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The Bonfire of the Vanities

3.72 of 5 stars 3.72 · rating details · 29,129 ratings · 1,316 reviews

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...more

Paperback, 656 pages

Published October 30th 2001 by Dial Press Trade Paperback (first published 1987)

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Nov 19, 2012 Rajat Ubhaykar rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

This book was a refreshing change from the introspective, thoughtful books I'd been reading. It had been a while since a book had me glued to the bed all day, lying on my right side or lying on my left side, with the A/C turned on or with the A/C turned off, wearing my shirt or not wearing my shirt, with the book in hand or without the book in hand, marveling at a particular turn of phrase or dreaming about juicy jugs and loamy loins (a Wolfism). This lengthy novel at 700 pages was a page turner...more This book was a refreshing change from the introspective, thoughtful books I'd been reading. It had been a while since a book had me glued to the bed all day, lying on my right side or lying on my left side, with the A/C turned on or with the A/C turned off, wearing my shirt or not wearing my shirt, with the book in hand or without the book in hand, marveling at a particular turn of phrase or dreaming about juicy jugs and loamy loins (a Wolfism). This lengthy novel at 700 pages was a page turner to say the least and this wasn’t because the plot was wildly inventive or the characters were oh-so-adorable. I turned the pages for Wolfe. Oh, bloody Wolfe!

Reading Tom Wolfe’s prose is akin to subjecting your nostrils to heavy grey diesel fumes from the rear end of an ancient goods carrier truck; acidic, overwhelming but also strangely, perversely pleasant if you are inclined towards such guilty pleasures.

He is a lyrical impressionist. He uses unconventional adjectives and innovative phrases which make sense only at the end of a sentence. And then too, not completely. You only have the impression of what he means. A very fertile impression I sowed and watered to reap a colorful picture of 1980s America.

He possesses the elusive qualities of an excellent satirist, that of unsparing, sharp observation. In other words, he is the reigning king of the suave smartasses. He brandishes a sword from his slovenly sheath every time he introduces a character and cuts him into delicious little literary pieces until all that is left behind is the most shameful of desires and the most hideous of hypocrisies. As a result, most of his characters seem like arrogant, selfish little twits at the outset. It is one of Tom Wolfe’s great achievements as an author that by the end of the book, he had me sympathizing with most of them. It’s not their fault they are that way. We are all hypocritical, we are all terrifyingly materialistic. We’re all the tightest of assholes. Our inner worlds are equally fucked up. These are the just the ones he chose to write about, the news-worthy assholes. But it is in no outright cynical vein that he writes about these buggers. He finds them endearing, these cogs and kings scrambling for their own wants, using each other shamelessly. Quid pro quo. The New York spirit of bonhomie.

The Bororo Indians, a primitive trible who live along the Vermelho River in the Amazon jungles of Brazil, believe that there is no such thing as a private self. The Bororos regard the mind as an open cavity, like a cave or a tunnel or an aracade, if you will, in which the entire village dwells and the jungle grows. In 1969 Jose M.R. Delgado, the eminent Spanish brain physiologist, pronounced the Bororos correct. For nearly three millennia, Western philosophers had viewed the self as something unique, something encased inside each person’s skull, so to speak. “Each person is a transitory composite of materials borrowed from the environment.” said Delgado. The important word was transitory, and he was talking not about years but about hours. He cited experiments in which healthy college students lying on well-lit but soundproofed chambers, wearing gloves to reduce the sense of touch and translucent goggles to block out specific sights, began to hallucinate within hours.

This excerpt merely hints at it and the title pretty much screams it out, but The Bonfire Of The Vanities is a lesson in humility, it’s underlying theme being the lack of control we exercise over our lives irrespective of our wealth, intelligence, power or success, its distilled message being “The Man can get to you before you can get your pants on.” It’s an examination of the axes of conflict that run through a society; class, caste, language, religion and gender. Through its characters, it irreverently assesses the different realities we partake of, how our prejudices and our beliefs which no matter how we justify it, are nothing but a product of our station in society. Man is inseparable from his environment, says Wolfe in loud, clear, refreshingly original words.

