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The Right Stuff
Tom Wolfe at his very best" (The New York Times Book Review), The Right Stuff is the basis for the 1983 Oscar Award-winning film of the same name and the 8-part Disney+ TV mini-series.From "America's nerviest journalist" (Newsweek)--a breath-taking epic, a magnificent adventure story, and an investigation into the true heroism and courage of the first Americans to conquer space. "Millions of words have poured forth about man's trip to the moon, but until now few people have had a sense of the most engrossing side of the adventure; namely, what went on in the minds of the astronauts themselves - in space, on the moon, and even during certain odysseys on earth. It is this, the inner life of the astronauts, that Tom Wolfe describes with his almost uncanny empathetic powers, that made The Right Stuff a classic.
369 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1979
About the author
Tom Wolfe
168 books2,800 followersWolfe was educated at Washington and Lee Universities and also at Yale, where he received a PhD in American studies.
Tom Wolfe spent his early days as a Washington Post beat reporter, where his free-association, onomatopoetic style would later become the trademark of New Journalism. In books such as The Electric Koolaid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and The Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe delves into the inner workings of the mind, writing about the unconscious decisions people make in their lives. His attention to eccentricities of human behavior and language and to questions of social status are considered unparalleled in the American literary canon.
He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Tom Wolfe is also famous for coining and defining the term fiction-absolute .
http://us.macmillan.com/author/tomwolfe
Tom Wolfe spent his early days as a Washington Post beat reporter, where his free-association, onomatopoetic style would later become the trademark of New Journalism. In books such as The Electric Koolaid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and The Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe delves into the inner workings of the mind, writing about the unconscious decisions people make in their lives. His attention to eccentricities of human behavior and language and to questions of social status are considered unparalleled in the American literary canon.
He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Tom Wolfe is also famous for coining and defining the term fiction-absolute .
http://us.macmillan.com/author/tomwolfe
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,119 reviews
November 14, 2021
“This quality, this it, was never named…nor was it talked about in any way. As to just what this ineffable quality was…well, it obviously involved bravery. But it was not bravery in the simple sense of being willing to risk your life. The idea seemed to be that any fool could do that, if that was all that was required, just as any fool could throw away his life in the process. No, the idea here (in the all-enclosing fraternity) seemed to be that a man should have the ability to go up in a hurtling piece of machinery and put his hide on the line and then have the moxie, the reflexes, the experience, the coolness, to pull it back in the last yawning moment – and then go up again the next day, and the next day, and every next day, even if the series should prove infinite…Nor was there a test to show whether or not a pilot had this righteous quality. There was, instead, a seemingly infinite series of tests. A career in flying was like climbing one of those ancient Babylonian pyramids made up of a dizzy progression of steps and ledges, a ziggurat, a pyramid extraordinarily high and steep; and the idea was to prove at every foot of the way up that pyramid that you were one of the elected and anointed ones who had the right stuff and could move higher and higher and even – God willing, one day – that you might be able to join the special few at the very top, that elite who had the capacity to bring tears to men’s eyes, the very Brotherhood of the Right Stuff itself…”
- Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff
Having read a fair amount of books, I’m willing to admit that I don’t remember every one with perfect clarity. Often, even books I recall loving at the time retain only a distant glow.
Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff is different. This in one I’ll remember. It’s not my favorite book, not even close.
But boy oh boy is it unforgettable!
***
The Right Stuff tells the story of America’s first astronauts, the so-called Mercury Seven. Selected by NASA in 1959, Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton became national heroes, the fighter-jet-flying, crewcut-wearing, square-jawed pioneers of the last frontier. Their job was not simply to soar into space, but to sell the country on the idea of soaring into space.
It is easy to imagine this material making for a pretty conventional book in ordinary hands, a standard account of heroic explorers shooting for the stars.
Of course, Tom Wolfe’s hands are not ordinary.
***
The Right Stuff is more than a book, it is an experience. Wolfe straps you onto a literary Atlas missile, and launches you into a giddily dizzying universe filled with all his authorial trademarks: onomatopoeia, liberally-deployed exclamation marks, repeated phrases, the consistent use of italics for emphasis, and an uncanny knack for an indelible description.
There are so many things to say that it’s hard to know where to start. In the simplest terms, The Right Stuff is a masterpiece. It’s the rare title that not only lives up to the hype that surrounds it, but exceeds it.
***
Let’s start with the writing. Prose – like beauty – is a wholly subjective thing, and good prose means different things to different people. The same line from the same book can strike two separate people in profoundly divergent ways. Having said that, The Right Stuff contains some of the most exhilarating prose that I’ve read. It is propulsive and absorbing, a highwire act that leaves you in awe. There are strikingly few shortcuts or fallbacks to cliches. Each sentence has been carefully constructed by a master craftsman. Every ellipse, every comma, every dash, every emphasized word, all of it has been placed with precision and care to evoke a mood, a sensation, a response. There is something symphonic in The Right Stuff, with Wolfe as much a conductor as a writer.
Beyond that, Wolfe knows instinctively how to build a scene, how to narrate action, and how to imprint images in your mind that are hard to shake. There is, for instance, the death of a fighter pilot forced to eject from his plane:
This is the kind of passage you remember, long after you’ve closed the back cover.
***
The Right Stuff is filled with a lot of iconic names, many of them larger-than-life. Humanizing these legends – such as Chuck Yeager, who gets an entire chapter – is a tall order. Wolfe is more than up to the task. His eye for portraiture is sharp and – on occasion – unsparing. Wolfe is willing to peer behind the NASA-constructed façade – the perfect pilots and their perfectly dutiful wives and children – to describe their penchant for “Flying & Drinking and Drinking & Driving,” their womanizing, their warring egos, and their operational mistakes.
***
Though the stakes are life and death and immortality, The Right Stuff is also raucously funny. I especially enjoyed Wolfe’s hilarious – if a bit unfair – caricature of Vice President Lyndon Johnson. In a recurring bit, Wolfe describes LBJ’s attempts at photo ops with John Glenn and his family, with Johnson “straining to get at John and pour Texas all over him.” Another uproarious sequence is set during an astronaut meet-and-greet with Houston high-society, described with the utter disdain of a man who does not appreciate barbeque: “It was two o’clock in the afternoon on the Fourth of July, and the cows burned on, and the whiskey roared goddamned glad to see you and the Venus de Houston shook her fanny in an utterly baffling blessing over it all.”
***
I don’t want to give the impression that the storyteller overwhelms the story. Wolfe’s talent is evident in every polished sentence, yet all his tools are being used in service of the material he is presenting. He’s not showing off. Well, he’s probably showing off a little. But there is a method and meaning to everything he does. I didn’t so much learn about Project Mercury as I felt it in all its intensity.
Despite its strident refusal to be a standard history, there is certainly a chronology at play. Beginning with Yeager breaking the sound barrier, Wolfe moves along the timeline, faithfully recounting the famed suborbital flight of Alan Shepard, the botched capsule egress of Gus Grissom, and John Glenn’s orbital journey. Still, The Right Stuff is less an intellectual exercise than a book that is designed to appeal to – and sometimes assault – your senses. In other words, if you’re looking for a rigorous analysis of the space program or technological explanations of the equipment that allowed the Mercury Seven to leave earth, this isn’t the place to start.
***
The Right Stuff is a manly book about manly men, an unapologetic ode to the “single combat warriors” that made America’s first forays into space. There are times the mythmaking is so intense it almost feels tongue-in-cheek. Nevertheless, it is clear that Wolfe is enamored of his subjects, and desperate to understand what allows them to function at such high levels right at the edge of the envelope, where a single muscle twitch can mean death. Explorations of masculinity might feel out of step with the times, but Wolfe's fervent, unapologetic embrace of his themes somehow – by dint of its own manic energy – achieves timelessness.
***
This is the work of an artist at his peak. In The Right Stuff, Wolfe demonstrates just how far that great writing can take you, and just how fulfilling the act of reading can be.
One of the more memorable settings Wolfe describes is a bar called Pancho’s Fly Inn, a “gloriously Low Rent” establishment heavily patronized by aviators, which had on its walls “the autographed pictures of a hundred dead pilots.” As I tore through this, I kept returning to the image of that bar, filled with smart, confident, fearless young men imbued with the sense that life was not being lived unless it was lived at the precipice, who needed to peer into the abyss, the kind of men who only gambled for the highest stakes. I imagine that if I could go back in time, belly up to the bar for a bourbon and a beer-back, and spend some time listening to the chatter around me – fueled by liquor and narrated energetically and goosed with hyperbolic flourishes – the stories I heard there would sound a lot like The Right Stuff.
- Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff
Having read a fair amount of books, I’m willing to admit that I don’t remember every one with perfect clarity. Often, even books I recall loving at the time retain only a distant glow.
Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff is different. This in one I’ll remember. It’s not my favorite book, not even close.
But boy oh boy is it unforgettable!
***
The Right Stuff tells the story of America’s first astronauts, the so-called Mercury Seven. Selected by NASA in 1959, Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton became national heroes, the fighter-jet-flying, crewcut-wearing, square-jawed pioneers of the last frontier. Their job was not simply to soar into space, but to sell the country on the idea of soaring into space.
It is easy to imagine this material making for a pretty conventional book in ordinary hands, a standard account of heroic explorers shooting for the stars.
Of course, Tom Wolfe’s hands are not ordinary.
***
The Right Stuff is more than a book, it is an experience. Wolfe straps you onto a literary Atlas missile, and launches you into a giddily dizzying universe filled with all his authorial trademarks: onomatopoeia, liberally-deployed exclamation marks, repeated phrases, the consistent use of italics for emphasis, and an uncanny knack for an indelible description.
There are so many things to say that it’s hard to know where to start. In the simplest terms, The Right Stuff is a masterpiece. It’s the rare title that not only lives up to the hype that surrounds it, but exceeds it.
***
Let’s start with the writing. Prose – like beauty – is a wholly subjective thing, and good prose means different things to different people. The same line from the same book can strike two separate people in profoundly divergent ways. Having said that, The Right Stuff contains some of the most exhilarating prose that I’ve read. It is propulsive and absorbing, a highwire act that leaves you in awe. There are strikingly few shortcuts or fallbacks to cliches. Each sentence has been carefully constructed by a master craftsman. Every ellipse, every comma, every dash, every emphasized word, all of it has been placed with precision and care to evoke a mood, a sensation, a response. There is something symphonic in The Right Stuff, with Wolfe as much a conductor as a writer.
Beyond that, Wolfe knows instinctively how to build a scene, how to narrate action, and how to imprint images in your mind that are hard to shake. There is, for instance, the death of a fighter pilot forced to eject from his plane:
Down on the field they all had their faces turned up to the sky. They saw [Ted] Whelan pop out of the cockpit. With his Martin-Baker seat-parachute rig strapped on, he looked like a little black geometric lump a mile and a half up in the blue. They watched him as he started dropping. Everyone waited for the parachute to open. They waited a few more seconds, and then they waited some more. The little shape was getting bigger and bigger and picking up tremendous speed. Then there came an unspeakable instant at which everyone on the field who knew anything about parachute jumps knew what was going to happen. Yet even for them it was an unearthly feeling, for no one had ever seen any such thing happen so close up, from start to finish, from what amounted to a grandstand seat. Now the shape was going so fast and coming so close it began to play tricks on the eyes. It seemed to stretch out. It became much bigger and hurtled toward them at a terrific speed, until they couldn’t make out the actual outlines at all. Finally there was just a streaking black blur before their eyes, followed by what seemed like an explosion. Except that it was not an explosion; it was the tremendous crack of Ted Whelan, his helmet, his pressure suit, and his seat-parachute rig smashing into the center of the runway, precisely on target…Ted Whelan no doubt had been alive until the instant of impact. He had had about thirty seconds to watch the Pax River base and the peninsula and Baltimore County and continental America and the entire comprehensible world rise up to smash him. When they lifted his body up off the concrete, it was like a sack of fertilizer.
This is the kind of passage you remember, long after you’ve closed the back cover.
