The American Spectator

Tom Wolfe: Look at the Big Bang. That’s a fairly recent theory, and it is already burning out. There are too many scientists who are saying this is rubbish. Just think about the theory of the Big Bang or this ridiculous theory about where the first cell came from. Now they say it probably came from outer space when an asteroid hit the earth and a few of these things bounced out. It is because of all this silly stuff that Darwinism is going to go down in flames. /p> p> TAS: Will the novel survive the age of the Internet? br> Tom Wolfe: No, the novel is committing suicide as fast as it can by turning its back on the world. The best writers are in masters of fine arts courses and they are encouraged to turn their backs on the world, not to get their hands dirty. They are told, never mind about all this social muck and write about your psychological relationship with your lover. /p>

Had Tolstoy not written about the class structure in Russia, Anna Karenina would come across as just a soap opera. Tolstoy knew the social setting very well and set it so carefully. Without that Anna Karenina would have been forgotten like any other popular romance.

A novel of psychological depth without social depth isn’t worth an awful lot because we are all individuals caught in an enormous web that consists of other people. It is in the social setting that the psychological battles take place. You simply cannot separate the psychological from the social.

p> TAS: Have the reviews of I Am Charlotte Simmons been influenced by the contretemps with Norman Mailer, John Updike, and John Irving? br> Tom Wolfe: