Hooking Up

Although the book was published 20 years ago it is still timeless. Although I found "I Am Charlotte Simmons" to be more entertaining on the issue of teenage lust, most of the book isn't about hooking up.Wolfe wrote this about the 21 Century sexual behavior: "Back in the twentieth century, American girls had used baseball terminology. 'First base' referred to embracing and kissing; 'second base' referred to groping and fondling and deep, or 'French,' kissing, commonly known as 'heavy petting'; 'third base' referred to fellatio, usually known in polite conversation by the ambiguous term 'oral sex'; and 'home plate' meant conception-mode intercourse, known familiarly as 'going all the way.' In the year 2000, in the era of hooking up, 'first base' meant deep kissing ('tonsil hockey'), groping, and fondling; 'second base' meant oral sex; 'third base' meant going all the way; and 'home plate' meant learning each other’s names. Getting to home plate was relatively rare, however. The typical Filofax entry in the year 2000 by a girl who had hooked up the night before would be: 'Boy with black Wu-Tang T-shirt and cargo pants: O, A, 6.' Or 'Stupid cock diesel'—slang for a boy who was muscular from lifting weights—'who kept saying, "This is a cool deal": TTC, 3.' The letters referred to the sexual acts performed (e.g., TTC for 'that thing with the cup'), and the Arabic number indicated the degree of satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10. In the year 2000, girls used 'score' as an active verb indicating sexual conquest, as in: 'The whole thing was like very sketchy, but I scored that diesel who said he was gonna go home and caff up [drink coffee in order to stay awake and study] for the psych test.' In the twentieth century, only boys had used 'score' in that fashion, as in: 'I finally scored with Susan last night.' That girls were using such a locution points up one of the ironies of the relations between the sexes in the year 2000. The continuing vogue of feminism had made sexual life easier, even insouciant, for men. Women had been persuaded that they should be just as active as men when it came to sexual advances. Men were only too happy to accede to the new order, since it absolved them of all sense of responsibility."I don't know if that is current behavior or not. Someone said that today's teens are now "twerking on tiktock, and giving body counts." I wonder what Wolfe would have written to update the story?

Tom Wolfe is my favorite living American author; I think he's brilliant. This is a varied collection of essays, from how the Silicon Valley started and grew into the powerhouse it is today; the ivory-tower snobbism of the New York Literary establishment; ditto the art world (especially in regards to sculpture); and other random topics that caught Wolfe's interest. He does great research and has a trenchant sense of humor. I'll read (listen to) anything he writes. (BTW, I think Wolfe's novel A Man in Full is the great American novel of the past 100 years--but don't buy the abridged audio version.)

Tom Wolfe is that happiest of combinations, a reporter who can actually write, and who has the necessary distance from his subject to actually see it. "Hooking Up" is a bit of a retrospective collection of commentary, stories, and reporting, all in his best style. Mr. Wolfe's ear for the moment is on offer, on the building of Silicon Valley and the death of The New Yorker, hooking up, and the latest advances in science. Well recommended as a good read for his fans.

I enjoy Tom Wolfe. His writing is sharp and has a power to it that much contemporary writing lacks. Why? Because he works hard to go out and get the background information it takes to tell the truth about something we all share. Most of us do not share the inner-self of a writer who is fixated only upon him- or her- self. That gets boring in a hurry.But in this neat volume we get some wonderful essaygs, a response to the critical savaging Updike, Mailer, and Irving gave "A Man in Full", a cut scene from the same novel (here it treated as an independent piece and is called a novella), and a sweet telling of some events associated with The New Yorker of the past and present.It is reasonable to like some of the works more than others and it is reasonable to agree with some views and disagree with others. But it is silly to simply bash Wolfe because you would prefer a different writing style. He is a stylist of the first order and has had a positive and energizing impact upon American letters for the past thirty-some years. He is beyond that type of carping.I just wish he would publish more!

Prescient. What a bright author... some bits feel 'dated'... it waas written a while back and it relates to an industry which changes at rocket ship pace.

Not his best

The book started well & has some interesting insights into US culture, but the later chapters are meaningless to the majority of the world's population who have not lived in the USA for the past umpteen years.

very good

Too repetitive..