Summary and Critique of Tom Wolfe’s Right Stuff

Introduction

Written by Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff is one of the best non-fiction books ever written using the new method of writing so-called 'New Journalism' which was invented by Tom Wolfe himself. Published in 1979, The Right Stuff was a great success as it became a best seller and won a plentiful number of awards. Tom Wolfe was born in Richmond Virginia on March 2, 1930. He attended Washington and Lee University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1951. After that, Wolfe moved on with his academic career by attending Yale University and graduating from it with a Ph.D. in American studies in 1957. Wolfe then started his career by working for a several famous newspapers such as The Washington Post and The New York Herald-Tribune. Not so long after working for newspapers, Tom Wolfe moved to New York in the early 1960s and worked for some magazines such as the Esquire, and Harper’s. After that, Wolfe started to gain interest in the writing of non-fiction books. Wolfe published some of the bestseller non-fiction books including The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and many others. The ‘New Journalism’ writing technique used by Wolfe in many of his works has made him a rising novelist and journalist. In The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe tells the story of Project Mercury and the race to space in a different way. He uses the slangs and the typical day-to-day language spoken between people and he uses first-person point-of-view of the characters in his writings to create the most accurate simulation of the characters’ lives and to put the reader in the characters’ position and make them see what the actual character sees and feel what the actual character feels. Wolfe expresses the whole story in great detail by showing how the Project Mercury and the race to space between the United States and the Soviet Union and the rising tension between both to dominate the space project is a result of the Cold War. He also perfectly depicts the lives of the test pilots and the astronauts by simulating the tensions occurring within the families in their houses. And the hardships that the pilots and astronauts encountered in their training and tests, and their achievements, and their bravery and endeavor to achieve, and the effects of the technological advancements, and the fame, and the money, and ‘the right stuff’ that these pilots and astronauts had to have to reach the sky.

Summary

The Right Stuff begins by portraying the distinctive and unique lives of military pilots, and the dangerous and unstable life that these pilots and their families have to deal with daily. Wolfe refers to the military pilots’ wives as “death angels”, since they have to go through the same stress and tension every single day for the fact that their husbands could come back home “burned beyond recognition”. The military pilot job was all about more tests, more crashes, and more funerals.

Wolfe then describes “the right stuff” as the required combination of skills and bravery that a military pilot must possess to become a member of the elite military pilots and avoid being “washed out and left behind”. Wolfe also perfectly describes the training and the tradition that these pilots went through. Wolfe describes the training process as an “infinite series of tests” that models the “ancient Babylonian pyramids” and those who are at the top are considered from the elites. The elites are those who can perform the most difficult tasks such as landing on “the deck on an aircraft carrier” or piloting the suffocating T-33.

One of those elites is Chuck Yeager, which Wolfe describes him as “the most righteous of all the possessors of the right stuff”. Yeager was a WW2 ace, and Wolfe describes him as the “ace of all the aces” as he became the first pilot and human being to fly at a speed faster than the speed of sound. Wolfe devotes a great effort to Yeager in his work as he changed history with his outstanding achievement. For Wolfe, Chuck Yeager “was at the top of the pyramid”.

However, shortly after Yeager’s astonishing flight, everything starts going downhill for the Americans and their expectations and hopes start to deteriorate after the Soviet Union launched their first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, on October 4, 1957. This lit a spark between the United States and the Soviet Union and kicked off the war and the race to space between them as the United States establishes the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as a response. The United States is now working on building a spacecraft with the fear of a possible future war similar to the Cold War or the possibility that the Soviets would engage a nuclear regression. Undoubtedly, the power and dominance will be in the hands of the one having the ability to “controlling the high ground”. The United States is now engaging in a “race for survival”. This marks the birth of the Space Age.

The United States launches Project Mercury by which the objective is to send a human to space in an unpiloted capsule. Wolfe describes the whole process from selecting and training the astronauts, to the astronauts acquiring fame and stardom. The selection process consisted of selecting seven military pilots who can pass all the medical and psychological examinations to be qualified to become an astronaut. The qualified seven were referred to as the “Mercury Seven”. Wolfe describes how the whole training and examination process was unique and humiliating considering the status that these military pilots hold in society. In essence, the military pilots were no different from “lab rats.” They were by all means “lab rats”. Wolfe points out that “anybody in Project Mercury was more of a test subject than a pilot”. Soon after the whole process of training and examination process was over, the seven astronauts were publicized and they instantly became national celebrities. Wolfe describes how the whole American society adored the seven astronauts for their patriotism and heroism, and also for sacrificing their lives to achieve the “American dream”. With all the fame and “the right stuff” that the astronauts had, nothing restrained them nor the military pilots from the typical traditional life and the “military tradition of Flying & Drinking and Drinking & Driving”.

