The Rest in Peace Thread (RIP)

[Lisnaholic]

Originally Posted by Frownland

Tom Wolfe, Innovative Nonfiction Writer and Novelist, Dies

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

The Painted Word, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and The Right Stuff are three unassailable books. I’m surprised I haven’t read more of his stuff considering how good all three of those are.

^ I've just learned about this sad news: Tom Wolfe was a fabulous writer and journalist, with the NYT describing his style as "shotgun baroque" - a phrase worthy of Wolfe himself, who used words in a way that no-one had before. And under the glittering style, he had a bunch of well-researched stories to tell too, so if you've never read anything by TW, I recommend you change that asap.

OccultHawk mentions three of his best books:-
"The Painted Word" is a good place to start if you have any interest in modern art: it's short and does a great job of ripping away the pretensiousness that goes along with so many art movements today.
"The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" will give you a long, detailed, insider's view of The Merry Pranksters and how LSD use spread out from California to change a generation.
"The Right Stuff" does something similar for the history of manned space flight.

If any of those topics sound dull to you, they are definitely not in Tom Wolfe's hands. Those three books are classic examples of "New Journalism" - a phrase that TW invented when he compiled a collection of articles by George Plimpton, Hunter S Thompson and others.

His novels are rather flawed, imo, but "The Bonfire of Vanities" is a pretty good read.

Big time RIP moment in the Lisna house.