If I wanted to hear an old man complain about the internet I would just go visit my father.

Disassociated groups of essays and detritus (and one novella), but written with the Tom Wolfe flair.

I thought this book sucked. It seemed to me that Wolfe, previously an acute observer of the American Social Scene, has lost touch with the common realities of American life. Give this one a pass.

This book was released in the year 2000 and was subtitled as “a book for the turn of the millennium” or something. I really had no idea what this book was about before I picked it up. I only knew that a) I enjoy Tom Wolfe and b) It was only a $1 at the discount book store. After reading it, I still don’t have much of an idea of what this book was about. It’s not that it was hard to understand, Wolfe is an amazing writer, it’s just that the pieces are very disjointed, and I can honestly and sincerely say, I’m really not sure how this whole thing is supposed to be tied together.
For starters, this is mostly non-fiction pieces written by Wolfe supposedly about the reflections of our society in the year 2000. There is one fiction story thrown in designed (I guess) to compliment the rest of the book. Most of Wolfe’s observations of Year 2000 America are quite humorous – yet in a very unflattering way. His observations are mainly on the entertainment industry – specifically in the genre of writing, which he knows so much.

The first piece, which I thought was more of an introduction, he talks about the common practice amongst contemporary youth to “hook up” with one another. “Hooking Up” is apparently the tendency to have sex with another individual within mere minutes of being introduced to the person. It’s a pretty crass observation, yet I don’t doubt the validity of his claim in some circles. Since this was the first installment in this book (that features the same title), I figured he would expand on this thought process throughout the remainder of the book. Not so. As a matter of fact, after this brief short “story”, there is no mention at all of “hooking up” anywhere else, yet I kept expecting there to be something, or at least to draw some sort of viable connection with the rest of the book. Nope. Nothing of the sort (to be fair, he did write an entire novel about the phenomenon called I Am Charlotte Simmons).

So he wonders from topic to topic throughout the rest of the book. He laughs, so to speak, at current sociological and philosophical trends that have engulfed the “educated” minds within the last century. He seems to suggest (and I don’t disagree) that there is a bizarre element in our society that thrives on belittling anything deemed “popular” or “good”. These individuals on the fringe go to great lengths to fault anything that the masses enjoy, seem to thrive on being miserable, and have quite the sense of intellectual snobbery when deeming the rest of the world “unsophisticated” or “out of touch”. He tells two wonderful stories of when he was the victim of such angst. One, detailing the comings and goings of the famous New Yorker magazine (famous only because the “intellect snobs” enjoy displaying it on their $2,000 coffee table), and the other story, which describes the reaction to his book A Man in Full by some of the more well known, “famous” authors of the yesteryear. These authors (Norman Mailer, John Updike, and John Irving) seemed to come out of nowhere to slam Wolfe’s new book. A bit odd since it was critically and publicly seen as a masterpiece. Wolfe goes onto to point out that these three “brilliant” authors, were basically just pissed off because no one was buying their books anymore. He makes some good points.

In between all of this, he manages to throw in one short, fictional story about a popular tabloid news show that is about to break a story about three military homophobic creeps that manage to kill a fellow soldier because of his sexual orientation. The story is good, in places, yet Wolfe has an annoying tendency to write his character’s dialog in how the person sounds to an average person. So since these three military guys are from the Deep South, Wolfe insists on writing their dialogue in an annoying vernacular such as:

“Hale, no. Ain’t nobody jes natch’ly wants to risk his laf. You know what I’m trying to tale you? You got to take ‘ose ol’ boys and ton ’em into a unit.”

One wishes Wolfe would just spell out the words properly and let his readers use their own imagination. It gets so bad that you find yourself reading these bits several times before you know what the characters are saying. That’s really too much work to read a story.

So in conclusion, I did enjoy everything in this book. Wolfe has an amazing way of making me laugh, and this piece of work is no different. I was just left with a feeling of not really knowing where he was trying to go, and found myself scratching my head a bit after I finished reading.