We have the protagonist: bond trader Sherman McCoy, self-titled Master Of The Universe, star asshole of Pierce and Pierce, an exclusively white Wall Street firm. He is wedged between a Social X Ray wife whom he despises not-so-secretly (he can drop a ball from the top of her head and hit the floor without encountering anything in between) and a Southern Lemon Tart endowed with luscious lips, undulating hips and exuberant breasts. After a clandestine meeting with his Lemon Tart at the airport, he mistakenly drives into the Bronx. Mean kids Pimp Roll down its grimy streets at night and men beat their wives with glorious abandon, certainly not a place for an eminent upstanding citizen like himself to be loitering around after sundown. A stray tire is thrown in the way of his shiny Mercedes and he screeches and skids the car to a halt. A fierce scuffle ensues after two African-American boys slouch suggestively towards their car. As they make their sweet escape from this attempted carjacking (so they think), his mistress runs down one of the boys. None of them bother to inform the police hoping the thing will magically disappear. Of course it doesn’t.

The aftermath is a circus courtroom trial that takes us through the lives and minds of an ensemble cast of characters firmly hitched to the wagon on their individual roads to greater success; a seedy alcoholic journalist Peter Fallow looking for the big scoop to revive his sagging career; a Bronx assistant district attorney with rippling muscles and an inferiority complex Larry Kramer; canny black political leader Reverend Reginald Bacon; all of whom gleefully use this incident to further their own selfish interests. Through these characters, Wolfe writes about a selfish, behind-the-back—badmouthing America obsessed with image. He cuts through the gloss and grime and reveals the petty minds of rich folk, poor folk, White folk, Black folk, Irish folk, Jewish folk, people who say doesn’t, people who say don’t, people who say tawkin’, people who call Sherman Shuhmun, bros who Pimp Roll, people who laugh hack hack hack hack, people who go heh heh heh heh, people who go ho ho ho ho, people who go haw haw haw haw. Ah, but then it's all so funny ain't it? Wolfe certainly makes it seem so.
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Mar 02, 2012 Shovelmonkey1 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: yuppies and lemon tarts

Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by: 1001 books list

Shelves: 1001-books, bookcrossing-books, kitten-squishers, read-in-2012

Bonfire of the Vanities is not so much one massive pyre but several large and closely situated camp-fire like conflagrations.

Conflagration 1: Master of the Universe, bond baron and archetypal WASP Sherman McCoy, has reached the top of his particular tree and is enjoying the view from on high while ensuring that his chin is always seen at the right angle. It is nice being at the top of things because well, lets face it, no one wants to be at the bottom. The problem with being at the top of the t...more Bonfire of the Vanities is not so much one massive pyre but several large and closely situated camp-fire like conflagrations.

Conflagration 1: Master of the Universe, bond baron and archetypal WASP Sherman McCoy, has reached the top of his particular tree and is enjoying the view from on high while ensuring that his chin is always seen at the right angle. It is nice being at the top of things because well, lets face it, no one wants to be at the bottom. The problem with being at the top of the tree is that there is always someone eager to knock you down. In Sherman's case his particular tree is on Wall Street which means that there is a pack of suited and suspendered wolves baying at the bottom of the tree and even if they can't knock Sherman down themselves, well at least they'll be in line for a tasty treat when he eventually falls. And fall Sherman does. Although admittedly he does aid and abet his own downward trajectory by stepping out on the thinnest possible limb and has an ill-concealed affair with a high class floozy who bangs about more than a barn door in a high wind. Add into the mix a hit-and-run after a wrong turning in the Bronx and it is surely game over Sherman.

Conflagration 2: Hot on his heels, in pursuit of justice for the underdog and a quick lay, is Jewish Assistant D.A Larry Kramer, a man whose ego is a lot bigger and brain is sadly a lot smaller than his sternocleidomastoid muscles. But that is not going to deter him from making a big name for himself in the Bronx. And why should he want to make a name for himself? A pay rise so he can continue to provide for his wife and child? Nope he's all about bagging himself a date with the girl with the brown lipstick (it is little details like this that remind you this book was set in the 1980s). Sadly its a case of non cogito ego sum for Mr Kramer.

Conflagration 3: Pitching in at ringside for the Bronx is Reverend Reginald Bacon, black activist, money spinner and all round voice for the people. He wants many things, among them £350,000 in tax free money from the Episcopalian church which he is in no hurry to return and justice for poor young Henry Lamb, the victim of the hit and run (or more accurately, some careless reversing). Bacon is probably the most canny of all the players and while he doesn't get what he wants, he comes of lightly toasted and not totally roasted.

