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Updike is a pretty good writer, but not very interesting, in the end. Mailer is a much better essayist than novelist (his best work, "Armies of the Night", is a hybrid). Vidal is a good writer, but overrated, with too many grinding axes, and certainly not better than Wolfe. Philip Roth has become a truly original writer, but is so self- obsessed that one would not want only his sort of work available. Oddly, Kurt Vonnegut has a more interesting ouvre than most of them, very original, with keen observations and a capacious imagination. Of course, Saul Bellow is probably the best of post- War American novelists, although E.L. Doctorow provides some competition. Anyway, Wolfe is a great essayist, and a fine novelist, and should be treated with respect for his neo- Victorian revival of the large canvas social novel.... |