***
The Right Stuff is filled with a lot of iconic names, many of them larger-than-life. Humanizing these legends – such as Chuck Yeager, who gets an entire chapter – is a tall order. Wolfe is more than up to the task. His eye for portraiture is sharp and – on occasion – unsparing. Wolfe is willing to peer behind the NASA-constructed façade – the perfect pilots and their perfectly dutiful wives and children – to describe their penchant for “Flying & Drinking and Drinking & Driving,” their womanizing, their warring egos, and their operational mistakes.
***
Though the stakes are life and death and immortality, The Right Stuff is also raucously funny. I especially enjoyed Wolfe’s hilarious – if a bit unfair – caricature of Vice President Lyndon Johnson. In a recurring bit, Wolfe describes LBJ’s attempts at photo ops with John Glenn and his family, with Johnson “straining to get at John and pour Texas all over him.” Another uproarious sequence is set during an astronaut meet-and-greet with Houston high-society, described with the utter disdain of a man who does not appreciate barbeque: “It was two o’clock in the afternoon on the Fourth of July, and the cows burned on, and the whiskey roared goddamned glad to see you and the Venus de Houston shook her fanny in an utterly baffling blessing over it all.”
***
I don’t want to give the impression that the storyteller overwhelms the story. Wolfe’s talent is evident in every polished sentence, yet all his tools are being used in service of the material he is presenting. He’s not showing off. Well, he’s probably showing off a little. But there is a method and meaning to everything he does. I didn’t so much learn about Project Mercury as I felt it in all its intensity.
Despite its strident refusal to be a standard history, there is certainly a chronology at play. Beginning with Yeager breaking the sound barrier, Wolfe moves along the timeline, faithfully recounting the famed suborbital flight of Alan Shepard, the botched capsule egress of Gus Grissom, and John Glenn’s orbital journey. Still, The Right Stuff is less an intellectual exercise than a book that is designed to appeal to – and sometimes assault – your senses. In other words, if you’re looking for a rigorous analysis of the space program or technological explanations of the equipment that allowed the Mercury Seven to leave earth, this isn’t the place to start.
***
The Right Stuff is a manly book about manly men, an unapologetic ode to the “single combat warriors” that made America’s first forays into space. There are times the mythmaking is so intense it almost feels tongue-in-cheek. Nevertheless, it is clear that Wolfe is enamored of his subjects, and desperate to understand what allows them to function at such high levels right at the edge of the envelope, where a single muscle twitch can mean death. Explorations of masculinity might feel out of step with the times, but Wolfe's fervent, unapologetic embrace of his themes somehow – by dint of its own manic energy – achieves timelessness.
***
This is the work of an artist at his peak. In The Right Stuff, Wolfe demonstrates just how far that great writing can take you, and just how fulfilling the act of reading can be.
One of the more memorable settings Wolfe describes is a bar called Pancho’s Fly Inn, a “gloriously Low Rent” establishment heavily patronized by aviators, which had on its walls “the autographed pictures of a hundred dead pilots.” As I tore through this, I kept returning to the image of that bar, filled with smart, confident, fearless young men imbued with the sense that life was not being lived unless it was lived at the precipice, who needed to peer into the abyss, the kind of men who only gambled for the highest stakes. I imagine that if I could go back in time, belly up to the bar for a bourbon and a beer-back, and spend some time listening to the chatter around me – fueled by liquor and narrated energetically and goosed with hyperbolic flourishes – the stories I heard there would sound a lot like The Right Stuff.
May 28, 2018
This would have been a superb book but for Wolfe's puzzling decision to libel astronaut Gus Grissom. Sadly, between the book and its movie adaptation, Wolfe's distortions are probably all that most people know about Grissom (assuming of course that they remember any astronaut other than Neil Armstrong in the first place).
Grissom was one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, and the second to go into space. After his capsule splashed down, its hatch blew before the recovery helicopter arrived and the spacecraft sank, marring a near-flawless mission. No one was able to determine the cause of the incident (even after the capsule was recovered from the ocean floor thirty years later) but the universal consensus among NASA's engineers and astronauts was that mechanical failure couldn't be ruled out, and that Grissom deserved the benefit of the doubt.
For some reason, Wolfe decided that Grissom, despite having been a combat veteran and despite the fact that the most dangerous stages of the mission (launch and re-entry) were behind him, had panicked and blown the hatch himself. He also insinuates that the souvenirs Grissom had brought along (a few rolls of coins and some keychain-sized models of the capsule) had somehow contributed to Grissom's nearly drowning (in fact air had been escaping from a valve -- that he admitted he had forgotten to close -- reducing his buoyancy). Wolfe cynically adds that NASA covered up Grissom's blunders in the interest of protecting its public image.
In reality, there's no evidence for Wolfe's position. Even the curmudgeonly Flight Director Chris Kraft, whose autobiography shows no reluctance to tear into other astronauts, has steadfastly maintained that Grissom wasn't at fault. The clearest evidence of Grissom's blamelessness is the fact that he was chosen to command the first Gemini mission and the first manned Apollo mission. If NASA's administration had believed that Grissom was incompetent, there would have been no need for them to make any embarrassing public admissions; they could have asked him to resign "for personal reasons," or they could have kept him on salary while simply not assigning him to any new missions.
A lesser flaw with the book is that Wolfe presents his opinions as facts, regarding the meaning of "the right stuff," and the meaning of the public's adoration of the Mercury Seven, but these flaws are easier to overlook. And having said all that, this is an otherwise compelling look at the early days of manned space exploration, at the glory days of Edwards Air Force Base, and at the test pilots who first broke the sound barrier and went on to fly rocket planes to the edge of space.
Grissom was one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, and the second to go into space. After his capsule splashed down, its hatch blew before the recovery helicopter arrived and the spacecraft sank, marring a near-flawless mission. No one was able to determine the cause of the incident (even after the capsule was recovered from the ocean floor thirty years later) but the universal consensus among NASA's engineers and astronauts was that mechanical failure couldn't be ruled out, and that Grissom deserved the benefit of the doubt.
For some reason, Wolfe decided that Grissom, despite having been a combat veteran and despite the fact that the most dangerous stages of the mission (launch and re-entry) were behind him, had panicked and blown the hatch himself. He also insinuates that the souvenirs Grissom had brought along (a few rolls of coins and some keychain-sized models of the capsule) had somehow contributed to Grissom's nearly drowning (in fact air had been escaping from a valve -- that he admitted he had forgotten to close -- reducing his buoyancy). Wolfe cynically adds that NASA covered up Grissom's blunders in the interest of protecting its public image.
In reality, there's no evidence for Wolfe's position. Even the curmudgeonly Flight Director Chris Kraft, whose autobiography shows no reluctance to tear into other astronauts, has steadfastly maintained that Grissom wasn't at fault. The clearest evidence of Grissom's blamelessness is the fact that he was chosen to command the first Gemini mission and the first manned Apollo mission. If NASA's administration had believed that Grissom was incompetent, there would have been no need for them to make any embarrassing public admissions; they could have asked him to resign "for personal reasons," or they could have kept him on salary while simply not assigning him to any new missions.
A lesser flaw with the book is that Wolfe presents his opinions as facts, regarding the meaning of "the right stuff," and the meaning of the public's adoration of the Mercury Seven, but these flaws are easier to overlook. And having said all that, this is an otherwise compelling look at the early days of manned space exploration, at the glory days of Edwards Air Force Base, and at the test pilots who first broke the sound barrier and went on to fly rocket planes to the edge of space.
April 29, 2023
“A bit over the top” would be my short description of this book.
A book about space program is exactly what I normally would get all “Oooh, shiny!” about. It’s the stuff I love dearly and will happily lap up. But this one — despite an interesting promise it kept periodically hitting the false notes, feeling a little too much, too overdone, too weirdly subjective, too reliant on creating excitement out of everything, too gleefully dwelling on the gruesomeness of tragedies, too reliant on verbal lists like the one I just created, plus ellipses and exclamation points.
It reads too novelized, and it’s not a good thing. Somehow these very real people started feeling like characters as Wolfe’s omniscient narration in this persistently slightly frantic anxious style was emphasizing drama and petty rivalries, adding tension where a calm narration would do, unquestioningly putting the reader into each of the astronaut’s heads (chimps included), assuming what went in there, and doing its best to tie most things to that titular “right stuff”.
And what is that “right stuff” that the test pilots who then became astronauts and therefore sudden new American heroes apparently had? It seems to be a cocktail of machismo and a bit of charming daredevil attitude, the ability to look death in the eye and shrug it off and return with dedication to the work that’s trying to kill you day after day, and inject a bit of humor into the situation while still projecting a bit of a charmingly cocky confidence. It’s a pointed and critical and yet still admiring examination of what makes a “real man” who’s got that elusive “it”, whatever it may be. It’s Maverick in “Top Gun” to a tee.
The stuff I liked was the sheer danger the test pilots went through and how a lot of their work got overshadowed by the bright appeal of astronaut program. And the unsettling idea of how much, despite being lauded as best pilots and heroes, the job of the first astronauts was supposed to be a glorified test subject in a small metal can, doing about the same as the astrochimps, but with realization of helpless danger that was there if anything went wrong. The funny moments of Pete Conrad and his rectal tube/barium enema low point that made me laugh for at least five minutes straight.
But the novelized feel with people becoming almost characters, the repetition, the breathlessness of narration, the disregard of objectivity in favor of speculation and assumption, the focus on dismantling the legend of heroes that shifts to what seems to be opinionatedly gleeful pointing out of all their fallibilities — all that put a barrier between me and actual enjoyment of this book.
In the end I think Wolfe’s style overpowered the story he’s telling, and it became much too distracting and exhausting.
(Also, what has Gus Grissom ever done to piss off Tom Wolfe so?)
2.5 stars until the last 15% where he actually manages to stick the landing, and i appreciated that.
——————
Also posted on my blog.
A book about space program is exactly what I normally would get all “Oooh, shiny!” about. It’s the stuff I love dearly and will happily lap up. But this one — despite an interesting promise it kept periodically hitting the false notes, feeling a little too much, too overdone, too weirdly subjective, too reliant on creating excitement out of everything, too gleefully dwelling on the gruesomeness of tragedies, too reliant on verbal lists like the one I just created, plus ellipses and exclamation points.
It reads too novelized, and it’s not a good thing. Somehow these very real people started feeling like characters as Wolfe’s omniscient narration in this persistently slightly frantic anxious style was emphasizing drama and petty rivalries, adding tension where a calm narration would do, unquestioningly putting the reader into each of the astronaut’s heads (chimps included), assuming what went in there, and doing its best to tie most things to that titular “right stuff”.
And what is that “right stuff” that the test pilots who then became astronauts and therefore sudden new American heroes apparently had? It seems to be a cocktail of machismo and a bit of charming daredevil attitude, the ability to look death in the eye and shrug it off and return with dedication to the work that’s trying to kill you day after day, and inject a bit of humor into the situation while still projecting a bit of a charmingly cocky confidence. It’s a pointed and critical and yet still admiring examination of what makes a “real man” who’s got that elusive “it”, whatever it may be. It’s Maverick in “Top Gun” to a tee.
“No, herein the world was divided into those who had it and those who did not. This quality, this it, was never named, however, nor was it talked about in any way. As to just what this ineffable quality was … well, it obviously involved bravery. But it was not bravery in the simple sense of being willing to risk your life. The idea seemed to be that any fool could do that, if that was all that was required, just as any fool could throw away his life in the process. No, the idea here (in the all-enclosing fraternity) seemed to be that a man should have the ability to go up in a hurtling piece of machinery and put his hide on the line and then have the moxie, the reflexes, the experience, the coolness, to pull it back in the last yawning moment—and then to go up again the next day, and the next day, and every next day, even if the series should prove infinite—and, ultimately, in its best expression, do so in a cause that means something to thousands, to a people, a nation, to humanity, to God.“
The stuff I liked was the sheer danger the test pilots went through and how a lot of their work got overshadowed by the bright appeal of astronaut program. And the unsettling idea of how much, despite being lauded as best pilots and heroes, the job of the first astronauts was supposed to be a glorified test subject in a small metal can, doing about the same as the astrochimps, but with realization of helpless danger that was there if anything went wrong. The funny moments of Pete Conrad and his rectal tube/barium enema low point that made me laugh for at least five minutes straight.
