On Chuck Yeager, Tom Wolfe, and literary sorting hats

I was sad to read that Chuck Yeager had died, not just because he led an amazing life but because I can't think of Yeager without thinking of Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff, which presents Yeager as so vital, so much a force of nature, that he ought to be immune to death.

But I also think of the times I've introduced students to Wolfe's prose, assigning just the chapter of The Right Stuff that deals with Yeager, and how simultaneously exhilarating and disappointing that experience can be. The Right Stuff is the wrong stuff for so many students who wish Wolfe would quit with the pyrotechnics and just get to the point.

In fact, The Right Stuff is like a sorting hat for students, who either love it or hate it--no middle ground. The students who appreciate the energy and inventiveness of Wolfe's prose earn a warm place in my heart because they understand the joy of playing with language. Wolfe's prose reminds me of those magic eye images that look like a jumble of random shapes and colors until you glance at it just right and the chaos resolves into a clear picture. Some people never see the picture in the chaos, and those who do see it can't make the others understand the wonder of the experience.

I've taught a few works like that over the years, literary works that evoke strong responses between the few who get it and the many who don't. Frankly, I'm happy to evoke any strong response; too often my students' reactions to their reading can be summed us as: meh. It's okay. Not bad, but wouldn't it be easier to get the information across in a set of bullet points or a film?

So I pay attention when students have strong reactions to literature one way or the other. It would be too much to expect students to share all my enthusiasms, but when a piece of work divides students into those who get it and those who don't, I pay attention. That kid who got all emotional about the amazing way Amit Majmudar plays with language? I see that hand. The one whose love for Moby Dick led him to collect more than 40 different editions of the novel? We're crewmates on the same ship. The one who read The Right Stuff and felt like she was flying? There's no barrier she can't break.

I feel grateful to Tom Wolfe for breaking barriers in his writing to help readers feel the exhilaration of unfettered flight, but he wouldn't have had anything to write about if Chuck Yeager hadn't first broken so many barriers. So I hope he rests in peace, although it's hard to imagine such a restless and adventurous soul welcoming the final stillness.