Once again, the Americans fall behind in the race to space as the Soviets succeed in sending the first human, Yuri Gagarin, to space on April 12, 1961. Things also go downhill for the American astronauts as their adoration turns into adversity as NASA announces that “a monkey’s gonna make the first flight”. A “college-trained chimpanzee” is going to make the first flight, “that had seemed like a Slayton sortie into sarcasm and hyperbole”. Wolfe shows how the idea of sending a chimpanzee to space raised the tension between test pilots and astronauts. From the beginning of the project, the test pilots believed that the astronauts were no more than test subjects since they had no control or any mean of piloting the capsule. Now that a chimpanzee is doing the flight, the test pilots were more than convinced that the whole project is sarcasm and that if a chimpanzee can do the flight; anyone can do it as well. For test pilots, this mission was below their standards!

Shortly after the chimpanzee succeeded in his space flight mission, Alan Shepard became the first American to enter space. Wolfe describes that Shepard’s “launching was an utterly novel event in American history”. Shortly after Shepard flight, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth in a “piloted flight”. Glenn flight has re-shaped American history once again, Glenn was now, as described by Wolfe, “at the apex of the pyramid”. Now an astronaut is a true hero, the Mercury Seven have captivated the people’s emotions and hearts. For Wolfe, this is the power of “the right stuff, the same vital force of manhood that had made millions vibrate and resonate thirty-five years before to Lindbergh”, this is the only comparable event to Lindbergh’s flight in the American history since WW2. This is the significance of Tom Wolfe’s work, the significance of the “American dream”.

Critique

Tom Wolfe’s new method of writing using the ‘New Journalism’ techniques has changed the rules of the game in relation to writing. The ‘New Journalism,’ as Wolfe defines it, is a method of writing that anchors on four pillars that are mainly used in fiction writing, the four pillars are: “scene-setting, dialogue, status detail, and point-of-view.” Wolfe’s term ‘New Journalism’ came into existence by recruiting these four pillars in non-fiction works. What Wolfe did by basing his work on these four pillars is bring the story to life. Wolfe makes the reader learn something about other people; he makes the reader know what is inside a person from beliefs, feelings, and values. Wolfe’s method of writing contradicted the old historical writing method that most newspapers adopted, his main goal was to deliver the ‘truth’ not just the ‘facts’ like what most newspapers did. Tom Wolfe emphasized that “the only way to tell a great story is to go out and report it.”

Furthermore, by relying on these four pillars, Tom Wolfe succeeds in delivering his message to the public in an exciting, appealing and truthful way. In addition, Wolfe also uses improbable words in his works to create effect, and for further clarification of the situation.

In The Right Stuff, it is clear how Wolfe focuses the scope on the very little and small details to make the reader experience the whole situation that the characters in the story experienced. Wolfe’s work in essence functions like a projector by projecting people’s stories, feelings, experiences, emotions and others onto the readers’ minds. In The Right Stuff Wolfe makes sure to portray the whole scenery in detail even if it did not directly relate to Project Mercury and the main point of the story. Wolfe starts by opening the book with an introduction to Pete Conrad and his family and by describing the situation of how they live and where they live, Wolfe writes, “here in Florida…the sun shines through the pines outside, and the very air takes on the sparkle of the ocean. The ocean and a great mica-white beach are less than a mile away. Anyone driving by will see Jane’s little house gleaming like a dream house in the pines. It is a brick house, but Jane and Pete painted the bricks white, so that it gleams in the sun against a great green screen of pine trees with a thousand little places where the sun peaks through”. This is a very charming and engaging way to describe a scenery used by Wolfe. A reader would just be carried away in his/her imagination; a reader will feel that he/she are the ones driving by and looking at Jane’s house, and this is the goal that Tom Wolfe wants to achieve, he wants the reader to dive into the story and interact with it. He wants to deliver the ‘truth’ in every single detail and not just the ‘facts’ that are vague and incomplete.

The second thing that Wolfe focuses on in his work is the full inclusion of dialogue. Wolfe includes dialogues in his writings to make the reader to get to know who the character is. He wants the reader to understand the character’s feelings and emotions and to know his personality as well. Wolfe presents a conversation between Grissom and James Lewis who is a Navy lieutenant after Grissom has finished his flight to space, came back to earth, and is now waiting to get out of his capsule, Grissom reaches for his microphone, “Over his microphone Grissom said, “Okay, give me how much longer it’ll be before you get here.”...James Lewis, said, “This is Hunt Club I. We are in orbit now at this time, around the capsule.” Grissom said, “Roger, give me about another five minutes here, to mark these switch positions here, before I give you a call to come in and hook on. Are you ready to come in and hook on any time?” Lewis said, “Hunt Club I, roger, we are ready any time you are”. A dialogue like this would create a live image in the reader’s imagination. It would be as if the reader is present with the characters and is listening to what they are saying. Therefore, Wolfe uses dialogue mainly to reveal the characters and their attitudes, to enhance the quality of the story, and to make it more appealing to the public.