Completing the racially and economically diverse, self-serving quartet of protagonists is

Conflagration 4: Peter Fallow, the seedy Brit hack who is shallower than a paddling pool. Fallow has lost his literary mojo and allows himself to be manipulated through the coverage of the McCoy case as a way of reinvigorating his career. His all time personal highlight is when Arty Ruskin, aged socialite and man about town dies at the dinner table of a high-end eatery while he's in the process of interviewing him. Shallow Fallow refuses to pay the bill, scoops the death story as an exclusive and outs the staff as heartless bastards who stepped over the dead man to carry on serving exclusive yuppie mini food. Fallows end game is a new blazer and a Pulitzer and he gets both so he's probably the real winner.

The principle characters in this book are all men. The women are either Lemon Tarts (slutty blondes), mistresses (normally a Lemon Tart), gold diggers, Social X-rays (ageing, thinning over-toned skeletons in designer garb who were once Lemon Tarts) or the stay at home, expanded-ass, drab house frau. Ladies, in this respect you may not find a lot to love. On the other hand you can watch the gentlemen make fools of themselves which is fairly good value for money.

On the whole I zipped through this book faster than a yuppie in a Porsche 911 and much like being in a Porsche it was quite a nice ride. Slick, shiny and satisfying. The end was a bit of a cop out though and I am not sure that I approve. If I had to summarise this book, I'd say that this is what American Psycho wants to be when it grows up.(less)

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Jan 16, 2012 Noce rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: narrativa-americana

Ove la recensionista si rianima e decide che potrebbe ancora diventare qualcuno.

Ok sono pronta:

prima guardate questa foto.

http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/ab...

Ora questa.

http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/ab...

Ora quest’altra.

http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/ab...

Chi è l’intruso?

Troppo difficile? Ok, cercherò di rendervi il gioco più facile.

Un attimo che mescolo le carte. Non guardate eh?

Ok, potete girarvi. Prima foto:

http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/ab...

Adesso guardate questa:

http://i87 ...more

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Jun 28, 2010 K.D. Oliveros rated it 1 of 5 stars

Recommended to K.D. by: 100 Must Read Books for Men; 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006 to 2010)

Shelves: 1001-core, guy-lit

This book is noisy. Too noisy that it makes it painful to read. The characters are always talking as if they are all suffering from dialog diarrhea. Not only that. Wolfe likes to capture every single sound from either human or non-human entities in the novel. Take this as an example:

Haw haw haw haw haw haw haw, sang the Towheaded Tenor...Hack hack hack hack hack hack hack, sang Inez Bavardage....Hock hock hock hock hock hock hock hock hock hock hock, bawled his own wife.

or this:

The elevator star...more

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Jul 02, 2007 Chelsea rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wow. I started off feeling very lukewarm about this one, mostly because I couldn't get over my distaste for some of the characters. But about 100 pages in I started to feel confused about whom I actually felt sympathetic toward (the only truly good character never gets to speak). 200 pages in, I couldn't stop reading anymore. This book is hilarious in a bitter and infuriating way. It's a study of how people will use each other and not even notice how they are routinely used by other people until...more

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Jan 29, 2012 Joy H. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-a-while-ago, watched-film-too, adapted-to-film

Added 1/2/11.
While reviewing my GR shelves, I realized that I had read this book quite a while ago, but failed to include in my GR list of books read. I remember enjoying the book. I also remember that, as usual, the movie didn't come up to the book, for me.

January 29, 2012:
As to the meaning of the book title "Bonfire of the Vanities",
GR member, Margaret [ http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/13... ] sent me a message which said the following about the title:
=======================================...more

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Jan 18, 2009 Chris rated it 1 of 5 stars

Dear Mr. Wolfe,

While I agree that your insistence upon wearing your white suits incessantly allows you to cut a rather eccentric figure, and while I too would have relished the opportunity to cavort with the Merry Pranksters while remaining resolutely sober--in short, sir, as much as I respect and admire your air of debonair Protestant abstemiousness--I must protest. Your prose is by turns flavorless and overbearing, and your endless and unnecessary recourse to ellipsises and the exclamation poi...more Dear Mr. Wolfe,

While I agree that your insistence upon wearing your white suits incessantly allows you to cut a rather eccentric figure, and while I too would have relished the opportunity to cavort with the Merry Pranksters while remaining resolutely sober--in short, sir, as much as I respect and admire your air of debonair Protestant abstemiousness--I must protest. Your prose is by turns flavorless and overbearing, and your endless and unnecessary recourse to ellipsises and the exclamation points in your delineations of interior monologue is frankly amateurish. This is, of course, to say nothing of the lamentable content that this jake-legged prose trots across the page--the less said about that, the better. Honestly, I expected more from someone of your stock.