“The rocket pilots had fought this medical crap every foot of the way. Scott Crossfield had reluctantly allowed them to wire him for heartbeat and respiration in rocket flights but had refused to let them insert a rectal thermometer.”
But the novelized feel with people becoming almost characters, the repetition, the breathlessness of narration, the disregard of objectivity in favor of speculation and assumption, the focus on dismantling the legend of heroes that shifts to what seems to be opinionatedly gleeful pointing out of all their fallibilities — all that put a barrier between me and actual enjoyment of this book.
In the end I think Wolfe’s style overpowered the story he’s telling, and it became much too distracting and exhausting.
(Also, what has Gus Grissom ever done to piss off Tom Wolfe so?)
2.5 stars until the last 15% where he actually manages to stick the landing, and i appreciated that.
“In time, the Navy would compile statistics showing that for a career Navy pilot, i.e., one who intended to keep flying for twenty years as Conrad did, there was a 23 percent probability that he would die in an aircraft accident.”
——————
Also posted on my blog.
May 15, 2018
Updated May 15, 2018: RIP, Tom Wolfe... reading this book was such an eye-opener. You were a true original. I'll never forget the pure pleasure I had reading this book, as well as the great satire that was, that is, Bonfire Of The Vanities.
***
Yee-hawwww!!! Tom Wolfe's 1979 book about the American space race is a high-octane non-fiction masterpiece.
Wolfe's maximalist style – full of exclamation marks!!! ... ellipses ... and repeated italicized phrases that take on the rhythm of great jazz – is perfectly suited to his gargantuan, ego-driven, patriotic, rah-rah subject matter.
He has a voice like no one else's, and although he obviously did tons of research, he imparts his facts clearly and gets inside the heads of the scientists, astronauts and their wives like a great novelist.
His narrator is part anthropologist, part satirist, part historian, and nothing escapes his eye. Even if you've seen the terrific Philip Kaufman film, I highly recommend reading this ridiculously entertaining and informative book that tells you a lot about the space program, the Cold War, the rise of mass media, gender roles and even (near the end) the race issue.
And just for fun, try reading some passages aloud. It's – excuse the pun – a blast.
***
Yee-hawwww!!! Tom Wolfe's 1979 book about the American space race is a high-octane non-fiction masterpiece.
Wolfe's maximalist style – full of exclamation marks!!! ... ellipses ... and repeated italicized phrases that take on the rhythm of great jazz – is perfectly suited to his gargantuan, ego-driven, patriotic, rah-rah subject matter.
He has a voice like no one else's, and although he obviously did tons of research, he imparts his facts clearly and gets inside the heads of the scientists, astronauts and their wives like a great novelist.
His narrator is part anthropologist, part satirist, part historian, and nothing escapes his eye. Even if you've seen the terrific Philip Kaufman film, I highly recommend reading this ridiculously entertaining and informative book that tells you a lot about the space program, the Cold War, the rise of mass media, gender roles and even (near the end) the race issue.
And just for fun, try reading some passages aloud. It's – excuse the pun – a blast.
August 31, 2017
Treasure of the Rubbermaids 24: Rocket Men
The on-going discoveries of priceless books and comics found in a stack of Rubbermaid containers previously stored and forgotten at my parent’s house and untouched for almost 20 years. Thanks to my father dumping them back on me, I now spend my spare time unearthing lost treasures from their plastic depths.
If you, a 21st century person, ever sees one of the old Mercury space capsules in a museum you’ll probably be amazed at how small and primitive it seems. (Whatever device you’re reading this on right now has more computing power than all of NASA had at the time.) It looks more like a toy, something that a kid might have in his backyard to play rocket ship, rather than a vehicle that actually took a man into space. Your next thought might be, “What kind of fool would have volunteered to strap himself into that on top of a giant cylinder filled with highly combustible fuel and ride it out of the atmosphere?”
To understand that you can read The Right Stuff.
This isn’t some dry account of the early days of America’s space program filled with dates and scientific facts. In fact, if that’s the kind of history you’re looking for then you’d probably find this disappointing. What Tom Wolfe did here is try to convey the mindset of an America panicked by suddenly finding itself behind the Soviet Union in the space race, and how in its desperation it turned seven pilots chosen to be the first astronauts into national heroes. Those men would find themselves in a media spotlight where the image they presented was often more important than their actual skills in the cockpit.
Wolfe starts by explaining what the ‘right stuff’ is by taking us back to late ‘40s when a hotshot test pilot named Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier. The fact that Yeager did this with broken ribs and used a length of sawed-off broom handle as a lever to close the hatch on his X-1 rocket plane because he was in too much pain to lean over made it that much more impressive. What adds to his legend is that he got the injury in a drunken horse riding accident the night before and hid it from his superiors for fear they’d replace him on the flight. That’s the kind of thing that shows that Yeager had the right stuff practically dripping out of his pores and put him at the top of the test pilot pyramid.
Yet when the Soviets launched Sputnik and America scrambled to catch up Yeager wasn’t seriously considered as an astronaut candidate, and to many of the other test pilots who were setting speed records and pushing the boundary of space anyhow in their rocket propelled aircraft it was only a matter of time until they'd be flying into space anyhow. To them the Mercury program was a publicity stunt in which the astronauts would only be sealed in a can and shot into space without really flying the ship at all. Hell, it was so easy that a monkey could do it, and a couple actually did.
Yet after the media declared the Mercury 7 as the best and bravest that America had to offer everyone started forgetting about the test pilots and put all the resources and attention on the astronauts. The seven men themselves would start pushing back for changes that gave them more control of their spacecraft, and while they may have started out as a little more than guinea pigs they used their popularity to get more power and control within the fledgling NASA. This led to the egghead scientists taking a backseat while a more military mindset of operational performance became the yardstick that determined a mission’s success. More importantly to them, it would show the world that they really did have the right stuff.
This is all written more as a novel than a history. For example, rather than tell us what was happening on the ground during flights Wolfe sticks to what was going through the astronaut’s head at the time so that something like John Glenn finding out that his heat shield may have been loose comes to us as a realization that he had rather than giving us the full picture of what was going on. It also delves into the personal lives of the astronauts where they and their wives would try to present an All-American image even as some of the men were taking full advantage of the new celebrity they had attained.
It’s also frequently very funny. There’s a great sequence near the beginning about how if you find yourself on an airline flight with a problem and the captain on the intercom explains how there is nothing to worry about in a calm southern drawl it’s a direct result of generations of pilots imitating Chuck Yeager’s accent over the radio to mimic his understated sense of calm.
As a space geek and historical stickler I do find it lacking at a couple of points. Wolfe doesn’t give you any details about what happened to these men later so that you wouldn’t know something like Alan Shepherd would eventually be one of the men who walks on the moon after being grounded with an inner ear problem after his first flight. I also think he also does a disservice to Gus Grissom whose mission nearly ended in disaster after splashdown when his capsule door unexpectedly blew open. Grissom nearly drowned at the capsule was lost at sea. (It was recovered almost 40 years later. It has been restored and can be seen at the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, KS.)
Wolfe uses Grissom’s heart rate which was higher than any other astronauts during their mission to strongly hint that he was in a state of near panic during his flight, and that he probably did blow the hatch despite his claims that he had done nothing wrong. In other words Grissom didn’t really have the right stuff after all according to Wolfe. It’s still unclear as to why the hatch did blow, but even back then on a subsequent mission Wally Schirra had deliberately blown his own hatch as a test and showed that the force required to do it left visible bruises on his hand while Grissom had no marks at all. I’ve also read other accounts and seen various documentaries in which other astronauts and NASA officials adamantly claim that it must have been a technical failure, not anything that Grissom did wrong. Wolfe omits all of this to leave a reader with a very strong impression that Grissom ‘screwed the pooch’. This seems especially unfair in that Grissom wasn’t alive to defend himself when the book came out since he had died in the Apollo 1 launch pad fire which also killed two other astronauts. (It’s a bitter irony that they couldn’t get out because the hatch of that spacecraft was badly designed so that it couldn’t be opened when the fire occurred.)
Despite some flaws, it’s still a fantastic read that really digs into the idea of how the macho code of these men was sometimes a crippling burden, it was also maybe exactly what was needed to get a bunch of guys to willingly climb into rockets. I also highly recommend the movie adaptation although it’s more of an emotional story than historically accurate.
The on-going discoveries of priceless books and comics found in a stack of Rubbermaid containers previously stored and forgotten at my parent’s house and untouched for almost 20 years. Thanks to my father dumping them back on me, I now spend my spare time unearthing lost treasures from their plastic depths.
If you, a 21st century person, ever sees one of the old Mercury space capsules in a museum you’ll probably be amazed at how small and primitive it seems. (Whatever device you’re reading this on right now has more computing power than all of NASA had at the time.) It looks more like a toy, something that a kid might have in his backyard to play rocket ship, rather than a vehicle that actually took a man into space. Your next thought might be, “What kind of fool would have volunteered to strap himself into that on top of a giant cylinder filled with highly combustible fuel and ride it out of the atmosphere?”
To understand that you can read The Right Stuff.
This isn’t some dry account of the early days of America’s space program filled with dates and scientific facts. In fact, if that’s the kind of history you’re looking for then you’d probably find this disappointing. What Tom Wolfe did here is try to convey the mindset of an America panicked by suddenly finding itself behind the Soviet Union in the space race, and how in its desperation it turned seven pilots chosen to be the first astronauts into national heroes. Those men would find themselves in a media spotlight where the image they presented was often more important than their actual skills in the cockpit.
Wolfe starts by explaining what the ‘right stuff’ is by taking us back to late ‘40s when a hotshot test pilot named Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier. The fact that Yeager did this with broken ribs and used a length of sawed-off broom handle as a lever to close the hatch on his X-1 rocket plane because he was in too much pain to lean over made it that much more impressive. What adds to his legend is that he got the injury in a drunken horse riding accident the night before and hid it from his superiors for fear they’d replace him on the flight. That’s the kind of thing that shows that Yeager had the right stuff practically dripping out of his pores and put him at the top of the test pilot pyramid.
Yet when the Soviets launched Sputnik and America scrambled to catch up Yeager wasn’t seriously considered as an astronaut candidate, and to many of the other test pilots who were setting speed records and pushing the boundary of space anyhow in their rocket propelled aircraft it was only a matter of time until they'd be flying into space anyhow. To them the Mercury program was a publicity stunt in which the astronauts would only be sealed in a can and shot into space without really flying the ship at all. Hell, it was so easy that a monkey could do it, and a couple actually did.
Yet after the media declared the Mercury 7 as the best and bravest that America had to offer everyone started forgetting about the test pilots and put all the resources and attention on the astronauts. The seven men themselves would start pushing back for changes that gave them more control of their spacecraft, and while they may have started out as a little more than guinea pigs they used their popularity to get more power and control within the fledgling NASA. This led to the egghead scientists taking a backseat while a more military mindset of operational performance became the yardstick that determined a mission’s success. More importantly to them, it would show the world that they really did have the right stuff.
This is all written more as a novel than a history. For example, rather than tell us what was happening on the ground during flights Wolfe sticks to what was going through the astronaut’s head at the time so that something like John Glenn finding out that his heat shield may have been loose comes to us as a realization that he had rather than giving us the full picture of what was going on. It also delves into the personal lives of the astronauts where they and their wives would try to present an All-American image even as some of the men were taking full advantage of the new celebrity they had attained.
It’s also frequently very funny. There’s a great sequence near the beginning about how if you find yourself on an airline flight with a problem and the captain on the intercom explains how there is nothing to worry about in a calm southern drawl it’s a direct result of generations of pilots imitating Chuck Yeager’s accent over the radio to mimic his understated sense of calm.
As a space geek and historical stickler I do find it lacking at a couple of points. Wolfe doesn’t give you any details about what happened to these men later so that you wouldn’t know something like Alan Shepherd would eventually be one of the men who walks on the moon after being grounded with an inner ear problem after his first flight. I also think he also does a disservice to Gus Grissom whose mission nearly ended in disaster after splashdown when his capsule door unexpectedly blew open. Grissom nearly drowned at the capsule was lost at sea. (It was recovered almost 40 years later. It has been restored and can be seen at the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, KS.)