I read Tom Wolfe's essays when I was a teenager, every bit as snarky as his writing. I didn't know much about the Black Panthers, art history, architecture, and so forth. I assumed Tom did, which I suppose he did. He had a way of sneering at things in collusion with his readers, making them feel as clever as him.
Well, I'm over that now. This is the first non-fiction of his I've read in over 30 years, and he hasn't changed much. The initial essay is pretty interesting, about the professional history of silicon valley. It reminded me of his story about why all airlines captains sound alike, from "The Right Stuff." He's a big believer in connections and influence, however tenuous it sometimes feels.
The other pieces were more in the vein of his previous essays, as I've described, and I realized that this attitude turns me off. His writing hasn't changed, I have.

If you like Tom Wolfe like Tom Wolfe likes Tom Wolfe, you will like "Hooking Up." If you think Tom Wolfe is ok, like I think Tom Wolfe is ok, you will probably think this book is ok.

My biggest complaint is that "Hooking Up" only appears in the first essay(?) and only there in a convoluted, confusing, dissatisfying way. The book improves after that providing some interesting biographies of people that I'd never heard about before, such as William Shawn, editor of The New Yorker and Bob Noyce, a pioneer in Silicon Valley.

I think Tom Wolfe makes interesting observations, but his best work seems to be when he pairs real life with fiction. My favorite part of the book was a novella about a news crew executing a sting operation. It packed in some suspense, social commentary, and the Wolfe style I prefer.

I give this book a 2.5 for his Silicon Valley piece and his short story the rest of the book was just not interesting.

As an information specialist, I think Wolfe is on point. I especially liked his piece on how Silicon Valley borrowed its cultural ethic from the Protestant Congregationalist ethic but I do not like when he starts criticizing other society such as academia or fellow news people. It makes him sound like a bitter old man with a grudge against certain parts of America. His fictional stories is good too but I do not not like his obsession on using dialects in order to create reality based stories. Say what you will about Wolfe, his underlying injecting of aggression and sexuality in any situation can make anything interesting from high finance to "media sting operation."

Wolfe uses biting satirical language to describe the '90's. Even though 90's seem excessive looking back it is hilarious what social conservatives were raving about compared to the issues of today. They were complaining just to complain. It seems that Wolfe is a curmudgeon who focuses on the negatives of American life today. He seems to be a social conservative commentator minus the religious overtones. Wolfe seems to think because the 90's was a time of prosperity that the new millennium will be equally dull so he has to make up excitement by commenting on social issues.


I enjoy how Wolfe ties entrepreneurial success of America with its Protestant work ethic.

His main thesis is that it is Bob Noyce Congregationalist background of disdaining social hierarchy in favor of individual contribution combined with its work ethic that gave context to Noyce’s innovation of corporate culture that is now famous in Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley’s culture of course focuses on entrepreneurial spirit that disdain hierarchy in favor of horizontal culture with its emphasis on pure talent. For me, Wolfe proves that real practical value of a religious upbringing as a means of inculcating certain productiveness to societal members. The fact that Noyce later rejects overt religiousness further proves to me that Christianity is a religion that one must experience not a list of dogmas.
Unlike their Eastern counterparts, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs value experience over things.

A further value that American dissenting Protestantism conferred on society is that its members value wealth which the reason Americans today admire the self-made millionaires.

Even though there are culture wars currently in America, the truth of the matter is that it takes both the social conservative side of the Midwest and the South with its penchant for strong work ethic and disdain for “elites” combined with liberal Coastal Regions that allow for innovation that create the great American ingenuity engine. Although Wolfe concentrates on Noyce’s Midwest upbringing, I doubt he would have found Intel if he did not move to the more liberal California coast or been employable if he did not receive his degree from MIT. Because even though Protestantism Utopian societies have a strong distaste for social hierarchy, the disdain usually shows itself in rejection of any show of individualism outside the social group. Incidentally, I tend to like Midwestern social conservatives over Southern because whereas the South loves to preach its values it seems to me that Midwest social conservatives tend to be more understated and thus more innate and less ostentatious.

