Michael Lewis on Tom Wolfe in Vanity Fair, or, "What??? Who's that??? It's the Writing Wizard in the White Suit-It's Tom Wolfe!!!"

Tom Wolfe in his study, 2015. He looks pretty sharp for 85.

Tom Wolfe, photo by Annie Leibovitz, 1980.

Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball, The Big Short, and other books.

Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball, The Blind Side, and The Big Short, among other books, has a very nice profile of Tom Wolfe in the November 2015 issue of Vanity Fair. Lewis wrote that at the age of 11 or 12, while he was reading Wolfe’s 1970 book Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, “At some point came a thought that struck with the force of revelation: this book had been written by someone.” It was indeed written by someone, a man who earned a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University, who had a tryout as a pitcher with the New York Giants in 1952, a man who started wearing a white suit all year round instead of just in the summer, who began his career in daily journalism but expanded the subject matter of long-form journalism, a man who abandoned journalism in favor of the novel, a man whose first novel sold more than 3 million copies, who coined the terms “radical chic,” “the Me Decade,” “masters of the universe,” and “the right stuff.” 

In his essay, Lewis chronicles Wolfe’s life through a visit to his papers at the New York Public Library, which recently became available for study. Lewis’ judicious selection of artifacts gives us a portrait of the more private Wolfe, like a letter written to his parents when he was 12 years old, which shows that he already had a distinctive writing voice and a keen eye for detail. 

One of the luckiest things that happened to Tom Wolfe was the New York City newspaper strike, which started on December 8, 1962, and lasted until March 31, 1963. Wolfe was then employed by The New York Herald Tribune, and he found himself out of work, without a plan for his future. Wolfe was hired by Esquire magazine to write an article about custom cars in California. Encountering a severe case of writer’s block, Wolfe was told by his editor to just write up his notes and he would help Wolfe assemble them into some kind of order. The letter that Wolfe wrote assembling his notes became the article, “The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,” the first of the long articles that made Wolfe famous. 

Lewis understands the duality of Tom Wolfe, that he is both an insider and an outsider at the same time. Lewis writes, “He moves back and forth like a bridge player, ruffing the city and the country against each other. He occupies a place in between. He dresses exotically and is talented and intellectually powerful, like the sophisticates in the bubble. But he isn’t really one of them. To an extent that shocks the people inside the bubble, when they learn of it, he shares the values of the hinterland. He believes in God, Country, and even, up to a point, Republican Presidents.” This echoes the point I made in my review of Wolfe’s book about architecture, From Bauhaus to Our House, that despite Wolfe’s hip, cool writing style, he’s actually a square. Because Wolfe did not indulge himself in the excesses customary to famous authors, he was able to capture the spirit of the times without letting that spirit consume him. 

In his essay, Lewis wonders exactly how Wolfe was able to do what he did. He writes, “Why do all these people keep letting this oddly dressed man into their lives, to observe them as they have never before been observed?” Sometimes they let him in by accident, which is what happened when Wolfe attended the fundraiser that Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia held for members of the Black Panthers, which became the subject of the essay “Radical Chic.” Wolfe revealed to Lewis that he was never actually invited to the party. When Wolfe was visiting the offices of Harper’s magazine, he was wandering around and stepped into journalist David Halberstam’s office. Halberstam wasn’t in, and the invitation to the party was on his desk. Wolfe knew that it was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up, and RSVP’d to the party. 

In January, the novelist Thomas Mallon wrote an essay in The New York Times in which he argued that Tom Wolfe is overdue for a biography. I strongly agree, and hopefully Lewis’ excellent essay will encourage other writers to explore Wolfe’s work and legacy.

The Decline and Fall of Gore Vidal

Christopher Hitchens had a good little article in the February issue of Vanity Fair, "Vidal Loco," about how the quality of Gore Vidal's writing and public statements has fallen off since 9/11. It's an interesting article, and I have to agree with Hitchens. I have been a fan of Vidal's writing since high school, so it pains me to admit this. I think Vidal's best essays are nothing short of brilliant, and his best novels are witty and sharp. He is, as Hitchens says, the 20th century's Oscar Wilde.