Wolfe uses Grissom’s heart rate which was higher than any other astronauts during their mission to strongly hint that he was in a state of near panic during his flight, and that he probably did blow the hatch despite his claims that he had done nothing wrong. In other words Grissom didn’t really have the right stuff after all according to Wolfe. It’s still unclear as to why the hatch did blow, but even back then on a subsequent mission Wally Schirra had deliberately blown his own hatch as a test and showed that the force required to do it left visible bruises on his hand while Grissom had no marks at all. I’ve also read other accounts and seen various documentaries in which other astronauts and NASA officials adamantly claim that it must have been a technical failure, not anything that Grissom did wrong. Wolfe omits all of this to leave a reader with a very strong impression that Grissom ‘screwed the pooch’. This seems especially unfair in that Grissom wasn’t alive to defend himself when the book came out since he had died in the Apollo 1 launch pad fire which also killed two other astronauts. (It’s a bitter irony that they couldn’t get out because the hatch of that spacecraft was badly designed so that it couldn’t be opened when the fire occurred.)
Despite some flaws, it’s still a fantastic read that really digs into the idea of how the macho code of these men was sometimes a crippling burden, it was also maybe exactly what was needed to get a bunch of guys to willingly climb into rockets. I also highly recommend the movie adaptation although it’s more of an emotional story than historically accurate.
August 3, 2009
Good GRIEF, somebody please remind me about this the next time I think I will read a Tom Wolfe book. I seem to read one about every 15 years and in between I forget what an unpleasant experience I find it. I cannot! Take! The exclamation points! I'm one of those people who, constitutionally, cannot ignore an exclamation point on the printed page, so reading this was like being shouted at for great lengths of time. As everyone in the free world already knows, this is Tom Wolfe's book about the Mercury Space program, focusing on the personalities of the test pilots and the social significance of beating the Russians into space, or you know, failing to do that. I'm sure I've seen the movie countless times, mostly in parts on cable, but I had never read the book and that didn't seem right. I'm not even sure it seems right now, either, but I will say that for a book that I found almost painful to read, I have absolutely no doubt it informs just about every image we have of the space race and NASA in popular culture. So that part is impressive.
Grade: I don't even know.
Recommended: This is one of those books where I feel like I gained something in the end, but the process of getting there was almost unbearable.
Grade: I don't even know.
Recommended: This is one of those books where I feel like I gained something in the end, but the process of getting there was almost unbearable.
March 24, 2019
Back when I was a kid, I watched The Right Stuff. And while that really dates me, it also sparked my fascination with the OTHER side of the science fiction coin. You know, REALITY and the real men and women doing real science.
And even if I'm not fanatical about learning science, I've never stopped learning and I don't want to. Sure, I may be doing it only to give my own writing much more verve, but understanding reality has been an end in and of itself. :)
Of course, I can lay all that internal pressure at this book's feet. Maybe not directly, because I'm only NOW just reading it, but I got the awe and the fascination for the Space Program from it.
So what about the book, man?
Oh! It's great! Exciting, with novelistic concessions, flaws, tension, dramatic release, and pure Right Stuff splattering all over the place. What is the Right Stuff? It's Men, son. It's Real Men.
So many of the aspects to the early test pilots made me want to cringe with all the drunk driving, drunk flying, womanizing, and all the doublespeak going on in American culture at the time. I mean, the insistence that the public needs to be told and shown what to think was intense and to a modern eye, as pathetic and commonplace, if of a VERY different tone, as it is today. Everyone tells everyone else what to think now, but it's fractured. Back then, everyone was doing whatever they wanted under the surface and the whole collective banded together to put on a brave, otherworldly, face back then.
Or at least, that's the impression. And heck, that may not even be the most important part of this book. The heroism is. The cult of personality is.
The Space Program was in decline back when I watched this movie the first time and it sure as hell still is, now, and I'm given a very big impression that it only became a thing because of the personalities behind it. Kennedy is King Arthur and his Knights, the astronauts. The idealism and the space race and kicking the Soviets in the space-can was larger than life... and when these PEOPLE became too old or the initial fire dimmed, so did the Race to Space.
Of course, isn't it the same today? Cult of personality can bring it out and kill it. It's not about science or even NEED. It's not about doing all the real things we need to do as a species if we have a hope of surviving.
It's about narrative. Excitement. And if even a tiny bit of that goes away, then the support of the public will kill it.
LOL do I sound bitter? Leaving soapbox now.
And even if I'm not fanatical about learning science, I've never stopped learning and I don't want to. Sure, I may be doing it only to give my own writing much more verve, but understanding reality has been an end in and of itself. :)
Of course, I can lay all that internal pressure at this book's feet. Maybe not directly, because I'm only NOW just reading it, but I got the awe and the fascination for the Space Program from it.
So what about the book, man?
Oh! It's great! Exciting, with novelistic concessions, flaws, tension, dramatic release, and pure Right Stuff splattering all over the place. What is the Right Stuff? It's Men, son. It's Real Men.
So many of the aspects to the early test pilots made me want to cringe with all the drunk driving, drunk flying, womanizing, and all the doublespeak going on in American culture at the time. I mean, the insistence that the public needs to be told and shown what to think was intense and to a modern eye, as pathetic and commonplace, if of a VERY different tone, as it is today. Everyone tells everyone else what to think now, but it's fractured. Back then, everyone was doing whatever they wanted under the surface and the whole collective banded together to put on a brave, otherworldly, face back then.
Or at least, that's the impression. And heck, that may not even be the most important part of this book. The heroism is. The cult of personality is.
The Space Program was in decline back when I watched this movie the first time and it sure as hell still is, now, and I'm given a very big impression that it only became a thing because of the personalities behind it. Kennedy is King Arthur and his Knights, the astronauts. The idealism and the space race and kicking the Soviets in the space-can was larger than life... and when these PEOPLE became too old or the initial fire dimmed, so did the Race to Space.
Of course, isn't it the same today? Cult of personality can bring it out and kill it. It's not about science or even NEED. It's not about doing all the real things we need to do as a species if we have a hope of surviving.
It's about narrative. Excitement. And if even a tiny bit of that goes away, then the support of the public will kill it.
LOL do I sound bitter? Leaving soapbox now.
October 20, 2022
Just amazing!
Once upon a time there was a girl who fell in love with a boy in high school. The girl knew he was the one and the boy knew she was the one. When the time came, they graduated from high school and spent 4 years apart while the boy endured those years learning how to become an Air Force officer and a future Fighter Pilot at the United States Air Force Academy. The girl stayed behind in their home state of Kentucky going to college until they were married and moved to Wichita Falls, Texas where the boy went to pilot training at Sheppard AFB. The intense and grueling training program began for the boy and he studied and worked until he was at the top of his class. The boy had the choice of his dreams at Drop night when he found out that he would be selected to fly the F-15C. Twenty-four years and a whirlwind of a life later, the boy and girl could say they were pleased and happy.
Yes, that is me and my husband. I had no idea what kind of life we were getting ourselves into with the Air Force but looking back, it’s nothing I could ever have dreamed up. I can honestly say, reading this book, The Right Stuff, that there is truly a type and a mindset and Wolfe gets it 100% right. These men he writes about who were test pilots for the AF, Navy and Marines, were the ones who set the mold and created the category and standardized what a Fighter Pilot was back then and still is today. These guys were putting their lives on the line to test new aircraft on a daily basis. They loved the camaraderie with the other pilots, the shear thrill of taking a jet up and seeing what it could do. Let’s just say that they’d never have been the office type or the salesman. These men were extraordinary. They were cut from a different cloth and that is exactly what Wolfe writes about when he describes what makes them so different and special - these cool guys who seem to have this uniqueness - this Right Stuff.
A normal day for a fighter pilot is to ”push the outside of the envelope.” They find satisfaction in the challenge of taking a jet to the limits of its performance. It’s what they eat, drink, sleep - and lather, rinse, repeat - on a daily basis. FLYING. This idea that only certain ones had what it takes to be a fighter pilot is nothing that can be tested or learned. It’s something that you have or you don’t and whatever it is, it isn’t really talked about. It’s almost mystical what the “it” is. And it’s so much more than a set of skills and techniques to master.
As to just what this ineffable quality was…well, it obviously involved bravery. But it was not bravery in the simple sense of being willing to risk your life. The idea seemed to be that any fool could do that, if that was all that was required, just as any fool could throw away his life in the process. No, the idea here (in the all-enclosing fraternity) seemed to be that a man should have the ability to go up in a hurtling piece of machinery and put his hide on the line and then have the moxie, the reflexes, the experience, the coolness, to pull it back in the last yawning moment—and then to go up again the next day, and the next day, and every next day, even if the series should prove infinite—and, ultimately, in its best expression, do so in a cause that means something to thousands, to a people, a nation, to humanity, to God. Nor was there a test to show whether or not a pilot had this righteous quality. There was, instead, a seemingly infinite series of tests. A career in flying was like climbing one of those ancient Babylonian pyramids made up of a dizzy progression of steps and ledges, a ziggurat, a pyramid extraordinarily high and steep; and the idea was to prove at every foot of the way up the pyramid that you were one of the elected and anointed ones who had the right stuff and could move higher and higher and even—ultimately, God willing, one day—that you might be able to join that special few at the very top, that elite who had the capacity to bring tears to men’s eyes, the very Brotherhood of the Right Stuff itself.
These astronauts who were also fighter pilots didn’t know how this new title and opportunity was going to play out for them. It was a risk that wound up paying off huge because of the patriotism they represented to Americans and the willingness to risk their lives for their country. These men became celebrities as a result of the Space Race with the Soviet Union. People were engaged in what was happening in the country and aware and supportive of the strides that the NASA program was taking. Reading about how invested we were as a nation in these men and their abilities brought me to tears. I want this mindset for our country now. We need something like this that can unite us and help us to grow together and not divide us. These first astronauts and their missions drew the public together in a way that promoted patriotism and love of country.
Tom Wolfe was the perfect writer for this story. He not only puts you in the middle of everything that’s happening in the world with the Soviets but he provides an utterly realistic portrayal of a brotherhood of men who deserve to be looked up to and to be praised. I can attest to the reality he presents even though I wasn’t alive yet to witness the Space Race. But without the likes of such men as Alan Shepherd, Gus Grissom, and John Glenn, the future of military aviation and the NASA programs would not be where they are today. Wolfe also gets into the spouses lives and allows the reader to view the perspective of the wife who is waiting at home with all of the media and journalists waiting outside on their lawns to get their first reaction. Not only that, but he gets into the unspoken code the spouses operated under.
This book should be on a MUST READ list for everyone! This is definitely worth more than 5 stars!!!!!
Once upon a time there was a girl who fell in love with a boy in high school. The girl knew he was the one and the boy knew she was the one. When the time came, they graduated from high school and spent 4 years apart while the boy endured those years learning how to become an Air Force officer and a future Fighter Pilot at the United States Air Force Academy. The girl stayed behind in their home state of Kentucky going to college until they were married and moved to Wichita Falls, Texas where the boy went to pilot training at Sheppard AFB. The intense and grueling training program began for the boy and he studied and worked until he was at the top of his class. The boy had the choice of his dreams at Drop night when he found out that he would be selected to fly the F-15C. Twenty-four years and a whirlwind of a life later, the boy and girl could say they were pleased and happy.
Yes, that is me and my husband. I had no idea what kind of life we were getting ourselves into with the Air Force but looking back, it’s nothing I could ever have dreamed up. I can honestly say, reading this book, The Right Stuff, that there is truly a type and a mindset and Wolfe gets it 100% right. These men he writes about who were test pilots for the AF, Navy and Marines, were the ones who set the mold and created the category and standardized what a Fighter Pilot was back then and still is today. These guys were putting their lives on the line to test new aircraft on a daily basis. They loved the camaraderie with the other pilots, the shear thrill of taking a jet up and seeing what it could do. Let’s just say that they’d never have been the office type or the salesman. These men were extraordinary. They were cut from a different cloth and that is exactly what Wolfe writes about when he describes what makes them so different and special - these cool guys who seem to have this uniqueness - this Right Stuff.
