Author | Tom Wolfe |
---|---|
Illustrator | Tom Wolfe |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | New Journalism |
Published | 1976 Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
Pages | 243 |
ISBN | 0-374-20424-1 |
OCLC | 2463579 |
813/.5/2 | |
LC Class | PS3573.O526 M3 |
LCCN 76-43968 |
Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine is a 1976 book by Tom Wolfe, consisting of eleven essays and one short story that Wolfe wrote between 1967 and 1976. [1] It includes the essay in which he coined the term "the 'Me' Decade" to refer to the 1970s. In addition to the stories, Wolfe also illustrated the book. [2] [3]
Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine was Wolfe's third collection of essays and short stories, following The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby in 1965 and The Pump House Gang in 1968. Wolfe's 1970 book Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers contained two lengthy essays and is not generally considered a collection. [2] Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine was published in 1976 by Wolfe's regular publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
The subjects of Wolfe's essays were considered[ who? ] less original than his previous efforts. When Wolfe wrote about the culture of surf gangs in The Pump House Gang or about stock car racing in The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby it was untrod ground. In Mauve Gloves, Wolfe wrote about subjects that had been widely covered before and sought to bring his unique insight to old stories, rather than tell wholly original stories about unexplored subcultures. [3] [4] [5]
The primary theme of Wolfe's essays is the struggle for social status. Wolfe is particularly critical of the intelligentsia and the liberal elite, themes that he had previously explored in Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers . His contempt for distinguished writers (which would later be manifested in a feud with many of his contemporaries, particularly John Updike) was evident in an essay about an established West Side author discussing his cash flow at length. [4] Wolfe continued to denounce what he saw as faux-sympathy for poor people coming from a rich liberal elite. [3]
Wolfe terms the status-driven era he chronicled the "'Me' Decade," and suggests that the wealth of the Post-War era is responsible for the self-absorption of the 1970s. Wolfe declared that people had given up on "man's age-old belief in serial immortality," the notion that people lived on through ancestral tradition and self-sacrifice, and instead focused only on themselves. [5]
The longest essay, however, is "The Truest Sport: Jousting with Sam and Charlie," about life aboard an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1967. Wolfe writes about the personnel of the aircraft in heroic terms. According to The New York Review of Books , another common theme throughout all the books is the effect the Vietnam War had on American society. [3] [6]
The lone short story in the book, "The Commercial" is an essay of a black baseball player who is given an advertising deal. Initially, the athlete believes the commercial will help establish him as more than a black athlete, but instead the advertisers want him to mispronounce words, thus dehumanizing him despite his success. [3]
Often referred to as New Journalism, Wolfe's characteristic writing style, characterized by florid prose and obsessive attention to detail, are on display throughout the book. [4]
Wolfe compared himself to British author Evelyn Waugh, who was known for his dark comedy. The New York Times however, suggested that Wolfe's latest effort most closely resembled the French author Louis-Ferdinand Céline, who in the early 20th century, wrote in a highly colloquial style, and delved deeply into the anxieties of his characters. Because Wolfe's subjects in Mauve Gloves were not people on the fringes of society, the New York Times critic argued that Wolfe had begun to rely more heavily on "writing qua writing," and less on the inherent zaniness of his subjects. [4]
In one of the book's most famous passages in the essay "The 'Me' Decade and the Third Great Awakening", exemplifying his style of description, Wolfe called Jimmy Carter a "Missionary lectern-pounding Amen ten-finger C-major-chord Sister-Martha-at-the-Yamaha-keyboard loblolly piney-woods Baptist." [1] : 134 [3]
The 12 pieces in the book are divided into four sections as follows:
Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. was an American author and journalist widely known for his association with New Journalism, a style of news writing and journalism developed in the 1960s and 1970s that incorporated literary techniques.
In Cold Blood is a non-fiction novel by American author Truman Capote, first published in 1966. It details the 1959 murders of four members of the Clutter family in the small farming community of Holcomb, Kansas.
The Bonfire of the Vanities is a 1987 novel by Tom Wolfe. The story is a drama about ambition, racism, social class, politics, and greed in 1980s New York City, and centers on three main characters: WASP bond trader Sherman McCoy, Jewish assistant district attorney Larry Kramer, and British expatriate journalist Peter Fallow.
New Journalism is a style of news writing and journalism, developed in the 1960s and 1970s, that uses literary techniques unconventional at the time. It is characterized by a subjective perspective, a literary style reminiscent of long-form non-fiction. Using extensive imagery, reporters interpolate subjective language within facts whilst immersing themselves in the stories as they reported and wrote them. In traditional journalism, however, the journalist is "invisible"; facts are reported objectively.
