The Right Stuff

Since I was born in the 50s the space program is a shining memory of my childhood. I have never lost my interest is space and astronomy and flight. The Apollo 11 movie last year rekindled my interest (not that my interest was dead) and little by little I have become interested in reading everything that has been written about the entire era, starting from the X-1 and X-15, and everything about space flight and space exploration in general. It has become a bit of an obsession, its a huge and wonderful topic.

I rented the Right Stuff as a movie and was not impressed. I was disgusted by its treatment of Gus Grissom, which I attributed to Hollywood and its grandiose arrogance. History is just an starting point for fiction, truths, half truths, and lies, for the sake of entertainment. People are misinformed about historical events in the first place then comes Hollywood and turns it into distorted semi-fictional entertainment. So, I read the book, figuring it must be better. It was actually much worse. I will give Wolfe credit for opening my eyes on the stupendous casualty rates of military pilots and test pilots. Anything that is not a clear fact in this book however, is just as likely an invention of the creative mind of Wolfe. Did he actually know what the test monkeys were thinking? Well no. DId he actually know what the astronauts were thinking? He would have had a better chance at that one, but I was very doubtful of much of his description of their thoughts until I got to the chapter on Grissom’s flight, after which I would no more believe something that Wolfe says than I would believe something that trump says. He is simply flapping his gums for profit. Anyone who believes anything he says that cannot be fact checked is being gullible.

I realized that Wolfe is like Howard Zinn. They both set out to destroy the sanitized highly patriotic versions of history and wound up replacing one set of overly kind propaganda with a different set of bitterly caustic propaganda. Bleh. I would not swallow very much of the viewpoints of either although there are grains of truth in their works. The problem of dealing with liars is that one has no idea when they might be telling the truth.

As to Wolfe’s style, it is incredibly repetitive and most of the book comes down to one or two ideas, which may or may not have much truth to them; these are pounded into the ground.

Not knowing much about Wolfe I looked him up and I must say I wildly enjoyed the critics of his style. From Wiki:

“… In 2000, Wolfe was criticised by Norman Mailer, John Updike and John Irving, after they were asked if they believed that his books were deserving of their critical acclaim. Mailer compared reading a Wolfe novel to having sex with a 300 lb woman, saying ‘Once she gets to the top it’s all over. Fall in love or be asphyxiated.’ Updike was more literary in his reservedness: he claimed that one of his books ‘amounts to entertainment, not literature, even literature in a modest aspirant form.’ Irving was perhaps the most dismissive, saying ‘It’s like reading a bad newspaper or a bad piece in a magazine … read sentences and watch yourself gag.’ …”

Right on!

For what Wolfe did to the truth about Gus Grissom’s flight, and the harm he caused to his reputation and family, I would be tempted to find Wolfe’s grave and piss on it, it would be fitting. It also would be more effort than the man deserves. I wish Grissom’s estate and family had sued Wolfe. His pathograpy of Grissom based on obvious mistruths, when the actual facts and details are not hard to find about the flight, is very, very low and small. Grissom himself was not around around to defend himself, but I am glad he did not have to read this garbage.

I was already skimming through most of the book, its a book more about Tom Wolfe than a book about real events, after the Grissom chapter I very briefly skimmed the rest of the book, since I had established that the author was not honest. (I guess that I myself am pounding my reaction a bit into the ground.) The Right Stuff has gone into my woodstove and is now, at last, providing some heat, if not much light.

This book is about the Mercury Project, NASAs first manned space missions, and the origins of the astronaut program.

Tom Wolfe was a practitioner of New Journalism. The only previous experience that I had with that style was with Hunter S. Thompsons alcohol-and-other-drugs-fueled escapades in Las Vegas while covering a race for Sports Illustrated and his alcohol-fueled experiences at the Kentucky Derby. Based on those reading experiences, it was my understanding that one of the hallmarks of New Journalism was Journalist-as-Participant. The historical record, however, is pretty clear that a drunk Tom Wolfe had not, in fact, been blasted into orbit with John Glenn or any of the other Mercury 7 astronauts. How then is The Right Stuff an example New Journalism?

Well, Tom Wolfe wrote his butt off. The book reads more literary than as an object of traditional journalism. Let me explainno, there is too muchlet me sum upA traditional journalistic or scholarly book about the early astronauts and what made them tick might include quotations from interviews with those astronauts and people that knew them, government officials and news reporters from the time, and maybe a few academics to provide some Authoritative Interpretation. The writer wouldnt put forth a theory of their own about the astronaut motivations, or, if they did, thered be a ton of explicit sources backing them up.

Tom Wolfe just puts his theories out there, front and center, and then writes with such force with repeated interjections, sometimes with exclamations! and capitalizations and callbacks and pretty descriptions and literary techniques that the reader will forget that they are reading some nonfiction book; this story may be (at least in some sense) true, but it reads like a novel. It never really dives into the minutiae of bureaucratic organization nor is it really interested in any ones point of view other than that which drives the authors central point: the astronauts were military test pilots fueled by a Manly Competitive Desire to BE THE BEST and that performing well under pressure in that competition exhibits The Right Stuff (which is never explicitly defined, although I have my own theories).

I am a fan of David Foster Wallaces writing, and I could see a clear influence from Tom Wolfes style in Wallaces writing. And David Foster Wallace was certainly not the only literary writer influenced by Wolfe. Fans of literature really should check this out, just to trace back certain styles to their creator (or popularizer). Science fiction fans could be inspired by a (more or less) true account of fighter pilot personality and how their influence (or lack thereof) could impact a fictional space program. Fans of nonfiction could see that there are ways of telling a nonfiction story rather than the usual, traditional methodologies. Id recommend this book to anyone, just with the disclaimer that it is NOT like the usual biographical or documentary-style rendition of the Mercury Project. The writers style is definitely noticeable, and some might be distracted by it (or it could just not be to their taste).

After seeing the movie numerous times, I thought it was time to finally read the book. Although sometimes the language can be colorful and literary, overall I could not put it down, and finished it in just a few days.

Tom Wolfes account of the test pilot program in the time of Chuck Yeager and the Mercury astronauts is a fascinating look back at a special time in American history. His sardonic take on many details had me laughing, and his genuine love and admiration for the men involved comes shining through in his writing. A line from the end probably sums it up best: but the day when an astronaut could parade up Broadway while traffic policemen wept in the intersections was no more.”
This was the story of that time.

I’ve always been a huge fan of the movie from 1983, so I finally decided to read the book.

It’s, in a word, odd.

It’s not written in the standard “so-and-so said this, then this happened, then he said this” style of storytelling. Instead, it’s told as an observer describing the situation and its undercurrent, with a large dose of sarcasm. Wolfe undercuts the notion of their hero status, and presents the astronauts not as men, but as ideas and perceptions. At times it’s hilarious, other times maddeningly wordy. Sometimes interesting, other times it wanders into the weeds.

There’s a lot of good historical info that’s not in the movie, which I found interesting, but some if it is difficult to glean as Wolfe spends so much time telling us “what it all means,” instead of the nuts and bolts of “what happened.”

Overall, it’s a good read once you get used to the style, especially for those of us that grew up during the Space Race.

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member