“Mr. Derbyshire—I apologize if you find this too weird. Believe me, you

ain’t the first. I will keep this analysis of Tom Wolfe’s new and wonderful

novel short…

“(1) Prior novel -A Man In Full – was also great, but I was puzzled by why

Wolfe made Zeus such a key figure.

“(2) The only phrase that would get me by in a cocktail party filled with

avid Leo Strauss devotees is the tension in Western thought between Athens

(reason, ideas, philosophy) and Jerusalem (revelation, faith, radical

charity). Hope I got that right.

“(3) In this novel, we see young Charlotte pass from Sparta (!!) NC to

college and suffer a kind of death (clinical depression after the

unfortunate night at the fraternity formal), and then a kind of resurrection

(or at least a recovery). We also see the minor character Jojo who starts

to get his bearings when he enrolls in the class on Socrates. He also dies

(OK, loses his starting job) but rises (OK gets his job back).

“(4) So after a novel where we hear about a Stoic ideal, we see another

novel where we start in Greece (sort of) but see the story play out on a

Christian grid.

“Look, Wolfe is a smart cookie, and went to W&L (famous for teaching ‘Arts

– not ‘Liberal Arts’), and if I can find this trail of bread crumbs, I

suspect they may have been put there by the man in the white linen suit.

“(5) We note that Wolfe does his reportage on our amygdalas, but my guess

(or at least my hope) is that he is smirking at the learned sorts. The best

thing to happen to young Charlotte is her D- in the Starling class – dammit,

we are bigger than our amygdalas. Our faith wins.”

Oh, boy. I am reminded of the fellow who wrote to me after I had mentioned

the movie Cool Hand Luke, demonstrating at great length that the entire

movie was a Christian allegory. That one had me pretty much convinced.

This one… I dunno. What is Wolfe’s confession, anyway?It’s plain from

the Forbes essay that he’s not an atheist.