. I find myself revisiting Wolfe's books as they provide expert commentary of the past 40 years. This one I found to be uneven but still enjoyable.

Because I grew up in La Jolla, and graduated from La Jolla High School, class of 1962, I was only interested in the short story: "The Pump House Gang."

I know most of the characters in the story, and believe that Wolfe did a good job describing them. His account of the La Jollans visiting the Watts Riots was right on. I visited the riot zone myself, and enjoyed the same experiences as Shine, Nelander, and Sterncorb.

Wolfe came as close as any "outsider" has been able to do, in analyzing the La Jolla nut house, the institution where the walls fell down, and none of the inmates left.