The Bonfire of the Vanities: A Novel
by Tom Wolfe
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Book Summary Information
Author: Tom WolfeEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-03-04
ISBN: 0312427573
Number of pages: 704
Publisher: Picador
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780312427573
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
Book Reviews of The Bonfire of the Vanities: A Novel
Book Review: The Best Mainstream Novel of the Last Two Decades
Summary: 5 Stars
On the plus side, The Bonfire of the Vanities compares well with Balzac's stuff. I mean, the methods are similar. The story follows several very different characters living in New York, and each scene is detailed, particularized, analyzed, painted with a very fine brush. Many layers of New York's society are represented. There are no moral messages, no lessons to be learned, just life in New York in the late 'Eighties or early 'Nineties at its most intense, presented as "business as usual," with corrupt politicians, lascivious prosecutors, moronic members of the jury, conceited stock market honchos, cynical lawyers, less-than-bright policemen, political opportunists, socialites, priests, opera singers, real estate agents with five thousand dollar manicures, rich faithful wives who deserve to be strangled, only it never occurs to anyone to strangle them, mistresses on the make, petty criminals, silly immigrants, bone-headed journalists, feminists of both genders, racial and ethnic tension - and on and on. The book is really a lot of fun.
On the other hand, the opus falls just short of making its author, well, "the Balzac of our time." No scene is picturesque enough to be called cinematographic, and for a novel 800 pages long that's a bit, well, loquacious (on the author's part). The author tends to explain too much, and fits people and scenes together in such a way as to promote his own outlook, leaving the attentive reader no choice but to examine it. Upon closer examination, one realizes that Mr. Wolfe's main purpose is to show that people in general are vile, selfish, obtuse creatures (without exception); that life is a pretty ridiculous affair; and that any joy a person ever derives from living is brief, accidental, and usually comes at the expense of others. To put it plainly, THERE IS NO GOD in this novel. It was written by a fierce atheist. There is neither faith, hope, nor love in it. None. Life is algebraically plain and tedious.
(I realize I said earlier there were no moral messages in the book. There aren't any. The above is an OUTLOOK, not a message).
Literature thrives on extraordinary situations in which characters are inspired to perform extraordinary acts. The element of surprise in Wolfe's novel is purely circumstantial. Folks have no fre will in this story. (All atheists are determinists more or less by definition, I suppose).
In the past, I've had some interesting experiences related to the publication of this novel. Two years after it came out (in the early 'Nineties, I believe), the news finally reached the Philistines, and by Philistines I mean those representatives of the middle class (and, sometimes, the upper middle class; I have nothing to say about the actual upper class since no one, not even the representatives of the said class themselves, can figure out what the hell they're up to, what it is they do all day, and what their problem is) ... uh ... where was I? ... Philistines ... those representatives of the middle class that once in a while make a half-hearted effort to appear CULTURED, which, in their view, means catching a program on the History Channel once in a while and telling others that they're reading "this book, it's actually pretty good." They never seem to finish this book. I mean, they sort of struggle through the first twenty pages, and then skim through the rest, and make plans to read it properly when they visit Aruba next year, or some such. They're always too busy, they never have any "free time." One gets the impression that if they stopped being busy for a moment, civilization would just collapse and never recover. Anyway, this dude had a copy of "Bonfire" in his briefcase and was telling me (his colleague) how everybody had recommended this book to him. He was going to read it when he had some free time. He actually DID take it to Aruba (there was also a wife involved, I believe). He came back, I believe, without having finished it. A year later he died. He was a good guy, too. Reading just wasn't "his thing," as Philistines like to say.
Anyway, when "Bonfire" came out, the hype was considerable, which for me is nearly always a turn-off. And then the movie came out (which, incidentally, was far more politically incorrect than the book, and the choice of actors and actresses was just UNBELIEVABLE; I loved it). So I put off reading "Bonfire" until, oh, I don't know, maybe after 9/11. By that time, home video games had become astonishingly popular, and crime rates started dropping everywhere across the nation, including New York (for which then-Mayor Giuliani took all the credit, of course). When I finally got to read it, the novel struck me as a bit dated. Not that any issues described in it with a flourish, social and otherwise, had become a thing of the past. The overall societal set of problems had shifted a little since the novel's publication, that's all.
The story is constantly balancing on the edge of political correctness, even though it never goes beyond the boundaries, not once. Even so, few other authors would dare show a book that probes so many "untouchable," "sacred-cow" issues to an editor, and few editors would touch a book of this sort with a hundred-foot pole. The advantage of being Tom Wolfe, I suppose, is that during the decades he spent being a journalist and creating his own style (starting back in the '60's), the man gradually accustomed everyone to the fact that he says outrageous things and gets away with it. The degree of outrage has increased over the years, and today Mr. Wolfe can get away (I would imagine) with saying pretty much anything, because he knows that no one will take it (or him) seriously.
It is worth remembering, while reading this novel, that its author belongs to the glorious school of Southern authors with New York careers: the crux of American literature. God bless.
Summary of The Bonfire of the Vanities: A Novel
Vintage Tom Wolfe, the #1 bestseller that will forever define late-twentieth-century New York style. "No one has portrayed New York Society this accurately and devastatingly since Edith Wharton" (The National Review)
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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