Upon picking up your intriguingly titled (alas, the titles that sing, but what wastelands between the covers!) first foray into fiction, I must admit I had my reservations. Upon the publication of I Am Charlotte Simmons, I had (how could one not?) seen your body raked over the smoldering coals of public opinion by the ink-stained hands of rough journalists. But, I reasoned, what man holds the right to excoriate his fellow who, with the daring and panache of intrepid explorers past (Cousteau, Hillary, and Shackleton among them), plunges head first into that swirling dross known laughably as "youth culture," for the anthropological benefit of his peers? And, I mused, if he got it wrong, if he, perhaps, took literary license that was perceived as misrepresentation, who gives a shake about the just representation of these feral children with their boom-bap, boom-bap music?

Alas, my trepidation proved well-founded. This book--your prose,the flaccid arc of its plot, your graceless stabs at the Dickensian--bored me straight to tears. Perhaps, sir, if there is to be a Bonfire of the Vanities, I submit to you that it should be one fueled by a tower of your books--whose ashes, sir, I would gladly wipe upon your blanched lapel.

Gravely,
A Reader (less)

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Apr 16, 2013 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-contemporary-lit

A hilarious and damning indictment of Wall Street, the media, the criminal justice system, and, well, America. Every element of Tom Wolfe’s novel is virtually flawless--an engrossing plot, memorable scenes, a conversational style of writing replete with sardonic wit, themes both overt and subtle... and the characters, ah, the characters.

Wolfe’s talent lies, I think, in his ability to paint such tragic, deeply flawed characters in a comical yet sympathetic light. The characters are written so viv...more A hilarious and damning indictment of Wall Street, the media, the criminal justice system, and, well, America. Every element of Tom Wolfe’s novel is virtually flawless--an engrossing plot, memorable scenes, a conversational style of writing replete with sardonic wit, themes both overt and subtle... and the characters, ah, the characters.

Wolfe’s talent lies, I think, in his ability to paint such tragic, deeply flawed characters in a comical yet sympathetic light. The characters are written so vividly that they come alive on the page, more like “real people” than most novels. At the center of the novel are three men—Sherman McCoy, unrepentant Wall Street asshole; Peter Fallow, unjustifiably snooty British expatriate journalist and alcoholic extraordinaire; and Larry Kramer, conceited yet insecure assistant district attorney. Even the secondary characters are real and fully fleshed out, especially the scruffy lawyer, Tommy Killian—who, I have to admit, I couldn’t help envisioning as Saul “Better Call Saul” Goodman from Breaking Bad.

The novel’s plot is elegant, like a recipe where multiple and complex ingredients unexpectedly yet inevitably come crashing together to form an entirely new, more complete, more perfect flavor. Even the smallest slices of this story are delicious. Naturally, I have yet to read a dinner party scene in a novel where the very idea of dinner parties themselves--and each of their inane components, including host and attendee alike--weren’t being completely eviscerated, but never has the disembowelment been done so well as in this novel. Nor have I before read such a mirthful and sarcastic description of a funeral. Nor such an effective condemnation people worrying about “what’s in fashion this season”--from desserts to shoes, as if it actually f**cking matters.

And all of this, and more, was felt and experienced viscerally through the characters (even some of whom I despised), making the reading experience seem all the more real. Reading this book, I inhabited in Wolfe’s New York so completely that I felt a real sense of loss as I turned the last page.

Like many of the great masterpieces of the 1980s--Oliver Stone’s Wall Street and Michael Lewis’s Liar’s Poker come to mind--this work is both of its time and yet timeless. It is a world we still live in, perhaps the one we always will: a world of social pretentiousness and superficiality, of classism and unfairness, of luck and injustice, of comedy and tragedy. This is one of the great works of literature of the last quarter of the 20th Century—and it also has the rare virtue of being entertaining as hell. I can’t recommend this one enough.(less)

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Oct 27, 2008 Jason rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I finished this last night, and I've been mulling it over all day. On the one hand, Wolfe is a talented writer, capable of creating vivid, visceral scenes. On the other hand, he relies on a lot of crutches, most notably the ellipsis-riddled paragraph to represent the frenzied thoughts of a person in panic.

