Volume 22, Number 11 · June 26, 1975
Wolfeburg
By Barbara Rose
The Painted Word
by Tom Wolfe
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 121 pp., $5.95
In the spring of 1965, Tom Wolfe, a young writer with a growing reputation for a flamboyant wardrobe and an equally flamboyant prose style, met Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian professor with an idea whose time had come. Normally condescending, Wolfe found much to admire in McLuhan's ideas about audio-visual-tactile synesthesia and in his instant celebrity. Comparing McLuhan with Freud in 'What If He Is Right?' an essay commemorating his momentous Lutèce luncheon with the super-guru of the Sixties, Wolfe characterizes both as great prophets: Freud of sex and McLuhan of TV. If this sounds simplistic, it is fairly typical of Wolfe's thinking about issues, as opposed to his skill as an observer of social manners. For all his talent in capturing the nuances of fashion, decor, and ambiance, Wolfe has consistently had difficulty in dealing with ideas. Consider, for example, this insight into the likeness of Freud and McLuhan:
Review, 3059 words
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