The Bonfire of the Vanities
by Tom Wolfe
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Book Summary Information
Author: Tom WolfeEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-10-30
ISBN: 0553381342
Number of pages: 656
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Book Reviews of The Bonfire of the Vanities
Book Review: The Unseen Tragedy
Summary: 5 Stars
Tantalizingly fascinating, The Bonfire of the Vanities is a deeply detailed and yet enthralling account of the entwining ways in which the forces of opportunistic politics, ugly racism, greedy Wall Street, gullible public sentiments, sinister profit motive and compelling lust interacted in New York City of 1980's. It is an outstanding work of fiction so vividly depicted and so richly crafted that you might feel yourself in the middle of action. The author's creativity with words and ideas while narrating very plausible events and developments adds remarkable color and candor to the plot. Phrases such as `laboratory of human relations', `big breasted eyes', and "master of universe', are so apt in their effect that you find yourself longing for more.
At the script level, The Bonfire of the Vanities is a tragedy of a Wall Street bonds trader whose sheer misfortune causes his downfall though he does not endear himself to the readers by his philandering and vain ways that he feels he is entitled too. It also is the tragedy of an unfortunate black boy who gets killed for no fault of his, of a spouse whose only fault is that she has aged the best way she could and a 6 year old girls who `loses' her father to bizarre sequences of New York life. At a broader plane though, The Bonfire of the Vanities is the tragedy of the `Greatest City on the Planet', a city that has scaled every possible height and yet whose inhabitants have not overcome even the very basic vices that plague the human race. Powered by the avarice for lust, weaved around the gluttony for pride, fired by the envy of the have not's and the wrath of the racially deprived, New York is tortured by the sloth of conscience. Rarely has this tragedy been better depicted than in this landmark novel.
Summary of The Bonfire of the Vanities
Tom Wolfe?s modern American satire tells the story of Sherman McCoy, a Wall Street ?Master of the Universe? who has it all ? a Park Avenue apartment, a job that brings wealth, power and prestige, a beautiful wife, an even more beautiful mistress.Suddenly, one wrong turn makes it all go wrong, and Sherman spirals downward in a sudden fall from grace that sucks him into the ravenous heart of a New York City gone mad during the go-go, racially turbulent, socially hilarious 1980s.
After Tom Wolfe defined the '60s in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers and the cultural U-turn at the turn of the '80s in The Right Stuff, nobody thought he could ever top himself again. In 1987, when The Bonfire of the Vanities arrived, the literati called Wolfe an "aging enfant terrible."
He wasn't aging; he was growing up. Bonfire's pyrotechnic satire of 1980s New York wasn't just Wolfe's best book, it was the best bestselling fiction debut of the decade, a miraculously realistic study of an unbelievably status-mad society, from the fiery combatants of the South Bronx to the bubbling scum at the top of Wall Street. Sherman McCoy, a farcically arrogant investment banker (dubbed a "Master of the Universe," Wolfe's brilliant metaphorical co-opting of a then-important toy for boys), hits a black guy in the Bronx with his Mercedes and runs--right into a nightmare peopled by vicious mistresses, thin wives like "social x-rays," slime-bag politicos, tabloid hacks, and Dantesque denizens of the "justice" system. If the Coen and Marx brothers together dramatized The Great Gatsby, Wolfe's Bonfire would probably be funnier. Many think his second novel, A Man in Full, is deeper, but Bonfire will never die down.
You might find it interesting to compare the film The Bonfire of the Vanities, a fascinating calamity perpetrated by the geniuses Brian De Palma and Tom Hanks, with The Right Stuff, one of the very best films of the '80s. --Tim Appelo
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