Wolfe does a remarkable job of creating a bunch of horrible characters who we nonetheless end up having some positive feelings for at the end of the story. However, the reason we end up sympath...more

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Aug 06, 2007 Thorir2007 rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: this is the SECOND part of my review of this book

Shelves: greatbooks

(continued from the First Part of the review of this book, as the site controls tell me it's too long, blah-blah-blah)

Literature thrives on extraordinary situations in which characters are inspired to perform extraordinary acts. The element of suprise in Wolfe's novel is purely circumstantial. In his story, people have no free will. (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. Tw...more (continued from the First Part of the review of this book, as the site controls tell me it's too long, blah-blah-blah)

Literature thrives on extraordinary situations in which characters are inspired to perform extraordinary acts. The element of suprise in Wolfe's novel is purely circumstantial. In his story, people have no free will. (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 lukewarm (half-assed, to put it plainly) effort to appear CULTURED, which, in their view, is about catching a program on the History Channel once in a while and telling others that they're reading "this book, it's actually very good." They never seem to finish that book (whatever it happens to be), for some reason. 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; there's never any free time. One would think that if they stopped being busy for a moment, civilization would just fall apart forever. Anyway, this dude had a copy of "Bonfire" in his briefcase and was telling me (his colleague) how everybody recommended this book to him and all. He was going to read it when he was less busy. He actually DID take it to Aruba with him (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.

(concluded in the THIRD part of my review of this book ... THUNDER AND LIGHTNING! ... )
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Dec 25, 2012 John rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: re-read

I liked it. Even though 25 yrs old it still has relevance. Misinterpretations, the media, being stuck in a meat grinder, the justice systems, elitism. A fast read.

"And in that moment Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later. For the first time he realized that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps, love, adop...more

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Dec 22, 2008 Anthony rated it 2 of 5 stars

Unlikeable characters. I had no interest in city politics, tabloid journalism, park avenue or criminal law, an exhausting read with too much detail, too much scenery yet Great book, Great story, great read!
Well written, the heart of the book has a sound purpose, a fun read in spite of itself.

Wolfe did detailed research and drew on his own experiences as hedge fund investor. He wrote the book in serial installments for Rolling Stone and then rewrote it again (two years to rewrite) because he was...more

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Oct 22, 2008 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I had a friend who said that in the future when people point to a movie and say, "That's what the '80s were like, they'll point to Oliver Stone's "Wall Street." That's what I think about this book.

A bonds trader hits and kills a guy in a scary neighborhood and then runs scared. What's more '80s than that? It's got greed, excess, and Bernard Goetz all rolled into one.

I actually got to hear Tom Wolfe talk about this book while I was in college in the mid-'80s. He wrote it as a serial in Rolling S...more

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Jul 06, 2008 Holly Goguen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Holly by: hollygoguen@gmail.com

Shelves: literature, goguen-bookclub

After reading a few books recently by first-time authors, I felt like I stumbled into the definition of mastery with this book.
It's thick and deeply descriptive, so visceral.... and the language is amazing. Wolfe captures accents so deliciously well that you find yourself speaking the words along with the characters....to blend yourself into the sound environment with them.

I've never been so grateful for tightly woven backgrounds and stages so artfully set. I hate being plopped into the lives...more

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Oct 11, 2007 Bennett Cohen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book on vacation and it proved to be a great read for airplanes and beaches. I even bought most of the philosophical digressions and found myself mulling over some of the ideas Wolfe works in about self and society.

My only substantial gripe was the ending. Up until the last 80 pages or so the story seemed so realistic and I found the ending and epilogue pretty absurd.