By providing research grants and creating PhD’s, federal government proves where it is useful in innovative job creation, they are useful in the basic science funding, tax credits to innovative companies and if need creating a demand ahead of the private sector. After all even though it is private enterprise who created the semi-conductor, it was NASA that created the demand for the company to exist and grow in a rapid pace.


INTERNET:
Tielhard, a Jesuit priest, came up with the idea that technology will unite all Christians into the mystical body of Christ. As an evolutionary biologist, he saw technology as the next step in humanities step toward “The Divine Plan”. Too bad the hierarchical nature of the Catholic Church stifles free thought and innovation.
McLuhan secularizes this idea into the internet global village and interestingly states that technology changes how the brain is made which is proving to be the case via neuroscience.

Wilson, the founder of social biology, hypothesizes genes determine what innate characteristics one is dealt with at birth while learning how to play those cards is due to one socio-cultural upbringing. Finally, how one plays those cards is due to individual choice.

GENETIC DETERMINISM:
He blames evolutionary biologists for America's bad behavior and pill popping culture. In his thinking of genetic determination via Darwinian evolution explains everything in behavior, then a pill to change ones biology is surely the answer to it.

ROCOCO MARXISM AND THE LIBERAL ACADEMIC ELITE:

Playing up social conservatives fear of research universities, Wolfe decries the all secular research universities and the critical thinking skills that they try to impart towards their students as nothing more than brain washing of the liberal academic elite or what he terms rococo Marxism. The scary thing is the Republican party of Texas is now against teaching critical thinking skills to public school students because they think that that thinking will make them more likely to be liberal. For the Republicans in Texas who are captains of industry, it does not matter to them because they are just going to send their kids to private school after it benefits them because they need "yes-sirs" in order to work for them.

I think that his analysis of liberal academic elite taking over American cultural landscape as largely overblown after all, I did not know any of the "important intellectuals" that he espouses or their ideas. Also Wolfe misses the point on what radicals do for society as they push the general conversation one way or the other. Like other social conservatives, he decries racism, sexism as largely constructs of the liberal academic elite and probably is against the civil rights movement and the positive things that that produced. But just as "multi-cultural" radicals pushed the conversation in the 60's forcing the federal government to enact civil right's laws, the Tea Party conservatives of today although annoying is forcing the federal government to look at budget deficit in a serious way. No matter who wins the election, the writing on the wall is clear that the federal budget is going to be cut.

As for Fish, what so controversial with the idea that a writer tries to influence his reader to think what the writer wants him to think? After all, Wolfe himself tried to sell his readers in "I am Charlotte Simmons" that top research university is nothing more than a breading ground for sexual perversion. Anyone who went to a "top college" knows that one can avoid "sexual perversion" if one wants to.


ARTISTS AND CRITICS:
Never listen to critics because they are just stating their opinion that represents their particular consensus on a subject


LITERARY WORK: AESTHETE VS NATURALISM:

I like Wolfe's books as social commentary but I think literature is big enough to encompass books that deals more with ones internal workings rather than external the external world. I know he is pissed off that other literary giants do not like his work but this editorial piece made him sound like an effette drama queen that is too happy to gloat that his work is a blockbuster hit.


SHORT STORY: THE MEDIA, GAYS AND THE MILITARY

Wolfe fictional stories really have the Freudian animalisitic triad of aggression, anger, envy, and sexuality. I like how he makes fun of the media elite as just one big show with production that makes shows to convey a certain bias. The main character in the media sting operation centers around Irv a Jewish guy who has chip on his shoulder because he has always been an outcast and seeks his brand of social justice via uncovering the hidden racism and sexism in the dominant culture. His main issue is envy. He wants the credit for being the producer himself even though he does not have the necessary skill to make it happen. Even though everyone knows that the show would be nothing without him, he wants the whole world to know it. He is angry that Mary Cary gets all the credit for being the anchor just because she majored in drama and is fearless in her pursuit of the story.