A normal day for a fighter pilot is to ”push the outside of the envelope.” They find satisfaction in the challenge of taking a jet to the limits of its performance. It’s what they eat, drink, sleep - and lather, rinse, repeat - on a daily basis. FLYING. This idea that only certain ones had what it takes to be a fighter pilot is nothing that can be tested or learned. It’s something that you have or you don’t and whatever it is, it isn’t really talked about. It’s almost mystical what the “it” is. And it’s so much more than a set of skills and techniques to master.
As to just what this ineffable quality was…well, it obviously involved bravery. But it was not bravery in the simple sense of being willing to risk your life. The idea seemed to be that any fool could do that, if that was all that was required, just as any fool could throw away his life in the process. No, the idea here (in the all-enclosing fraternity) seemed to be that a man should have the ability to go up in a hurtling piece of machinery and put his hide on the line and then have the moxie, the reflexes, the experience, the coolness, to pull it back in the last yawning moment—and then to go up again the next day, and the next day, and every next day, even if the series should prove infinite—and, ultimately, in its best expression, do so in a cause that means something to thousands, to a people, a nation, to humanity, to God. Nor was there a test to show whether or not a pilot had this righteous quality. There was, instead, a seemingly infinite series of tests. A career in flying was like climbing one of those ancient Babylonian pyramids made up of a dizzy progression of steps and ledges, a ziggurat, a pyramid extraordinarily high and steep; and the idea was to prove at every foot of the way up the pyramid that you were one of the elected and anointed ones who had the right stuff and could move higher and higher and even—ultimately, God willing, one day—that you might be able to join that special few at the very top, that elite who had the capacity to bring tears to men’s eyes, the very Brotherhood of the Right Stuff itself.
These astronauts who were also fighter pilots didn’t know how this new title and opportunity was going to play out for them. It was a risk that wound up paying off huge because of the patriotism they represented to Americans and the willingness to risk their lives for their country. These men became celebrities as a result of the Space Race with the Soviet Union. People were engaged in what was happening in the country and aware and supportive of the strides that the NASA program was taking. Reading about how invested we were as a nation in these men and their abilities brought me to tears. I want this mindset for our country now. We need something like this that can unite us and help us to grow together and not divide us. These first astronauts and their missions drew the public together in a way that promoted patriotism and love of country.
Tom Wolfe was the perfect writer for this story. He not only puts you in the middle of everything that’s happening in the world with the Soviets but he provides an utterly realistic portrayal of a brotherhood of men who deserve to be looked up to and to be praised. I can attest to the reality he presents even though I wasn’t alive yet to witness the Space Race. But without the likes of such men as Alan Shepherd, Gus Grissom, and John Glenn, the future of military aviation and the NASA programs would not be where they are today. Wolfe also gets into the spouses lives and allows the reader to view the perspective of the wife who is waiting at home with all of the media and journalists waiting outside on their lawns to get their first reaction. Not only that, but he gets into the unspoken code the spouses operated under.
This book should be on a MUST READ list for everyone! This is definitely worth more than 5 stars!!!!!
August 28, 2019
Catch-up Review 2 of 4:
So this was a buddy read among the pantsless, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Unfortunately, for me, it was more of a failure to launch than a successful mission. (See what I did there?)
I WANTED to like this. I wanted to learn about the men who made this mission, the ones brave enough to leave the planet and try to land on the moon, the ones that clearly had cojones the size of beachballs (that's the "right stuff" - spoiler alert)... but I could not make it past the writing to get there.
This shit is DATED. The writing is... not good. At all. Chocked full to the brim with exclamation points and italicized emphasis, and reiterations and repetition and regurgitation and repeating the same thing again just maybe one or two dozen more times to make sure that you REALLY FUCKING GET IT... and that's just the abysmal editing, really.
The tone and style was also extremely problematic to me. On the one hand, Tom Wolfe is pulling zero punches when it comes to describing these pilots and the danger they constantly faced during their test flights. He describes very clearly the risks they encountered every single day, and not only lived with, but THRIVED under. But, on the other hand, at some point he crossed the line from "healthy respect" into "gleefully macabre". The way that he would go into gruesome, unnecessary detail when it came to jet crashes, and what happens to the pilot in them - not only in general terms, but minute detailing of the death, the smell of the burning, and the texture and the appearance of the corpse afterward... it just came across as being exciting to him. Which is super fucked up.
One part in particular really bothered me in this way, and it was extremely offensive to me how he portrayed it. Now, I should just add a quick note here that I have family in the military, and I respect those who serve, even if it might be for reasons I disagree with, but I am not one who blindly waves the "support our troops" flag or thinks anyone in uniform is sacred or something. I can even walk by a uniformed person and NOT thank them for their service. (It's crazy, I know.) So, I think it should say something that I was super fucking offended by the way that Wolfe portrayed the death of one of these men who died on duty. It was gratuitous, completely unnecessary, and actually pissed me off because of how irreverently and excitedly he wrote about it.
Granted, the surviving pilots would have had to distance themselves from the understanding that it could be them crashing and burning at any time... so they made light of it, didn't dwell on it, victim blamed that it was pilot error they'd never make, etc. But they were the ones who still had to go up in a plane the next day. Their attitude was understandable to me. Wolfe's was not.
This is nonfiction. These men were real people. They were someone's son. Someone's father. Someone's husband. Someone's brother, or cousin, or friend. He used these men's gruesome deaths to feed his fucking gleeful gore fetish and it made me mad. The scene where the pilot bailed out and his parachute didn't open... we all know what that means. We get it. We understand what an 8100 foot direct freefall onto concrete, while strapped into a pilot seat, will do to a human body. There's no need to write what he wrote. There just isn't. The attitude and tone he chose to go with is disgusting. These were REAL PEOPLE, not Saw IV characters.
I understand that this pilot would have been alive but unable to do anything about his fate. But rather than acknowledging that and being respectful of the terror of his situation in his last moments, and the dedication it takes to know, every single day, that this could be your last, (and you know that despite all their talk and bravado, every single one of these men did know that,) Wolfe goes the complete other way and reduces this person to "a bag of fertilizer". LITERALLY.
How fucking disrespectful. How insulting. How cruel to his family to write something like that into a book for posterity. That shit sickened me, not because of the description, but because of the condescending attitude of the shitty ass author who wrote it. Fuck that guy.
Now, I think it's likely that he was trying to "be one of the guys" and act as cavalier about death as they had to be... but he wasn't "one of the guys". He was writing about them, interviewing them, and portraying THEIR story to readers who have no idea what that life is like. The author, a good author, would take all of that and clarify it, and present it in a way that doesn't change or take away from the experiences and interviews, but makes it feel real and substantial without being cruel about it. This just did not work for me.
And then there's this:
Oh no no no no. Nope. NOPE. I get that he's TRYING to represent how these guys would have seen the women... but at the point he wrote it, he was an almost-50-year-old-man talking about girls barely out of their teens. Fucking gross. That shit probably makes Bill Cosby cringe.
That was definitely the worst... that I read. I Noped out pretty much at that point, but that definitely was not the first time it was pretty gross in the sexism sector. The incredibly casual sexism of the time was on full display, and I just... couldn't do it.
It wasn't all bad. Chapter 4 was pretty good. I wish I could remember at this point what was IN chapter 4, but after well over a month of this just sitting around... all I can think of was the really, really bad stuff. OH! I just remembered. It was the chapter in which the pilots were all being tested for the super secret mission, and none of them knew what they were being tested for. (At this point they were all just regular jet pilots - nobody had any thought of going to space at all.)
Still, I wouldn't recommend anyone NOT read it. I would just forewarn you that you'll want to keep your sickbag handy and your hand on the ejector seat button, as it is likely to get a bit bumpy and you may need to bail out. I would recommend that you keep your seatbelt fastened at all times, and in the event of a drop in cabin pressure resulting in a loss of consciousness, well... at least you'd know your fate. Wolfe will have described it to you in all its gleeful detail.
So this was a buddy read among the pantsless, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Unfortunately, for me, it was more of a failure to launch than a successful mission. (See what I did there?)
I WANTED to like this. I wanted to learn about the men who made this mission, the ones brave enough to leave the planet and try to land on the moon, the ones that clearly had cojones the size of beachballs (that's the "right stuff" - spoiler alert)... but I could not make it past the writing to get there.
This shit is DATED. The writing is... not good. At all. Chocked full to the brim with exclamation points and italicized emphasis, and reiterations and repetition and regurgitation and repeating the same thing again just maybe one or two dozen more times to make sure that you REALLY FUCKING GET IT... and that's just the abysmal editing, really.
The tone and style was also extremely problematic to me. On the one hand, Tom Wolfe is pulling zero punches when it comes to describing these pilots and the danger they constantly faced during their test flights. He describes very clearly the risks they encountered every single day, and not only lived with, but THRIVED under. But, on the other hand, at some point he crossed the line from "healthy respect" into "gleefully macabre". The way that he would go into gruesome, unnecessary detail when it came to jet crashes, and what happens to the pilot in them - not only in general terms, but minute detailing of the death, the smell of the burning, and the texture and the appearance of the corpse afterward... it just came across as being exciting to him. Which is super fucked up.
One part in particular really bothered me in this way, and it was extremely offensive to me how he portrayed it. Now, I should just add a quick note here that I have family in the military, and I respect those who serve, even if it might be for reasons I disagree with, but I am not one who blindly waves the "support our troops" flag or thinks anyone in uniform is sacred or something. I can even walk by a uniformed person and NOT thank them for their service. (It's crazy, I know.) So, I think it should say something that I was super fucking offended by the way that Wolfe portrayed the death of one of these men who died on duty. It was gratuitous, completely unnecessary, and actually pissed me off because of how irreverently and excitedly he wrote about it.
Granted, the surviving pilots would have had to distance themselves from the understanding that it could be them crashing and burning at any time... so they made light of it, didn't dwell on it, victim blamed that it was pilot error they'd never make, etc. But they were the ones who still had to go up in a plane the next day. Their attitude was understandable to me. Wolfe's was not.
This is nonfiction. These men were real people. They were someone's son. Someone's father. Someone's husband. Someone's brother, or cousin, or friend. He used these men's gruesome deaths to feed his fucking gleeful gore fetish and it made me mad. The scene where the pilot bailed out and his parachute didn't open... we all know what that means. We get it. We understand what an 8100 foot direct freefall onto concrete, while strapped into a pilot seat, will do to a human body. There's no need to write what he wrote. There just isn't. The attitude and tone he chose to go with is disgusting. These were REAL PEOPLE, not Saw IV characters.
I understand that this pilot would have been alive but unable to do anything about his fate. But rather than acknowledging that and being respectful of the terror of his situation in his last moments, and the dedication it takes to know, every single day, that this could be your last, (and you know that despite all their talk and bravado, every single one of these men did know that,) Wolfe goes the complete other way and reduces this person to "a bag of fertilizer". LITERALLY.
How fucking disrespectful. How insulting. How cruel to his family to write something like that into a book for posterity. That shit sickened me, not because of the description, but because of the condescending attitude of the shitty ass author who wrote it. Fuck that guy.
Now, I think it's likely that he was trying to "be one of the guys" and act as cavalier about death as they had to be... but he wasn't "one of the guys". He was writing about them, interviewing them, and portraying THEIR story to readers who have no idea what that life is like. The author, a good author, would take all of that and clarify it, and present it in a way that doesn't change or take away from the experiences and interviews, but makes it feel real and substantial without being cruel about it. This just did not work for me.
And then there's this:
"By 1949 the girls had begun turning up at Pancho's in amazing numbers. They were young, lovely, juicy, frisky—and there were so many of them, at all hours, every day of the week! And they were not prostitutes, despite the accusations made later. They were just… well, just young juicy girls in their twenties with terrific young conformations and sweet cupcakes and loamy loins. They were sometimes described with a broad sweep as "stewardesses," but only a fraction of them really were. No, they were lovely young things who arrived as mysteriously as the sea gulls who sought the squirming shrimp. They were moist labial piping little birds who had somehow learned that at this strange place in the high Mojave lived the hottest young pilots in the world and that this was where things were happening."
