The Right Stuff

Product Information

Now, I think it's likely that he was trying to "be one of the guys" and act as cavalier about death as they had to be... but he wasn't "one of the guys". He was writing about them, interviewing them, and portraying THEIR story to readers who have no idea what that life is like. The author, a good author, would take all of that and clarify it, and present it in a way that doesn't change or take away from the experiences and interviews, but makes it feel real and substantial without being cruel about it. This just did not work for me. Within five minutes, or ten minutes, no more than that, three of the others had called her on the telephone to ask her if she had heard that something had happened out there.

A normal day for a fighter pilot is to ”push the outside of the envelope.” They find satisfaction in the challenge of taking a jet to the limits of its performance. It’s what they eat, drink, sleep - and lather, rinse, repeat - on a daily basis. FLYING. This idea that only certain ones had what it takes to be a fighter pilot is nothing that can be tested or learned. It’s something that you have or you don’t and whatever it is, it isn’t really talked about. It’s almost mystical what the “it” is. And it’s so much more than a set of skills and techniques to master. Wolfe was educated at Washington and Lee Universities and also at Yale, where he received a PhD in American studies.

Retailers:

Farmer, Jim. "Filming the Right Stuff." Air Classics, Part One: Vol. 19, No. 12, December 1983, Part Two: Vol. 20, No. 1, January 1984. Siskel, Gene (December 25, 1983). "Movie year 1983: Box office was better than the films". Chicago Tribune . Retrieved June 1, 2022. And then there's this: "By 1949 the girls had begun turning up at Pancho's in amazing numbers. They were young, lovely, juicy, frisky—and there were so many of them, at all hours, every day of the week! And they were not prostitutes, despite the accusations made later. They were just… well, just young juicy girls in their twenties with terrific young conformations and sweet cupcakes and loamy loins. They were sometimes described with a broad sweep as "stewardesses," but only a fraction of them really were. No, they were lovely young things who arrived as mysteriously as the sea gulls who sought the squirming shrimp. They were moist labial piping little birds who had somehow learned that at this strange place in the high Mojave lived the hottest young pilots in the world and that this was where things were happening."

Much of the work’s magic comes from the wondrous way in which Wolfe blended teaching and entertaining. He delved into the concept of the “righteous stuff,” perhaps understood to be cool bravery, which the author suggested separated the best pilots from everyone else. He studied the subculture among these men and the mass hysteria, driven by fears of Soviet Communist space supremacy, which surrounded these original seven astronauts. It’s as much an examination of American culture as a history book. But throughout, the pace never slows, the read never grows dull, and the text’s amusing wit and charm never fails. The Right Stuff". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Archived from the original on February 21, 2010 . Retrieved May 20, 2021.

Need Help?

Goldman, William. Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade. New York: Vintage Books USA, 2001. ISBN 0-375-70319-5. A quite good read, but not really what I would expect from Wolfe. The tone is very informal and the narrative almost unstructured conversational. This makes the first third a bit slow and drawn out as we're repeatedly hammered by the problem with the start of the Mercury program being that the pilot-cum-astronauts would not be required, or even able to, use their flying skills. The race with Russia was full on from the start and the feats being accomplished under their program, with little forewarning or insights, is compared to the "Chief Designer" and the "Integral" of Zamyatin's "We". This is an apt parallel, but awfully tiresome when used 20-30 times... Absolutely first class . . . Improbable as some of Wolfe's tales seem, I know he's telling it like it was.” — The Washington Post Book World