The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby is the title of Tom Wolfe's first collected book of essays, published in 1965. The book is named for one of the stories in the collection that was originally published in Esquire magazine in 1963 under the title "There Goes That Kandy-Kolored (Thphhhhhh!) Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (Rahghhh!) Around the Bend (Brummmmmmmmmmmmmmm)…" Wolfe's essay for Esquire and this, his first book, are frequently hailed as early examples of New Journalism.
Mau Mau may refer to:
Radical chic is the fashionable practice of upper-class people associating with politically radical people and causes. Coined in the 1970 article "Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's" by journalist Tom Wolfe, the term has become widely used in languages such as American English, French, and Italian. Unlike dedicated activists, revolutionaries, or dissenters, those who engage in "radical chic" remain frivolous political agitators—ideologically invested in their cause of choice only so far as it advances their social standing.
Jane Holzer, is an American art collector and film producer who was previously an actress, model, and Warhol superstar. She was often known by the nickname Baby Jane Holzer. She was also known as a 1960s fashion icon.
The Last American Hero is a 1973 American sports drama film based on the true story of NASCAR driver Junior Johnson. Directed by Lamont Johnson, the film stars Jeff Bridges as Junior Jackson, a character based on Johnson. It is based on Tom Wolfe's essay "The Last American Hero Is Junior Johnson. Yes!", which was first published in Esquire magazine in March 1965 and included in his debut collection of essays, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, later that year. The film's theme song, "I Got a Name", sung by Jim Croce, was released in September 1973 as a single, peaking at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 4 on its Easy Listening chart.
The Pump House Gang is a 1968 collection of essays and journalism by Tom Wolfe. The stories in the book explored various aspects of the counterculture of the 1960s. The most famous story in the collection, from which the book takes its name, is about Jack Macpherson and his gang of surfers that frequented a sewage pump house at Windansea Beach in La Jolla, California.
Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers is a 1970 book by Tom Wolfe. The book, Wolfe's fourth, is composed of two essays: "These Radical Chic Evenings", first published in June 1970 in New York magazine, about a gathering Leonard Bernstein held for the Black Panther Party, and "Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers", about the response of many minorities to San Francisco's poverty programs. Both essays looked at the conflict between black rage and white guilt.
"Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast" is an essay by Tom Wolfe that appeared in the November 1989 issue of Harper's Magazine criticizing the American literary establishment for retreating from realism.
The Painted Word is a 1975 book of art criticism by Tom Wolfe.
From Bauhaus to Our House is a 1981 narrative of Modern architecture, written by Tom Wolfe.
Back to Blood is Tom Wolfe's fourth and final novel, published in 2012 by Little, Brown. The novel, set in Miami, Florida, focuses on the subject of Cuban immigrants there.
The Right Stuff is a 1979 book by Tom Wolfe about the pilots engaged in U.S. postwar research with experimental rocket-powered, high-speed aircraft as well as documenting the stories of the first Project Mercury astronauts selected for the NASA space program. The Right Stuff is based on extensive research by Wolfe, who interviewed test pilots, the astronauts and their wives, among others. The story contrasts the Mercury Seven and their families with other test pilots such as Chuck Yeager, who was considered by many contemporaries as the best of them all, but who was never selected as an astronaut.
"Pornoviolence" is an essay by American author Tom Wolfe. It first appeared under a longer title in the July 1967 issue of Esquire magazine, and was later published in the collection Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine. The essay introduced the term "pornoviolence" in reference to graphic written or audiovisual depictions of violence, which Wolfe argued were used in newspapers, magazines, and film to stimulate prurient audience interest.
James Carlos Blake is an American writer of novels, novellas, short stories, and essays. His work has received extensive critical favor and several notable awards. He has been called “one of the greatest chroniclers of the mythical American outlaw life” as well as “one of the most original writers in America today and … certainly one of the bravest.” He is a recipient of the University of South Florida's Distinguished Humanities Alumnus Award and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters.
Byron Dobell was an American editor and artist. He is considered "one of the most respected and accomplished editors in New York magazine publishing history," the editor of several popular American magazines, including American Heritage and Esquire. He is credited with helping the early careers of many writers such as Tom Wolfe, David Halberstam and Mario Puzo. In 1998, Dobell was inducted into the American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame.
"The 'Me' Decade and the Third Great Awakening" is an essay by American author Tom Wolfe, in which Wolfe coined the phrase "'Me' Decade", a term that became common as a descriptor for the decade of the 1970s. The essay was first published as the cover story in the August 23, 1976 issue of New York magazine and later appeared in his collection Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine.