University of Virginia Library

Even If He's Not Right, He's A Lot Of Fun

Tom Wolfe's Electropop Word Games

By Charles K. Ribakoff

I like Tom Wolfe. His zany, inventive
ElectroPop word games and extremely humorous
but always perceptive social observations provide
vital reading on whatever level one choses to read
him. He can be equally appreciated as an amusing
enfant terrible, or a vital social critic whose writing
provide a welcome contrast to the usual dull doom
and gloom social writings we are normally subjected
to.

The Pump House Gang, one of his two recent
books, is a remarkable collection of 16 essays that
cover nearly every phase of contemporary society.
Wolfe writes about many totally separate things:
the straggling remnants of New York High Society,
Playboy emperor and recluse Hugh Hefner, a
London debutante trying hard to be picked up, the
topless San Francisco show girls who inflate their
breasts to 45-inch-plus enormity to the California
surfing and hot rod scene. Yet there is a cohesive
unity to the book, caused partly by Wolfe's nearly
unique style and the fact that there is a certain
unity of the bizarre which is always interesting.
Each essay is a near stream of conscious collage of
observations, opinions, random background noises,
and occasional facts that are at the same time
stimulating, readable, and enjoyable.

One of the things most appealing about Wolfe is
that he is able to break all the rules, and get away
with it. In an age where most young writers put
great emphasis on the Motown vernacular of
"tellin' it like it is," Wolfe makes no attempt
towards objectivity. He tells everything as he sees
it, in a way that only he has mastered.

Wolfe's style consists mostly of montaging
words together, sometimes getting 20 letter behemoths
that defy translation, but get their meaning
across through sound. He juxtaposes very complex
words with simple ones, with comic effect. He
makes up words, and uses their context and sound
to convey their meaning. (Getting "zonked out of
one's gourds" has to be the greatest expression
for getting drunk. Describing the word
'whore' as "an ancient proctolological word" is
also somewhat amusing. He molds these various
concoctions, liberally interspersed with italics,
flashbacks, and exclamation points into sentences
that are sometimes two words long, and sometimes
run for eight or nine lines. It is not so much a type
of writing as it is an attempt to create a total
environmental landscape for the reader to dwell in.
Wolfe believes that one must experience a situation
in order to understand it. This is one of the
major points of his writing.

And perhaps Wolfe's outstanding single characteristic
as a writer is his ability to adjust to all sorts
of situations. He is equally at home having lunch
with Marshall/McLuhan at Lutece, perhaps the most
fashionable restaurant in New York, as he is at an
illegal floating gambling club in London, or having
a hamburger in Los Angeles with Don Garlits, the
king of drag racing. He can, as a result, write about
these many phases of society without looking
down on, or being awed by any. In this respect,
The Pump House Gang is a marked improvement
over Wolfe's first collection of short essays, published
in 1963, The Kandy Kolored Tangerine
Flake Streamline Baby, (the title of a story about
a California teenager's hot rod). In the Kandy et
cetera, Wolfe too often tended towards repetition
and, occasionally, dullness. At some points, all the
stories seemed alike. Wolfe has been able to avoid
this in this book.

According to the blurb on the book jacket,
Wolfe is most of all concerned with status in
American life. But he is concerned with more than
that. He writes largely about the increasing stratification
of society into a series of mutually exclusive
sub societies, with age limiting one's mobility.
He is intrigued by the apartments in California
that are open to single men and women between
the ages of 20 and 30, located only a few miles
from retirement villages where only those over 50,
without children, may buy a house. When discussing
these and other matters, Wolfe is asking very
funny questions in a very funny way. Unlike many
other self-styled social critics, Wolfe does not
attempt to preach about scandal in the social
strata. He is simply creating an environment for
thought, and letting the reader conclude what he
will or, if he prefers, simply bag it and enjoy
himself.

For those reasons, perhaps the most relevant
essay in the book is Wolfe's discussion of the
cryptic world of Marshall McLuhan, whose philosophy
seems to justify what Wolfe is doing to the
English language. As he points out, everyone
knows something about McLuhan, but no one
understands anything about him.

McLuhan, whose theory of mass communication
("an electric light is pure information; the medium
is the message") has indirectly resulted in such
things as the psychedelic (what a tired old burble
that word has become) light show, various new
toothpaste cartoons and other containers, and
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, is neither widely
understood, nor really believed. (The immortal
Henry Gibson may make a career out of his
constant Monday night Laugh-In line, "Marshall
McLuhan, What're you doin'?"). Wolfe equates
McLuhan to another revolutionary thinker who was
never understood at first, Sigmund Freud. Wolfe's
explaining of McLuhan's theories of total environment
indirectly explain the methods that Wolfe
uses throughout his writings. Tom Wolfe, like
McLuhan, is a multi level experience. It may not be
hyper logical but, as Wolfe says of McLuan, "What
if he is right?"

The same can be said of Wolfe. While his
observations may offend some puritan sensibilities,
and lampoon fond old conservative recollections
(or misconceptions) the underlying thought always
remains, But What If He Is Right?

And even if he's not right, he's a lot of fun.