The man in white

I was skimming through YouTube the other day when I spotted a video of William F. Buckley interviewing the late writer, Tom Wolfe. The interview, from 1981, was about Wolfe’s book on modern architecture, From Bauhaus to Our House. It’s a delightful fifty-six minutes. Wolfe is articulate, amusing and highly engaging. He’s not dressed in his trademark all-white three-piece suit, which is a tad disappointing, but, well, you can’t have everything. Besides, there are at least four other Buckley interviews with Wolfe discussing his other books and one, from 1999, about Wolfe’s critics, where you can see him in full bespoke regalia.

The man himself, at home

Tom Wolfe changed American journalism, and, I would say, American writing. His influence was, and is, strong. I don’t think, for example, we would have had David Foster Wallace—or at least the David Foster Wallace as we know him through his arch, footnote-heavy writing—without Tom Wolfe.

Starting with The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby in 1963, Tom Wolfe continued with a stream of sharp, hugely entertaining, original books. He produced over fifteen of them. They include The Right Stuff, about the first astronauts and their model for bravery and stoicism, Chuck Yeager, and the novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities. He took on the emperor and his clothes, piercing the self-important veneer of architecture and painting, for example, with the cool expertise of a man wielding a Japanese knife of burnished steel.

Take The Painted Word, his 1979 book about modern art. He writes, at the beginning, “All these years, I, like so many others, had stood in front of a thousand, two thousand, God-knows-how-many thousand Pollocks, de Koonings, Newmans, Nolands, Rothkos, Rauchenbergs…now squinting, now popping the eye sockets open, now drawing back, now drawing closer, waiting, waiting, forever waiting for…it…for it to come into focus, namely the visual reward (for so much effort), which must be there…”

It’s refreshing to read his books. His style is like nobody else’s. He hardly ever disappoints. He always leaves you with some reward.

On top of that, as I mentioned, he was a dandy, or at least dressed like one. The Oscar Wilde of his time. Some people mocked his dress. “What’s with all this white he insists on wearing? Can’t he dress like a normal person?” I would say many people were simply jealous of his unapologetic individualism, his I'll-dress-the-way-I-want. He was a stylish writer. God forbid. He wasn’t disheveled, frumpy, slouchy, like we expect our writers to be.

He was no joke, though. He was the real thing. He added panache, daring and intelligent provocation to our society with his books and articles.

Watching the Buckley interview made me realize how much I miss his presence. Who do we have today who has replaced him? Who you can say is sui generis, authentic, as daring, penetrating, as fine a writer? Who isn’t afraid to take on any subject with as much wit and intelligence? Anyone? Please tell me that I may seek them out.

God knows, we could use that.