Nonetheless, a great New York story. Wall Street Powerhouses, Crack-Dealers, Rent Control-- what more could you ask? I...more

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Jan 06, 2008 Rachel C. rated it 4 of 5 stars

I suppose I'll date myself by posting this part, but I remember taking the subway into Manhattan and looking up and seeing just about everyone reading a copy of this book. It was almost a zeitgeist of the book talking about the zeitgeist. The of the moment need to capture the moment. The book was long, it rambled at times, but it captured a New York that no longer exists buried under a Disney-fied exterior and bloated building projects. I read a recent interview with Tom Wolfe where he said that...more

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Jan 23, 2009 Shari rated it 5 of 5 stars

Last year, I read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, but I was interested to see how Wolfe applies new journalism techniques to fiction. (Perhaps this is silly, given that the whole premise of "new journalism" was to take the techniques OF fiction and apply them TO journalism...) I bought my copy, used, for $4.50 and figured that given the disastrous economic climate and the frustration we peons have all felt toward greedy CEOs, what better time to read it?

Truly, I sympathized with Sherman McCoy a...more

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Apr 13, 2013 Nikolai Kim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: great-america

I'd like to dismiss Bonfire of the Vanities as no more than entertainment. Certainly, one imagines that the true substance of the story resides in the epilogue, which is all too brief: What was Sherman McCoy's experience of his horrific descent into defeat? We see the decline but not the bottom.

This is disappointing because Thackeray, who is Wolfe's model, at least bothered to show us Barry Lyndon after his crisis. Life continues even after defeat, and if lessons are learned only in retrospect...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Simon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Gripping and hugely enjoyable satire on Wall Street excess and the politics of class and race. Written nearly thirty years ago, it felt surprisingly fresh to me. Depressingly so, in fact, as it’s pretty clear that little has changed in Mammon’s engine rooms in all that time. If anything, the sexual transgressions of Sherman McCoy and his chums (traditional extra-marital affairs, ditching the old wife for a younger one) seem almost courtly compared to what these tosspots get up to nowadays in the...more

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Feb 09, 2013 Mikey B. rated it 5 of 5 stars

This novel still reads well and remains topical after more than twenty-five years. Mr. Wolfe handles confrontations with great verve and wit – these are confrontations between very distinct groups of people – bankers, district attorneys, ghetto thugs, preachers, journalists, detectives... Mr. Wolfe also perpetuates tremendous momentum through-out this six hundred page book.

His observations of society through these different class groups are astute. For instance the detectives are bewildered by t...more

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Dec 15, 2012 Guy rated it 1 of 5 stars

This was one of the few books I've read because of the chit chat around it. The movie, which I felt had potential but which I thought was ultimately a directorial failure, was the final element that brought me to pick this book up. I was curious at how the movie failed and needed to read the book to see if my impression that it was a directorial failure was accurate or not. My reading that book did not answer that question with any certainty because BotV has become one of the touch stone books m...more This was one of the few books I've read because of the chit chat around it. The movie, which I felt had potential but which I thought was ultimately a directorial failure, was the final element that brought me to pick this book up. I was curious at how the movie failed and needed to read the book to see if my impression that it was a directorial failure was accurate or not. My reading that book did not answer that question with any certainty because BotV has become one of the touch stone books marking me as an outsider to the society within which I live. Its award winning popularity is a complete mystery to me. Poorly written, it has uninteresting characters and characterization espousing a heavy handed superficial morality — sort of. My few observations of Wolfe in book interviews did not in any way dissuade me that he is an overrated wind-bag, filled with ego and hubris and little of what I would consider critical intelligence. It struck me that he was an apologist for American hegemony both domestic and foreign.

So, with that in mind it was with surprise and even fascination that I read a Tom Wolfe encomium of American domestic practices under Reagan get severely castigated by Noam Chomsky. In his satirically way, Chomsky basically puts Wolfe's social commentary into the ranks of the rantings of a delusional apologist for the greed-based policies that successfully impoverished the majority to the benefit of the very few. So, in a perversion of a 'proper' book review, here is a taste of Chomsky chastising Tom Wolfe — note, I hadn't even heard of Chomsky before reading BotV:

