University of Virginia Library

Wonderment

Wrong... Tom Wolfe lives and
writes for what must be termed
wonderment, his instinct for a good
story, his art which allows, no,
forces us to laugh briefly and
completely at that great
unlaughable (yes, unutterable)
reality.

Wolfe's inducement of laughter
at liberal foibles or radical dogma
or even abject misery could never
have passed without offending its
subjects and their partisan
sympathizers. Of them, the
super-serious will find nothing of
value and must go on condemning
the writer for his refusal to take up
a banner, no matter how just the
cause.

* * * * * *

"Who is this Wolfe, anyway?"
they demand.

"Some racist dog from
Richmond," comes the answer, in
itself knowledgeable for its
awareness that this Wolfe had
nothing to do with Look
Homeward Angel, but ignorant for
its failure to grasp the facts: that
this Wolfe neither writes of angels,
nor, often, looks homeward. As
such he is not likely to be actively
political, Partisan? Good God! He
could be dangerous.

"Virginia?"

To digress, Wolfe is, in fact,
from Richmond, Virginia. At St.
Christopher's he edited the school
paper in the late forties, and at
Washington and Lee his chief
ambition was to become a
professional baseball player.

That ended soon and a
doctorate from Yale in American
Studies took its place. Newspaper
reporting, pieces published in
Esquire and The Kandy-Kolored
Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby
(1965), followed by the Acid Test
and The Pump House Gang (1968)
led, among other places, to a speech
at the old school in Richmond two
years ago.

He talked about Junior Johnson.
Racing Car Johnson from North
Carolina, about whom major parts
of K-K T-F Streamline Baby were
written. After the speech we
learned (who but Wolfe could be so
positive?) that Ken Kesey was then,
maybe at that moment, exploring
the pyramids for Nasser.

"Egypt?!" . . . "Ken Kesey??!!"