The other half of the story centers on the military and gay-bashing. In the 90's, the military had a homophobic atmosphere which is not surprising since the military prizes conformity to a certain order. Gay people even in today's world will not be open in military fighting units if they value the "military culture" over their civil liberties. Although I reject the rangers conclusion that homosexuals are not battle-tested let's face it if you are in fire fight the last thing you will be thinking about is sex, I like how Wolfe shows the other side of the equation. Perhaps Wolfe is suggesting we need these "rednecks" perhaps sadist in order to fight our wars and do the dirty jobs normal American's will not due despite their homophobic sadistic ways. Despite the fact that we need killers in the military, we also need discipline so that if a member is killed by another then they have to be punished so military command structure will be ordered and organized.

I never realized how patriotic Wolfe is. His essay about the end of century fizzle is fantastic. Why didn't Americans celebrate the American century... Also enjoyed the novella about Fort Bragg, but the gem in the book is the long investigative/historical essay about Bob Noyce and the rise of Silicon Valley.

This is a great sampler to cut your teeth on a great American writer. I also enjoyed his Opus Novel, A Man in Full.,

Raccolta, molto diseguale, di saggi di Tom Wolfe e, per quel che mi riguarda, grande delusione per questo autore che altri acclamano.
Lo scopo principale di questo libro è dimostrare che l'autore, Wolf appunto, è l'unico in grado di scrivere dell'America contemporanea, mentre gli altri, giornalisti o romanzieri che siano, non conoscono la realtà di cui parlano e comunque scrivono da intellettuali per intellettuali al solo scopo di sminuire gli USA nei confronti dell'Europa. Sarà pure così, immagino. Peccato che quando Wolfe scrive di USA per US people grondi banalità e luoghi comuni sulla potenza americana con il solo apparente obiettivo di dimostrare che "loro" ce l'hanno più lungo. Quando poi passa a storie più raccontate, come quella di Fort Bragg, sbatte contro se stesso. Si, perchè, se hai appena insultato Mailer, Irving, Updike per dimostrare che loro parlano solo dell'America degli intellettuali per gli intellettuali, non dimostrandosi all'altezza dell'eredità dei grandi romanzieri ottocenteschi, e poi confezioni un raccontino infarcito di stereotipi e personaggi costruiti a tavolino (dimostrando di parlare solo dell'America dei radical chic per haters di radical chic) non è che ci fai una gran figura.
Anche come critico letterario, intendiamoci, non è che mi fiderei di Tom Wolfe a occhi chiusi; non di uno che mette Sherwood Anderson (scrittore che a me piace tanto) davanti a Joyce o Proust. Capisco la necessità di dimostrare che gli USA son meglio dell'Europa ma a casa mia questo atteggiamento si chiama: "pisciare fuori dal vaso", con tanti saluti al politicamente corretto.
Il libro non precipita nel baratro dei libri utili per fermare le porte solo grazie al resoconto dell'esplosione dell'industria dei chip nella Silicon Valley. Racconto che, pur contenendo qualche imprecisione, riesce a essere avvincente e intelligente. Bene ma poco per 350 pagine di libro, funestate da una valanga di autocompiacimento e poco altro.
Frustrante il tentativo di suscitare interesse per una polemicuccia di bottega tra The New Yorker e l'Herald Tribune di nessun interesse per nessuno (a parte, al solito, per l'ego smisurato dell'autore che, incapace di parodiare lo stile del New Yorker concepisce la brillante idea di sfotterlo scrivendo nell'unico modo in cui lui sa scrivere - assai poco piacevole, per altro).
Ugualmente gli concederò una chance con uno dei romanzi.

More of a 3.5 star book, but I round up for Wolfe. There is much to learn from reading this collection (hodgepodge) of essays and brief histories. Don't be fooled by the salacious title. There is a short article that exposes the sorry moral state of "youth" in the year 2000, but most of the book is other. Wolfe tackles lots of topics with vigor: evolution, psychology, politics, ethics, etc. He also throws in some some fiction that lampoons TV journalism.

Read this turn-of-the-century [2000] review. It doesn't matter the year you pick it up. The wit is enough cause to read this author, but his collection of essays and short stories is perfectly strung together to demonstrate the causes and effects of the events of that past; a unique past that, like all pasts, has led us to what we are today.

Spotty at best and dripping in misogyny.