...
What the [economic] "paradox" [in 1992 of a 'Weak Economy but Strong Profits'] entails for the general population is demonstrated by numerous studies of income distribution, real wages, poverty, hunger, infant mortality, and other social indices. A study released by the Economic Policy Institute on Labor Day, 1992, fleshed out the details of what people know from their experience: after a decade of Reaganism, "most Americans are working longer hours for lower wages and considerably less security," and "the vast majority" are "in many ways worse off" than in the late 1970s. From 1987, real wages have declined even for the college educated. "Poverty rates were high by historic standards," and "those in poverty in 1989 were significantly poorer than the poor in 1979." The poverty rate rose further in 1991, the Census Bureau reported. A congressional report released a few days later estimates that hunger has grown by 50 percent since the mid-1980s to some 30 million people. Other studies show that one of eight children under 12 suffers from hunger, a problem that reappeared in 1982 after having been overcome by government programs from the 1960s. Two researchers report that in New York, the proportion of children raised in poverty more than doubled to 40 percent, while nationwide, "the number of hungry American children grew by 26 percent" as aid for the poor shrank during "the booming 1980s"—"one of the great golden moments that humanity has ever experienced," a spokesman for the culture of cruelty proclaimed (Tom Wolfe Boston Globe February 1990).

The impact is brought out forcefully in more narrowly-focused studies; for example, at the Boston City Hospital, where researchers found that "the number of malnourished, low-weight children jumped dramatically following the coldest winter months," when parents had to face the agonizing choice between heat or food. At the hospital's clinic for malnourished children, more were treated in the first nine months of 1992 than in all of 1991; the wait for care reached two months, compelling the staff to "resort to triage." Some suffer from Third World levels of malnutrition and require hospitalization, victims of "the social and financial calamities that have befallen families" and the "massive retrenchment in social service programs" (Boston Globe September 8, 25, 1992). By the side of a road, men hold signs that read "Will Work for Food," a sight that recalls the darkest days of the Great Depression. (Year 501: The Conquest Continues p280-1).

I am being a little mean here, I fully acknowledge. But in the few Wolfe interviews I saw, I found myself becoming angry that a bad writer was being heralded as a visionary and truth seeker to be paraded by the media in their campaign to mis-represent the extent of income polarity and impoverishment that is the direct result of American policies that are benefiting very few, but doing so to a staggering degree(less)

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Aug 14, 2012 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars

All the recent hit and runs in Pittsburgh made me start thinking about this book. In this book, a rich white dude gets off the wrong exit in New York, gets scared, accidentally hits and kills a black kid and runs. The rest of the book is about the racial deal this becomes, told with a few main characters from different angles.

When I first read it, I checked out a hardcover copy from the library that contained an amazing foreward by the author. I liked the book so much I bought the paperback, whi...more

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Jun 23, 2012 Ritu rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

I listened to the Bonfire of the Vanities unabridged audiobook read by Joe Barrett and was spellbound. The story is very engrossing and captivated my attention keeping me awake during the long 4+ hours drive each way from NJ to DC and back.
Sherman McCoy, a Wall Street bonds dealer, on top of the world, has a fabulous income, work, home, wife, 6 year old daughter and lives on Park Avenue. He also has a mistress,Maria, who happens to be married herself. Everything is fine until one day, when Sherm...more

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Mar 27, 2012 Tom Barry rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. The cliche couldn't put it down applies, though it is a little overlong, has too many sub-plots, and loses pace at times. But the central plot, how a white New York trader has his life devastated after a chance encounter when he makes a wrong turn into a bad neighbourhood and apparently has a collission with a young black boy, is so gripping that i just kept reading. Wolfe doesn't really do heroes, but i was totally engaged in the tale of Sherman McCoy, although not a...more

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Mar 07, 2012 Kwame rated it 4 of 5 stars

"'Holy fucking shit!" shouted the Yale men and the Harvard men and the Stanford men. "Ho-lee fucking shit.' How these sons of the great universities, these legatees of Jefferson, Emerson, Thoreau, William James, Frederick Jackson Turner, William Lyons Phelps, Samuel Flagg Bemis, and the other three name giants of of American Scholarship-how these inheritors of the lux and the veritas now flocked to Wall Street and to the bond-trading room of Pierce and Pierce! How the stories circulated on every...more

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Feb 06, 2012 Jarod Reyes rated it 3 of 5 stars

Wolfe certainly deserves some credit as a pioneer of journalistic-style novels, but this book really left me wanting. I couldn't help but feel that in his effort to highlight the motives of his characters, and the cost of getting what one wants, he minimized all the realness of them, leaving caricatured Freudian shells of people. Think about the worst people in the book, base-drives dictate all of their actions, there is no awareness of "the other" or an desire to ascend from their bottomless se...more