I would actually say that Vidal starting losing the plot slightly before 9/11, when he starting corresponding with Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber. McVeigh wrote to Vidal from jail, sensing that he had found someone who shared some of his anti-government views. Now, most people would have said, "I don't want to have anything to do with this nutjob." But not Vidal. For whatever reason, his ego was stroked, and he wrote back, starting a correspondence between the two men. Vidal has never condemned McVeigh's actions. There's a difference between being a patriot and being a terrorist, but Vidal chose not to see it.

In a crotchety interview with Johann Hari of the London Independent, Vidal rants and raves about many things, but one thing he pointedly does not do is place any judgement on McVeigh's murderous actions. Vidal says that McVeigh was "too sane for his place and time." He goes on to call McVeigh "a noble boy." Hari tries to prod Vidal, asking if McVeigh showed a callous disregard for human life. Vidal's response, "So did Patton! So did Eisenhower! Everybody's rather careless about it once you start getting involved in wars." But McVeigh's act was committed in peacetime, against his fellow American citizens. Even if it were committed in wartime, it would be a war crime. Hari then asks Vidal if there were more people like McVeigh, would that be a good thing? "It strikes me as a perfect nightmare. Of course I don't want more people like McVeigh." Hari then writes: "I don't understand. I try again and again to tug him back and get him to say whether this means he thinks McVeigh was wrong to plant the bomb. He won't. Finally, he jeers: 'You are trying my patience.'" How sad that this great thinker is unable to see a monstrous act for what it truly was.

Vidal has an inability to say anything nice about anyone else, which has grown worse in the last few years. His ego has consumed him. In talking about his fellow writers, he used to be quite funny. In the past, Vidal would have had a sharp comeback or a witty bon mot, but now he is simply bitter and angry. When asked about John Updike, whom Vidal never cared for, he says contemptuously, "Updike was nothing." Really, Gore? Or are you just jealous of his 2 Pulitzer Prizes? Vidal's worst instincts have unfortunately taken over, and he seems to be content to simply be a parody of himself as an angry old man. He couldn't even find much of anything nice to say about his friend and rival Norman Mailer. "Mailer was a flawed publicist, but at least there were signs every now and then of a working brain." That's about as close to a compliment as Vidal gets these days. As Hitchens writes, "One sadly notices...the utter want of any grace or generosity, as well as the absence of any wit or profundity." Well said.

In Vidal's interview with the Independent, Vidal says that China will surpass the US as the world's great power, and then China will "have us running the coolie cars, or whatever it is they have in the way of transport." This is a familiar sentiment coming from Gore. Whereas now it's the Chinese who are out to own us, back in the 80's and 90's, it was the Japanese who we would soon be serving, he said. I remember reading those essays in the late 90's, after Japan's economy had collapsed, and thinking, "Well, that didn't quite happen Gore."

Vidal seems to have simply run out of gas. He hasn't published a novel since 2000's "The Golden Age," and his essays just re-tread the same old subjects. His 2006 memoir, "Point to Point Navigation," reads as just a re-tread of his 1995 memoir, "Palimpsest," which was a truly great book. It's difficult to criticize someone who has had an immensely prolific and varied career for slumping after the age of 75, but it is a sad way for Gore to exit. Nothing seems to interest him any more, and he has run out of things to hate. I suppose after 24 novels, more than 200 essays, 6 plays, and 46 books overall, it's expected that Vidal's energy would eventually run out. But no matter what he does in his old age, the post-2001 Vidal will not be the one I remember. I'll remember the Vidal who rubbed shoulders with the Kennedys, who was a great friend of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward's, who made the Roman empire come alive in "Julian," who created a bizarre and funny world of his own in "Duluth," who wrote with skill about a disgraced Founding Father in "Burr," and who made me laugh and question the world in his essays.

Nick Lowe in Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair somehow tore themselves away from their usual subject matter of Princess Diana, the Kennedys, and Marilyn Monroe long enough to interview Nick Lowe. I don't know if this article is actually in the magazine or not, I read it online, but it's quite good. (Despite the writer's rather insulting question, "Did you always look the age you are now?") There's also an interesting anecdote about Huey Lewis at the end.

Here's the link:

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/culture/2009/03/20/nick-lowe-on-songwriting.html