The Right Stuff: Amazon.de: Tom Wolfe: Englische Bücher

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Tom Wolfe began The Right Stuff at a time when it was unfashionable to contemplate American heroism. Nixon had left the White House in disgrace, the nation was reeling from the catastrophe of Vietnam, and in 1979--the year the book appeared--Americans were being held hostage by Iranian militants. Yet it was exactly the anachronistic courage of his subjects that captivated Wolfe. In his foreword, he notes that as late as 1970, almost one in four career Navy pilots died in accidents. "The Right Stuff," he explains, "became a story of why men were willing--willing?--delighted!--to take on such odds in this, an era literary people had long since characterized as the age of the anti-hero."

Wolfe's roots in New Journalism were intertwined with the nonfiction novel that Truman Capote had pioneered with In Cold Blood. As Capote did, Wolfe tells his story from a limited omniscient perspective, dropping into the lives of his "characters" as each in turn becomes a major player in the space program. After an opening chapter on the terror of being a test pilot's wife, the story cuts back to the late 1940s, when Americans were first attempting to break the sound barrier. Test pilots, we discover, are people who live fast lives with dangerous machines, not all of them airborne.

Wolfe traces Alan Shepard's suborbital flight and Gus Grissom's embarrassing panic on the high seas (making the controversial claim that Grissom flooded his Liberty capsule by blowing the escape hatch too soon). The author also produces an admiring portrait of John Glenn's apple-pie heroism and selfless dedication. By the time Wolfe concludes with a return to Yeager and his late-career exploits, the narrative's epic proportions and literary merits are secure. Certainly The Right Stuff is the best, the funniest, and the most vivid book ever written about America's manned space program. --Patrick O'Kelley -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

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Yet soon the focus shifts to the seven initial astronauts. Wolfe traces Alan Shepard's suborbital flight and Gus Grissom's embarrassing panic on the high seas (making the controversial claim that Grissom flooded his Liberty capsule by blowing the escape hatch too soon). The author also produces an admiring portrait of John Glenn's apple-pie heroism and selfless dedication. By the time Wolfe concludes with a return to Yeager and his late-career exploits, the narrative's epic proportions and literary merits are secure. Certainly The Right Stuff is the best, the funniest, and the most vivid book ever written about America's manned space program. --Patrick O'Kelley -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

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A good read, but not without problems 3. Januar 1999

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Format:Taschenbuch

With all the hype over A Man In Full (and, having previously read Bonfire of the Vanities), I decided to read The Right Stuff over the Xmas holiday to check out Tom Wolfe's nonfiction work. I've always had a fascination with the space program, and so was primed to read the story about its origins in the U.S., about which I had known very little.

While I enjoyed the book, however, I was left feeling vaguely unsatisfied. I think the main problem stems from what Wolfe mentions in the Forward: what he set out to write about (the space program) was not exactly what he got interested in (the test-flight program and its unique "fraternity"). As a result there's an odd sense of disinterest in the actual Mercury program--you can almost feel Wolfe's relief in the last chapter when he returns to Chuck Yeager and a particularly harrowing plane flight. In one sense this works to the book's advantage, as it exposes what I think is his main theme: the great gulf between the tightly-controlled, relatively underwhelming Mercury flights (compared to those in the test-flight program), and the extraordinary national response to those flights. However, to explore this theme better I wish Wolfe could have gone into more depth on what was happening politically with the program. I also wish he could have gone further forward in history so we could see how the astronaut evolved from a fighter-jock to the more erudite scientist that we today associate with NASA.

I did enjoy the book, overall, and I think it provides a unique and non-jingoistic (at least less so than, say, the movie Apollo 13 or the miniseries From The Earth To The Moon) look at the early U.S. space program. Just don't expect a completely satisfying experience.

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Who cares if the facts are slightly altered? 1. September 1999

When reading The Right Stuff, the reader must realize that they are reading a novel, non-fiction. Therefore the author may take the liberty of fabricating slightly on the tale. If the reader realizes this it isn't a big deal. Also, I found his descriptions of the feelings of the chimps in the capsule to be quite entertaining. In response to an earlier review, the concentration on Pete Conrad is necessary to the reader in order for them to establish the mindset of the pilots and their wives. Danger wasn't a factor in their lives as shown evident by the Pax River problems. This is a very entertaining book and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in the United States Space Program.

Still the best book on the culture of the space race 22. Juli 1999

Wolfe was the first, and perhaps still the only writers to really put you inside the the head of the first astronauts- indeed, when portions of this book were published in Rolling Stone, a number of astronauts commented that he was the only journalist who really understood what it was all about. This is still the best book to read to try to understand what it was like to be there in the 60s during the space race.