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Tom Wolfe, "Hooking Up"

Started January 5 � Finished January 6, 2002; 293 pages. Posted 7 January 2002

I don�t know if I should feel ripped off or not. The title and cover blurbs all make this seem like it�s a study, much like �The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,� in the morality � or amorality � of youth in the 21st century. As it turns out, this is a reprint of various articles Wolfe did for magazines like Esquire, Forbes, and Harpers. The piece on teen sexuality, which absorbs nearly all of the dust cover description, is 11 pages long. Eleven pages! And in those 11 pages, one gets the sense that some kids had some fun making things up to a gullible reporter. Though I can�t be positive, I�m pretty sure no 21st century American teenager uses the term �tonsil hockey� to substitute for the word �kissing,� as Wolfe claims. Other articles have little to nothing to do with �hooking up� of any kind, instead being various monologues of science professors, New York artists and publishers, and people who had the audacity to criticize his latest novel, �A Man in Full.�

Sometimes I like Tom Wolfe, other times he comes off as a smarmy bastard. I really enjoyed �Bonfire of the Vanities,� but couldn�t stand �The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test� and when somebody stole it from me when I only had about 30 pages left, I didn�t care. His anthology of the �New Journalism� is funny because even though his pieces are amongst the longest in the book, superior writers like Hunter S. Thompson and Terry Southern repeatedly blow him away. His white suits bug me too and every time I see a picture of him I feel like I should be ordering some extra crispy chicken.

But this book isn�t bad. Not great, but you have to admit that Wolfe, like him or hate him, definitely has a style. When you read a 20-page article that only has two lines of direct quotation from sources, you have to admire that bravery � too many reporters fall back on quotations to pad out their articles, or else they�re scared to not attribute something to somebody else.

Were there any new insights? Not really. Did I learn anything? Nope. Will I bother to look at it again? Not likely. But it was entertaining enough, so I guess that�s okay.


Rating: Strictly library material.

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