"Wolfe’s goal was to be like Balzac, not JD Vance...."

 NYT

An offhand comment by David Brooks in an article on Tom Wolfe.

The comment is more than a little weird.  Wolfe probably heard of Vance, since Vance came out with his bestseller, Hillbilly Elegy a couple of years before Wolfe died.  Why would a renowned writer of Wolfe's stature want to be like a random guy with his first book?

In any case, it was more likely that Vance was trying to be something like Wolfe, not the other way around.  I haven't read Vance's memoir, but given its genre, it would be something like what Wolfe did:  He would entertainingly describe people and events.  He may have wanted his readers to come to certain conclusions, but he didn't directly tell the reader what he personally thought about any of it.

This is in contrast to Brooks.  He tells you as much as you need to know, so that he can tell you what he thinks about it.

Vance is sort of bifurcated, he wrote about his life experiences, but now he is a man of action:  He made money in venture capital, was elected Senator from Ohio and is on the ticket to be vice president.  He's now the sort of person Wolfe might write about, if Wolfe was still alive and working.

Brooks probably feels superior to Vance and yet Brooks doesn't DO anything and Vance is DOING things.  Meanwhile Brooks stands to the side with commentary.  Why can't Vance know his place and be a poor-man's Wolfe?  What gall to aspire to be somebody off the pages of a Wolfe book!