Oh no no no no. Nope. NOPE. I get that he's TRYING to represent how these guys would have seen the women... but at the point he wrote it, he was an almost-50-year-old-man talking about girls barely out of their teens. Fucking gross. That shit probably makes Bill Cosby cringe.
That was definitely the worst... that I read. I Noped out pretty much at that point, but that definitely was not the first time it was pretty gross in the sexism sector. The incredibly casual sexism of the time was on full display, and I just... couldn't do it.
It wasn't all bad. Chapter 4 was pretty good. I wish I could remember at this point what was IN chapter 4, but after well over a month of this just sitting around... all I can think of was the really, really bad stuff. OH! I just remembered. It was the chapter in which the pilots were all being tested for the super secret mission, and none of them knew what they were being tested for. (At this point they were all just regular jet pilots - nobody had any thought of going to space at all.)
Still, I wouldn't recommend anyone NOT read it. I would just forewarn you that you'll want to keep your sickbag handy and your hand on the ejector seat button, as it is likely to get a bit bumpy and you may need to bail out. I would recommend that you keep your seatbelt fastened at all times, and in the event of a drop in cabin pressure resulting in a loss of consciousness, well... at least you'd know your fate. Wolfe will have described it to you in all its gleeful detail.
April 20, 2015
I've probably read over a thousand books - I just earned my MA in History and am a writer who's headed to UC Berkeley in the fall - and The Right Stuff, along with the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, are in my top 10. Exhilarating, uncanny, and - unusual for Wolfe - concise. The man's range as a writer - going from drug-fueled hippie rebellion to death-defying test pilots with unquestioned loyalty to the state - remains virtually unprecedented. I'm re-examining Wolfe's body of work as I finish my first book, "The Case of the Cleantech Con Artist: A True Vegas Tale."
February 5, 2022
Reread
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to be launched into orbit around Earth. It was about 23 inches in diameter and weighed 184 pounds. It was described as looking like a beach ball, with three antennae attached that emitted radio signals back to Earth. Its speed was 18,000 mph and it took only a little over an hour-and-a-half to complete an orbit.
Sputnik had been rocketed into orbit by the Soviet Union, the world’s most powerful communist nation, and its success seemed to indicate that that nation had vaulted to the top of the technology pyramid, creating a “missile gap” that gave it a substantial and dangerous advantage over the U.S. and its allies.
The satellite alone was no threat, but if the Soviets possessed rockets that could launch a satellite into orbit around Earth, than those same kinds of rockets could also be capable of sending nuclear warheads from Russia to Western Europe and even the United States. Or at least that is what members of Congress and the media and the public believed.
The fear and anxiety and loss of confidence in the United States became the impetus for, not only the “space race” to put a man on the moon, but also an arms race to see which nation, the U.S. or the USSR, could build and stockpile larger and more powerful missiles, which in turn had the effect of increasing tensions between the two Cold War enemies.
The original seven astronauts were part of Project Mercury, whose objective was “to launch a man into Earth orbit, return him safely to Earth, and evaluate his capabilities in space.”
Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff” is the story of those first American astronauts (‘star travelers’), seven men who had been selected from a large pool of military jet pilots to compete with the Soviets in the race to conquer space. Wolfe was interested in that race, but he was more interested in what would make men who would be “willing to sit on top of an enormous Roman candle … and wait for someone to light the fuse.”
He concluded that it was a combination of courage and ego:
Wolfe named the combination of ego, bravado, and courage “the right stuff.”
He was not only interested in the astronauts, but also their wives, and he gives them due attention. The test pilots who were not selected or never volunteered for the project also get their share of attention, pilots such as the legendary Chuck Yeager, who was the first man to break the “sound barrier,” and others who, while the astronauts garnered the headlines and news stories, went about breaking speed and altitude records, and even flew above Earth’s atmosphere in their X-series rocket planes, doing all this while being overshadowed by the astronauts.
In his books, Wolfe, who has been credited as one of the creators of what has been labeled the ”New Journalism,” used the techniques of journalistic research to gather his facts and to interpret them, and then he applied novelistic techniques to tell the story of actual people and events. The result is that “The Right Stuff” not only rests on a solid factual foundation, but it also reads like a good adventure novel.
True, it was published in 1979, and true, it is an account of events that transpired in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and yet, the book possesses a timeless quality that, even over a half-century after those events, allows it to retain its relevance.
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to be launched into orbit around Earth. It was about 23 inches in diameter and weighed 184 pounds. It was described as looking like a beach ball, with three antennae attached that emitted radio signals back to Earth. Its speed was 18,000 mph and it took only a little over an hour-and-a-half to complete an orbit.
Sputnik had been rocketed into orbit by the Soviet Union, the world’s most powerful communist nation, and its success seemed to indicate that that nation had vaulted to the top of the technology pyramid, creating a “missile gap” that gave it a substantial and dangerous advantage over the U.S. and its allies.
The satellite alone was no threat, but if the Soviets possessed rockets that could launch a satellite into orbit around Earth, than those same kinds of rockets could also be capable of sending nuclear warheads from Russia to Western Europe and even the United States. Or at least that is what members of Congress and the media and the public believed.
The fear and anxiety and loss of confidence in the United States became the impetus for, not only the “space race” to put a man on the moon, but also an arms race to see which nation, the U.S. or the USSR, could build and stockpile larger and more powerful missiles, which in turn had the effect of increasing tensions between the two Cold War enemies.
The original seven astronauts were part of Project Mercury, whose objective was “to launch a man into Earth orbit, return him safely to Earth, and evaluate his capabilities in space.”
Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff” is the story of those first American astronauts (‘star travelers’), seven men who had been selected from a large pool of military jet pilots to compete with the Soviets in the race to conquer space. Wolfe was interested in that race, but he was more interested in what would make men who would be “willing to sit on top of an enormous Roman candle … and wait for someone to light the fuse.”
He concluded that it was a combination of courage and ego:
The world was used to enormous egos in artists, actors, entertainers of all sorts, in politicians, sports figures, and even journalists, because they had such familiar and convenient ways to show them off. But that slim young man over there in uniform, with the enormous watch on his wrist and the withdrawn look on his face, that young officer who is so shy that he can’t even open his mouth unless the subject is flying— that young pilot— well, my friends, his ego is even bigger!— so big, it’s breathtaking!
Wolfe named the combination of ego, bravado, and courage “the right stuff.”
He was not only interested in the astronauts, but also their wives, and he gives them due attention. The test pilots who were not selected or never volunteered for the project also get their share of attention, pilots such as the legendary Chuck Yeager, who was the first man to break the “sound barrier,” and others who, while the astronauts garnered the headlines and news stories, went about breaking speed and altitude records, and even flew above Earth’s atmosphere in their X-series rocket planes, doing all this while being overshadowed by the astronauts.
In his books, Wolfe, who has been credited as one of the creators of what has been labeled the ”New Journalism,” used the techniques of journalistic research to gather his facts and to interpret them, and then he applied novelistic techniques to tell the story of actual people and events. The result is that “The Right Stuff” not only rests on a solid factual foundation, but it also reads like a good adventure novel.
True, it was published in 1979, and true, it is an account of events that transpired in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and yet, the book possesses a timeless quality that, even over a half-century after those events, allows it to retain its relevance.
February 28, 2019
Tom Wolfe's big and beautiful nonfiction romp makes for an absolutely A+ audiobook listen.
While listening to Dennis Quaid's narration, I felt as if a gruff stranger had sat beside me at a bar, bought me a pint, and started in on some conspiratorial, you're-not-gonna-believe-it storytelling. There's definitely an air of the old guard letting you in on the secrets of their exalted reign, and it is a hell of a fun bit of storytelling. Wolfe somehow manages to make the writing seem conversational, dynamic, and filled with life. Quaid does a bang-up job bringing it all to life.
I was pleasantly surprised with the book's overwhelmingly funny stories, or how a reverential, country-wide event took on the aspect of the ordinary to the astronauts. Wolfe's history isn't the lifeless stuff of dusty textbooks, but is instead drenched in beer, revelry, and the unexpected glory of becoming a voyager to the stars. Though you get a sense of time's general trajectory, it is Wolfe's subjects that make the book such a riot.
I did take a while to listen to the book, but that's more of an issue of an overwhelming personal schedule than a comment on my enjoyment of the book. Indeed, I often opted to read another book rather than listen to this one, but I always enjoyed checking in on the righteous brethren. This one is ludicrously fun, interesting, and a must for anyone interested in the history of space flight.
Thanks to Glenn Sumi for putting me on to this one with his stellar review.
While listening to Dennis Quaid's narration, I felt as if a gruff stranger had sat beside me at a bar, bought me a pint, and started in on some conspiratorial, you're-not-gonna-believe-it storytelling. There's definitely an air of the old guard letting you in on the secrets of their exalted reign, and it is a hell of a fun bit of storytelling. Wolfe somehow manages to make the writing seem conversational, dynamic, and filled with life. Quaid does a bang-up job bringing it all to life.
I was pleasantly surprised with the book's overwhelmingly funny stories, or how a reverential, country-wide event took on the aspect of the ordinary to the astronauts. Wolfe's history isn't the lifeless stuff of dusty textbooks, but is instead drenched in beer, revelry, and the unexpected glory of becoming a voyager to the stars. Though you get a sense of time's general trajectory, it is Wolfe's subjects that make the book such a riot.
I did take a while to listen to the book, but that's more of an issue of an overwhelming personal schedule than a comment on my enjoyment of the book. Indeed, I often opted to read another book rather than listen to this one, but I always enjoyed checking in on the righteous brethren. This one is ludicrously fun, interesting, and a must for anyone interested in the history of space flight.
Thanks to Glenn Sumi for putting me on to this one with his stellar review.
May 23, 2019
Alright... well... how do I say this?
I didn't hate it but this is a case (for me) where the book did not live up to the movie. Sure there are many MANY more details but for sheer entertainment value?
All. Day. Baby.
I liked that Yeager played a larger role than he didn't even in the movie and that the book encompasses the Apollo astronauts briefly. There was also much more context given in relation to the geopolitical events of the day and how those impacted the space program. I also had NO IDEA the Air Force tried to compete with NASA and develop their own space program.
What I liked less was how long winded it is in certain places with a little too much extraneous detail for my tastes. Then again, I have the attention span of a hummingbird so...
Good ole Dennis Quaid gave a heck of a performance. Maybe he was overenthusiastic at times but he gave it his all and I appreciate that sort of passion.
No offense to Tom Wolfe, but (side mouthes) the movie's better.
*slinks away*
I didn't hate it but this is a case (for me) where the book did not live up to the movie. Sure there are many MANY more details but for sheer entertainment value?
All. Day. Baby.
I liked that Yeager played a larger role than he didn't even in the movie and that the book encompasses the Apollo astronauts briefly. There was also much more context given in relation to the geopolitical events of the day and how those impacted the space program. I also had NO IDEA the Air Force tried to compete with NASA and develop their own space program.
What I liked less was how long winded it is in certain places with a little too much extraneous detail for my tastes. Then again, I have the attention span of a hummingbird so...
Good ole Dennis Quaid gave a heck of a performance. Maybe he was overenthusiastic at times but he gave it his all and I appreciate that sort of passion.
No offense to Tom Wolfe, but (side mouthes) the movie's better.
*slinks away*
July 7, 2023
This account of the first orbit of the earth and the seven men who were selected as candidates for the first astronaut was a pleasure. It is set in that period during the time I was born (1959-1961 primarily). I vaguely remember the movie, which is good because those images didn’t much taint my memory (I have some confusion with Top Gun somehow). It starts at Edwards airforce base and describes in detailed (but not overly so) fashion the rocket airplanes and the men who sacrificed their lives testing these experimental craft by pushing the limits. Many did not come home, and this account was as much about their wives and what they endured as it was about the pilots themselves. These men were daredevils and risk takers in extremis, evaluating themselves to see if they might contain that righteous, un-namable stuff, the fortitude and capacity to stay calm and even under the most life-threatening pressures. Those that survived were exalted among the flying fraternity and given saint-like respect. Many had flown combat in the second world war or Korea, this being before Vietnam. The breaking of the sound barrier by Chuck Yeager, and the pervasiveness of his West Virginian drawl amongst even commercial pilots was a cultural thing.
