Title: Sadly, Tom Wolfe has outlived his genius.
Product review: The most destructive attribute a creative artist can have is competitivness. Tom Wolfe, like the late Norman Mailer, seems to feel that he not only has to compete with other high profile members of the (New York) literary establishment, but with himself. Each book has to be a bigger "blockbutster" than the one before.But bigger does not necessarly mean better - it can mean bloated.Wolfe (like Mailer) is basically a creative journalist who got too big for his literary britches. In the Right Stuff, Wolfe pushed the envelope to the tearing point. Then he ventured into the realm of fiction, lost his focus, and was out of his depth. Without an anchor of reality, his writing floated into the rarefied air of the implausible, not to say ridiculous. The old Tom Wolfe is a parody of the young Tom Wolfe. His earlier works have earned him immortality; his later works (i.e. novels) are evidence of his mortality.
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