5 JULY 1969, Page 19

Shorter notice

The Web and the Rock Thomas Wolfe (Heinemann 63s). The third volume of Wolfe's giant disguised autobiography gives, like all his work, an impression of great but baffled energy. George Webber is exasperating, grandiloquent and childish yet, despite his disastrous obsessions, sometimes achieves a noble eloquence. This vision of America seen through a manic temperament will be as readable for some, and as infuriating for others, as when it was first published.