Monday, November 01, 2004
The Remarkable Tom Wolfe
There's an interesting article in the Guardian Unlimited about the writer Tom Wolfe. He has a new book coming out after the election, called "I am Charlotte Simmons".
What is memorable to me are the high intensity discussions of politics at dinners here in the Northwest and how unremarkable are those dinners where all agree. I will never forget the outrage I felt and the arguments that came, when at one dinner, one of the guests said, "Clinton will go down in history as one of our greatest presidents!" My dinner almost came up with the red in my face!
Tom Wolfe says
The novel - researched, as usual, down to the last expletive - concerns a young world speaking "fuck patois", loaded with creatine and cocaine, numbed by PlayStation 3, and charged by alcohol, the "vile spleen" of rap and, above all, ubiquitous sex between the heirs and heiresses to privilege in America.In the article he talks about being at dinner parties of the Eastern Intelligentsia, where to like Bush is to be alone. He has never witnessed any president so reviled by this group. And yet, he believes that if he were to sit down to dinner with a group of people in one of the "red states" in this country that the unanimity of opinion would be the same For Bush as Against him in the East.
What is memorable to me are the high intensity discussions of politics at dinners here in the Northwest and how unremarkable are those dinners where all agree. I will never forget the outrage I felt and the arguments that came, when at one dinner, one of the guests said, "Clinton will go down in history as one of our greatest presidents!" My dinner almost came up with the red in my face!
Tom Wolfe says
"I do think," he admits, apparently speaking for himself, his country and his president, "that if you are not having a fight with somebody, then you are not sure whether you are alive when you wake up in the morning."Mover Mike