The cold war aspect was at its apex, and these men considered their mission a holy war against the Russians for control of space. At the time it was believed the winner could fling nuclear weapons at their opponent, so the men who succeeded were regarded as heroes (Wolfe explains how in some histories, e.g. David and Goliath, the best single warriors would sometimes fight to determine victors, avoiding the carnage of full army battles). He goes into gory detail on how the aircraft and their engines eventually made that first sonic boom and exceeded the speed of sound (Mach 1) which had been thought to be a natural barrier, and unachievable. Eventually they blew that away (Mach 6) as technology and know-how for controlling these machines improved. The race to put a man in space, at least 50 miles above the earth, became the focus. What surprised me was that the Russians basically won every contest in those times, they had better technology and would consistently embarrass the United States by winning at every turn (un-manned, then a dog in space, finally a man, then a woman, then multiple spacecraft).
This is ultimately a story of the personalities and habits of the seven men, notably John Glenn who became the best known, though not the first man in space (Alan Shepard). Perching a human atop a giant rocket with tons of liquid oxygen is astonishing, when you think about it. At first the fighter pilots amongst these candidates were appalled to learn they were not to actually operate the craft, which would be automated and controlled outside of human intervention. However, quickly they became celebrities to the public, and their contract with Life magazine assured that their narrative as cold war heroes was controlled and carefully manicured (Wolfe calls this the old “Victorian Gent” who writes history behind the scenes).
I had not read any of Wolfe since the 1980s when, as a young man, I loved The Electric Koolaid Acid Test. I enjoyed his style, he’s a fine writer and gets under the skin of these men and the human aspect of the whole experience. He puts the historical context of their mission nicely but really shines in describing the human element involved. Interestingly, chucking a main for a few minutes into the earth’s orbit and dropping him in the ocean by parachute was not considered by the pilots or the experts as all that incredible, vs. the pilots who could already get there in controlled aircraft and then return and land on earth under their own command. Incredibly the trained chimpanzees, and how they used operant conditioning (shocks to their feet), that went up first was fascinating. These poor beasts were raised from infancy to learn how to collect data by throwing switches and carrying out basic tasks.
Wolfe gets a tad repetitive, and his descriptions sometimes drifted into revelries, which made this a fun read and not as dry as a lot of non-fictions can sometimes become.
I had a smaller, tightly bound cheaper version of this book on my shelf for years – but I read a hardback copy with a nice dust cover – at my age the bigger book and larger print helped me along.
The cold war aspect was at its apex, and these men considered their mission a holy war against the Russians for control of space. At the time it was believed the winner could fling nuclear weapons at their opponent, so the men who succeeded were regarded as heroes (Wolfe explains how in some histories, e.g. David and Goliath, the best single warriors would sometimes fight to determine victors, avoiding the carnage of full army battles). He goes into gory detail on how the aircraft and their engines eventually made that first sonic boom and exceeded the speed of sound (Mach 1) which had been thought to be a natural barrier, and unachievable. Eventually they blew that away (Mach 6) as technology and know-how for controlling these machines improved. The race to put a man in space, at least 50 miles above the earth, became the focus. What surprised me was that the Russians basically won every contest in those times, they had better technology and would consistently embarrass the United States by winning at every turn (un-manned, then a dog in space, finally a man, then a woman, then multiple spacecraft).
This is ultimately a story of the personalities and habits of the seven men, notably John Glenn who became the best known, though not the first man in space (Alan Shepard). Perching a human atop a giant rocket with tons of liquid oxygen is astonishing, when you think about it. At first the fighter pilots amongst these candidates were appalled to learn they were not to actually operate the craft, which would be automated and controlled outside of human intervention. However, quickly they became celebrities to the public, and their contract with Life magazine assured that their narrative as cold war heroes was controlled and carefully manicured (Wolfe calls this the old “Victorian Gent” who writes history behind the scenes).
I had not read any of Wolfe since the 1980s when, as a young man, I loved The Electric Koolaid Acid Test. I enjoyed his style, he’s a fine writer and gets under the skin of these men and the human aspect of the whole experience. He puts the historical context of their mission nicely but really shines in describing the human element involved. Interestingly, chucking a main for a few minutes into the earth’s orbit and dropping him in the ocean by parachute was not considered by the pilots or the experts as all that incredible, vs. the pilots who could already get there in controlled aircraft and then return and land on earth under their own command. Incredibly the trained chimpanzees, and how they used operant conditioning (shocks to their feet), that went up first was fascinating. These poor beasts were raised from infancy to learn how to collect data by throwing switches and carrying out basic tasks.
Wolfe gets a tad repetitive, and his descriptions sometimes drifted into revelries, which made this a fun read and not as dry as a lot of non-fictions can sometimes become.
I had a smaller, tightly bound cheaper version of this book on my shelf for years – but I read a hardback copy with a nice dust cover – at my age the bigger book and larger print helped me along.
December 5, 2021
Tom Wolfe nos hace vivir la carrera de la exploración espacial en los años 50 y 60 desde dentro, mostrándonos a los protagonistas en toda su humanidad. ¿Cómo eran esos hombres que se arriesgaban a ser lanzados al espacio en un habitáculo claustrofóbico, con menos tecnología que un móvil actual, y llenos de incertidumbre? ¿Cómo eran sus familias?
Aunque hay muchos detalles técnicos que a mí no me interesaron especialmente, los retratos de estos primeros astronautas y sus circunstancias vitales, me parecen apasionantes. Especialmente en una época de guerra no declarada con los rusos, en que los primeros éxitos de éstos en la carrera espacial, parecían una terrible amenaza para los americanos.
Muy bien escrita, como todo lo de Wolfe y con detalles interesantes sobre una época llena de tensiones. Un pelín tocho si no te interesan aspectos técnicos, sobre todo al principio cuando describe la carrera de estos hombres como pilotos de pruebas antes de entrar en la NASA.
Aunque hay muchos detalles técnicos que a mí no me interesaron especialmente, los retratos de estos primeros astronautas y sus circunstancias vitales, me parecen apasionantes. Especialmente en una época de guerra no declarada con los rusos, en que los primeros éxitos de éstos en la carrera espacial, parecían una terrible amenaza para los americanos.
Muy bien escrita, como todo lo de Wolfe y con detalles interesantes sobre una época llena de tensiones. Un pelín tocho si no te interesan aspectos técnicos, sobre todo al principio cuando describe la carrera de estos hombres como pilotos de pruebas antes de entrar en la NASA.
October 9, 2021
Without a doubt, one of the best books I have ever read.
As a retired USAF officer, I personally related to many of the scenes and the attitudes of fighter pilots. I was not a fighter pilot but during one of my assignments in Germany, I was honored to be invited into the exclusive Friday night happy hour. We had fun, fun, fun!
It is a combination socialogical and history read.
I highly recommend.
As a retired USAF officer, I personally related to many of the scenes and the attitudes of fighter pilots. I was not a fighter pilot but during one of my assignments in Germany, I was honored to be invited into the exclusive Friday night happy hour. We had fun, fun, fun!
It is a combination socialogical and history read.
I highly recommend.
April 21, 2021
My kind of novel, less plot intricacies and more swimming in the culture of the time, the assumptions and developments of which Tom Wolfe explores at length. He even goes back to connect the status of the Cold War astronaut to the lone warrior who represented the hopes of his entire culture in single combat.
July 24, 2019
With all the moon landing 50th anniversary excitement, The Right Stuff felt like a timely selection. While its content focuses on the Mercury missions and doesn’t follow through to Gemini and Apollo, it was very interesting to dive into the early days of the space race. I’ve never read Tom Wolfe before, and he certainly has a unique style.
I listened to the audiobook narrated by Dennis Quaid. He definitely seemed to be enjoying himself! Maybe it’s because he’s a star in the film, but my main takeaway was that I wanted to watch the movie again.
Fun (?) fact: 23% of the test pilots leading up to the Mercury program died. This was known by the men who signed up, which was one of the undefinable qualities known as “the Right Stuff.”
I listened to the audiobook narrated by Dennis Quaid. He definitely seemed to be enjoying himself! Maybe it’s because he’s a star in the film, but my main takeaway was that I wanted to watch the movie again.
Fun (?) fact: 23% of the test pilots leading up to the Mercury program died. This was known by the men who signed up, which was one of the undefinable qualities known as “the Right Stuff.”
July 26, 2019
No better book has been written about flying or the space race. Tom Wolfe has what it takes, the bubbling enthusiasm and critical eye, to write properly about astronauts. The Right Stuff is about endurance, guts, reflexes, a cool head, and giant titanium testicles. It's about going up day after day in high performance jets that are trying their level best to kill you-and statistically will kill 23% of pilots in peacetime-and pushing them to the edge of the envelope and beyond. It's about sitting at home, waiting for a call or a knock on the door, saying that your husband's plane is lost and the man you love is nothing more than charred meat. It's Flying & Drinking and Drinking & Driving and Dicing with Death and doing anything to climb the pure pyramid of macho essence.
Most of us don't live in this world, but Wolfe reconstructs how for a few years in the early 60s, with the mighty and infallible Soviet Chief Designer beating the pants out of the American space program, the Mercury Seven became Cosmic Knights, Single Combat Champions of Truth, Justice, and the American Way, and the entire nation became caught up in the saga of The Right Stuff. Wolfe records the contradictions and absurdities of the fighter pilot lifestyle, and how they became tied up with America and the space race, with the utmost respect and tenderness.
Most of us don't live in this world, but Wolfe reconstructs how for a few years in the early 60s, with the mighty and infallible Soviet Chief Designer beating the pants out of the American space program, the Mercury Seven became Cosmic Knights, Single Combat Champions of Truth, Justice, and the American Way, and the entire nation became caught up in the saga of The Right Stuff. Wolfe records the contradictions and absurdities of the fighter pilot lifestyle, and how they became tied up with America and the space race, with the utmost respect and tenderness.
July 28, 2015
The Very Brotherhood of the Right Stuff, that Righteous, Righteous stuff, the Indefinable, Unutterable, Integral Stuff.
Test pilots have The Right Stuff. Astronauts have The Right Stuff. Thus Tom Wolfe pulls us into Chuck Yeager's world in Muroc in the 1940's when the sound barrier is about to be broken and segues us into the original Seven - the chosen ones with the righteous, righteous stuff, the first men into space. (Never mind a monkey's gonna make the first flight! Never mind our rockets always blow up!)
Wolfe goes into detail about the astronauts' lives, the astronauts' wives, the Drinking and Driving, the Drinking and Flying (oh, wait, there WAS no flying for these Mercury Seven!), the astronauts' grumbles and gripes, the astronauts' allegiance to Mom and apple pie!, the astronaut's - uh - groupies??
As always with Tom Wolfe, you're there with Yeager in the X-1, you're floundering in the ocean with Gus Grissom, you're looking at the fireflies with John Glenn in Friendship 7, and you're there (and just as upset) with the chimpanzee receiving the electric shocks in the feet when he screws up.
And you're there when some Friend of Widows and Orphans comes to your door after there's been an accident. . .
I have to give a shout out to local hero Scott Carpenter! Okay, maybe he had a bit too much fun up there in Aurora 7 (some controversy surrounds this), but he was well loved here. Also, as an aside, Grissom's capsule was recovered in 1999. Unfortunately, still no way to determine if the hatch "just blew".
Interesting read. Recommended if you can handle Tom Wolfe's writing style and can get in the back of the spaceship and peek around front to see what's really happening.
Test pilots have The Right Stuff. Astronauts have The Right Stuff. Thus Tom Wolfe pulls us into Chuck Yeager's world in Muroc in the 1940's when the sound barrier is about to be broken and segues us into the original Seven - the chosen ones with the righteous, righteous stuff, the first men into space. (Never mind a monkey's gonna make the first flight! Never mind our rockets always blow up!)