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Oct 29, 2011 Colleen rated it 4 of 5 stars

A few years ago, during the "Duke Lacrosse case" people speculated that Wolfe's "I am Charlotte Simmons," which described sexual promiscuity of a lacrosse player, was set at Duke.
Maybe.
But The Bonfire of the Vanities captures much of the feeling of being on campus at that time. The protagonist, a wealthy white man, was doing something he shouldn't have been doing - but is accused of something he didn't quite do. People can't resist the narrative of the privileged white male committing a crime...more

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Oct 04, 2011 Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This story is gripping, a quintessential page-turner, with multiple story lines weaving together quite well. Once you start, you'll hurry towards the finish. That said, it's quite long, and while it never feels torpid, it does feel as though the story could have been told in less time, in fewer pages.

Further, nearly 25 years later, the work feels more than a bit dated. It is deeply rooted in the ostentatious 80s, the decade of "Me". As such, it provides a useful chronicle, but it also becomes ha...more This story is gripping, a quintessential page-turner, with multiple story lines weaving together quite well. Once you start, you'll hurry towards the finish. That said, it's quite long, and while it never feels torpid, it does feel as though the story could have been told in less time, in fewer pages.

Further, nearly 25 years later, the work feels more than a bit dated. It is deeply rooted in the ostentatious 80s, the decade of "Me". As such, it provides a useful chronicle, but it also becomes hard to relate to. As well, New York City has changed greatly since then, with crime and squalor greatly diminished.

Nearly all the characters in the story are appalling, with Wolfe skewering everyone and everything - the preening of socialites, the accents of everyone, and so much more. The reader is forced to wonder where his sympathies should lie, and the only reasonable answer seems to be "with the truth". Unfortunately, this leads to a depressing, albeit perhaps realistic conclusion.

Multiple reviews in the book itself refer to the comedy of the book, but I found Wolfe's writing to be more bitter than satirical. He seems to hate these characters, and everything they stand for. He burns their world down around them, which could be enjoyable, but the characters don't really seem to deserve this.

---Spoilers below---

I found the ending very unsatisfying. Initially, after having his case dismissed (a victory!), McCoy seems to suffer some sort of mental break. He's given up his very being, and seems to want the mob to kill him.

If the reader roots for the truth to come out, he will be disappointed. It does come out, in a disheartening fashion (perjury to counter perjury), but even then, it helps little. Again, perhaps this is realistic, but it's also depressing.

In the epilogue, things get worse. McCoy is mired in legal problems, despite his desire to generally do the right thing, and Killian is no longer representing him. Maria has gotten off scot-free despite her crime and subsequent perjury. Weiss is still in power, having been re-elected, and Bacon seems stronger than ever. Judge Kovitsky, who did the right thing, has lost his job. The loathsome Fallow has won a Pulitzer, and Lamb has finally succumbed to his injuries. At best, one can take solace in the fall of the increasingly-crooked ADA Larry Kramer.(less)

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Sep 29, 2011 Kate rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics, american-literature

My first time with Wolfe, and it was very enjoyable as a story and a commentary on society. I chose this one because in reading about The Emperor's Children, a reviewer compared it in passing to the Bonfire of the Vanities.

The book was written in 1987, when I was 7, and nearly a quarter century later, so much of it still rings true. The only things that might change would be the prices (I doubt a 20 room Park Avenue apartment could be had for a mere $3 million today), and perhaps the fashions d...more

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Sep 05, 2011 Lindsay Allison rated it 4 of 5 stars

Tom Wolfe's books always impress me, and The Bonfire of the Vanities is definitely one of his best works, studying American culture and human behavior through the lens of a criminal trial in New York City.

Sherman McCoy is the main character of the book, but the book also follows the Bronx assistant District Attorney and a newspaper reporter, whose fates intertwine with Sherman's after he is entrenched in the court case. Interestingly, the only true protagonists in the book, the Lamb family, are...more

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About Tom Wolfe

Wolfe was educated at Washington and Lee Universities and also at Yale, where he received a PhD in American studies.

Tom Wolfe spent his early days as a Washington Post beat reporter, where his free-association, onomatopoetic style would later become the trademark of New Journalism. In books such as The Electric Koolaid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and The Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe delves into...more

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“Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later... that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life. ~Tom Wolfe” — 10 people liked it

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