Wolfe goes into detail about the astronauts' lives, the astronauts' wives, the Drinking and Driving, the Drinking and Flying (oh, wait, there WAS no flying for these Mercury Seven!), the astronauts' grumbles and gripes, the astronauts' allegiance to Mom and apple pie!, the astronaut's - uh - groupies??
As always with Tom Wolfe, you're there with Yeager in the X-1, you're floundering in the ocean with Gus Grissom, you're looking at the fireflies with John Glenn in Friendship 7, and you're there (and just as upset) with the chimpanzee receiving the electric shocks in the feet when he screws up.
And you're there when some Friend of Widows and Orphans comes to your door after there's been an accident. . .
I have to give a shout out to local hero Scott Carpenter! Okay, maybe he had a bit too much fun up there in Aurora 7 (some controversy surrounds this), but he was well loved here. Also, as an aside, Grissom's capsule was recovered in 1999. Unfortunately, still no way to determine if the hatch "just blew".
Interesting read. Recommended if you can handle Tom Wolfe's writing style and can get in the back of the spaceship and peek around front to see what's really happening.
March 19, 2017
A quite good read, but not really what I would expect from Wolfe. The tone is very informal and the narrative almost unstructured conversational. This makes the first third a bit slow and drawn out as we're repeatedly hammered by the problem with the start of the Mercury program being that the pilot-cum-astronauts would not be required, or even able to, use their flying skills. The race with Russia was full on from the start and the feats being accomplished under their program, with little forewarning or insights, is compared to the "Chief Designer" and the "Integral" of Zamyatin's "We". This is an apt parallel, but awfully tiresome when used 20-30 times...
Something happens near the middle of the book though, and when actual space flights and orbital flights start taking place, it's almost unputdownable.
The last part of the book slows down some again, but does have it's definite highlights, such as the "astronaut charm school" teaching such indispensable knowledge as what way your thumbs should be pointed, should you ever put your hands on your hips. (Which, as we all know, probably should be avoided altogether). Another great part is the failed Yeager attempt to set a new altitude record for the souped-up version of the F-104 fighter plane.
All in all, should the first third be tightened up some and a few mentions of the "Integral" be removed (along with a bunch of exclamation marks!) this would be brilliant. As it is, it's well worth reading.
Something happens near the middle of the book though, and when actual space flights and orbital flights start taking place, it's almost unputdownable.
The last part of the book slows down some again, but does have it's definite highlights, such as the "astronaut charm school" teaching such indispensable knowledge as what way your thumbs should be pointed, should you ever put your hands on your hips. (Which, as we all know, probably should be avoided altogether). Another great part is the failed Yeager attempt to set a new altitude record for the souped-up version of the F-104 fighter plane.
All in all, should the first third be tightened up some and a few mentions of the "Integral" be removed (along with a bunch of exclamation marks!) this would be brilliant. As it is, it's well worth reading.
February 21, 2019
Something about Tom Wolfe's prose (rest his soul) is so unfriendly yet so inviting, so dry yet so wry, so pedantic yet so accessible. It's indescribable. It'd be easier to say that Tom simply had The Right Stuff.
November 18, 2015
I still defy anyone to read the first chapter, as Wolfe follows the path of a plane crash through the trees, and not be dazzled by his style.
Want to read
July 8, 2019How could I turn down an offer to Buddy-read The Right Stuff- with the Pant-less wonders....when they asked so nicely?
Ɗẳɳ 2.☊, Ron Swanson is my spirit animal (Jun 19, 2019 09:32AM)-
Well, what I'd like is to see you (Becky) and Licha team up on Delee, and convince her to read The Right Stuff.
I bet you could trick her into opening the door to her boat by using a trained raccoon to create some sorta commotion. Then when she steps over the threshold, grab her arm and twist it behind her back, while Licha gives her a few rabbit punches to the kidneys. Lead her back inside, maybe give her a few swirlies, while asking her who does #2 work for. Then tie her to a chair and get . . . creative.
I'd imagine if you pull out a straight razor, turn on some Stealers Wheel - Stuck in the Middle with You, and start dancing around her chair, she'll agree to anything, right quick!
Ɗẳɳ 2.☊, Ron Swanson is my spirit animal (Jun 19, 2019 09:32AM)-
Well, what I'd like is to see you (Becky) and Licha team up on Delee, and convince her to read The Right Stuff.
I bet you could trick her into opening the door to her boat by using a trained raccoon to create some sorta commotion. Then when she steps over the threshold, grab her arm and twist it behind her back, while Licha gives her a few rabbit punches to the kidneys. Lead her back inside, maybe give her a few swirlies, while asking her who does #2 work for. Then tie her to a chair and get . . . creative.
I'd imagine if you pull out a straight razor, turn on some Stealers Wheel - Stuck in the Middle with You, and start dancing around her chair, she'll agree to anything, right quick!
June 17, 2018
Way back in 1979, Tom Wolfe packaged together an exciting story about the initial fleeting moments of the space race, as well as a delightful sense of humor, within the two covers of a non-fiction book. But don’t let the narrative’s 33 year-old publishing fool you. The Right Stuff aged well, managing in this recent read to deliver relevant and insightful commentary about an intensely fascinating historical period amidst the Cold War. From Edwards Air Force Base in the high desert of southern California to the new space centers at Cape Canaveral and Houston, this story is packed full of colorful topics, including early spaceflights, astronaut rivalries and astronaut wives, the end of the golden age of flight, and the author’s chosen super-pilot, Chuck Yeager.
Much of the work’s magic comes from the wondrous way in which Wolfe blended teaching and entertaining. He delved into the concept of the “righteous stuff,” perhaps understood to be cool bravery, which the author suggested separated the best pilots from everyone else. He studied the subculture among these men and the mass hysteria, driven by fears of Soviet Communist space supremacy, which surrounded these original seven astronauts. It’s as much an examination of American culture as a history book. But throughout, the pace never slows, the read never grows dull, and the text’s amusing wit and charm never fails.
Among other fun techniques, Wolfe employed a unique stylistic repetition of his favorite words and key phrases. Page after page sees reference to the “single combat warrior,” “flying and drinking and drinking and driving,” “our rockets always blow up,” “wipe away a tear,” “the mighty [Soviet] Integral,” move “up the ziggurat,” “the little Indians,” “West Virginia drawl,” and of course “the right stuff.” This curious practice bolstered his commentary while often acting the part of a fun delivery device for humor and amusement in a non-fiction book.
For the first time in memory, I don’t have a single negative comment or complaint to make about a book. Though writing literary criticism may be as important as delving out acclaim, this read left me feeling a rare sense of awe for the author. As a history fan, I’ve never encountered a non-fiction work as much fun as this and can’t find the right stuff to do it justice now. Additionally, if you haven’t seen it, there is a great movie made in the early 1980s, bearing the same name and closely adapted from this incredible book.
Much of the work’s magic comes from the wondrous way in which Wolfe blended teaching and entertaining. He delved into the concept of the “righteous stuff,” perhaps understood to be cool bravery, which the author suggested separated the best pilots from everyone else. He studied the subculture among these men and the mass hysteria, driven by fears of Soviet Communist space supremacy, which surrounded these original seven astronauts. It’s as much an examination of American culture as a history book. But throughout, the pace never slows, the read never grows dull, and the text’s amusing wit and charm never fails.
Among other fun techniques, Wolfe employed a unique stylistic repetition of his favorite words and key phrases. Page after page sees reference to the “single combat warrior,” “flying and drinking and drinking and driving,” “our rockets always blow up,” “wipe away a tear,” “the mighty [Soviet] Integral,” move “up the ziggurat,” “the little Indians,” “West Virginia drawl,” and of course “the right stuff.” This curious practice bolstered his commentary while often acting the part of a fun delivery device for humor and amusement in a non-fiction book.
For the first time in memory, I don’t have a single negative comment or complaint to make about a book. Though writing literary criticism may be as important as delving out acclaim, this read left me feeling a rare sense of awe for the author. As a history fan, I’ve never encountered a non-fiction work as much fun as this and can’t find the right stuff to do it justice now. Additionally, if you haven’t seen it, there is a great movie made in the early 1980s, bearing the same name and closely adapted from this incredible book.
December 1, 2021
What a fun book! I looked forward to each time I sat down to read it. My first of Tom Wolfe and he has a style all his own, to say the least. So many memorable phrases (the great ziggurat! flying and drinking and drinking and driving! the genteel beast!) and unforgettable scenes (the Mercury flights, John Glenn before Congress, Yeager burning up after an ejection). A lot going on here and a lot to love.
October 14, 2010
While I am not a fan of Wolfe's writing style (wasn't that impressed with 'Bonfire of the Vanities' either) I do acknowledge that he is a keen observer and makes some astute observations about the space program and the country's relationship with it in the early days.
I have seen the movie many times - and enjoy it, probably more than the book - but reading the book I found that an important part of the narrative had been grossly underplayed in the movie. In the movie, it's implied but not very forcefully that Chuck Yeager is really at the top of the pyramid even though he is not eligible to participate in Project Mercury. This theme is explored much more fully in the book. At several intervals, Wolfe compares the accomplishments of the rocket pilots (especially the X-15 pilots such as Robert White, Neil Armstrong and Joe Walker) to the accomplishments (really lack thereof) of the Mercury astronauts. Wolfe is saying that the X-15 pilots (who were really piloting their crafts, as opposed to being mere occupants like the Mercury guys) were never given the recognition they were due. I agree.
One other note: I! can't! remember! ever! reading! a! book! with! quite! so! many! exclamation! points!
I have seen the movie many times - and enjoy it, probably more than the book - but reading the book I found that an important part of the narrative had been grossly underplayed in the movie. In the movie, it's implied but not very forcefully that Chuck Yeager is really at the top of the pyramid even though he is not eligible to participate in Project Mercury. This theme is explored much more fully in the book. At several intervals, Wolfe compares the accomplishments of the rocket pilots (especially the X-15 pilots such as Robert White, Neil Armstrong and Joe Walker) to the accomplishments (really lack thereof) of the Mercury astronauts. Wolfe is saying that the X-15 pilots (who were really piloting their crafts, as opposed to being mere occupants like the Mercury guys) were never given the recognition they were due. I agree.
One other note: I! can't! remember! ever! reading! a! book! with! quite! so! many! exclamation! points!
June 23, 2007
Easily one of the best books I've read this year, and one of those books I kick myself for having put off for so long. It possesses the very best of Wolfe; Kesey-like humor, Heller-like shrewdness and Steinbeck-like depth. Unlike so many biographical or journalistic books, it managed to make me feel for these people as well as inform me about them. He grabs the possibiltiy of their heroism and absoluteness of their cultural importance like the two horns of a bull, and wrestles the creature down into an infinitely readable narrative. That he did it despite heroism being unpopular among literary elites at the time only makes this more interesting, and from the beginning he makes his understanding of heroism clear, with references not to colorful spandex-wearing superheroes, but to warriors from a time so distant that we can barely conceive its paradigm of war. It examines many rungs in our social hierarchies, and never forgets who deserves the most sympathy - not the hero, not who forces the hero to become the hero, but the people who are helpless to do anything but watch as their loved ones ascend.
September 7, 2007
This book genuinely gets the adrenaline pumping. There's a scene where Chuck Yeager takes an NF-104 up to 110,000 feet (about 10 miles into "space"), then looses control and goes into a spin, plummeting to 20,000 feet before regaining enough control to safely eject. Then the seat gets tangled in the parachute lines and spills corrosive fuel (why was there corrosive fuel in the chair?) on his face and hand. He fights through the intense pain of melting eyeball to free up the parachute and land safely, maintaining his cool through the ordeal. Wolfe's analysis of the larger picture of the cold war is clear-sighted and nuanced, and although his rhetoric is often cloying and occasionally embarrassing and infantile, for the most part this is a lot of fun.
October 27, 2022
I was somehow bored by this Lives of the Astronauts but perhaps they would have been bored by my terrestrial, book-reading life. It was, of course, very well-written.
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