The Bonfire of the Vanities

Rating:
Summary: All fired up and no place to go
Review: It's not often that you could say that a book changed your life, but Tom Wolfe's BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES did just that for me. No, it's not life changing in the way that McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD is, with its glorious food for thought, hysterical passages, and extreme messages, but it did make me think on an entirely new level. I was a college drop-out doing nothing with my life and one day my sister gave me this book. I'm not a big reader but I could not put this book down. I became completely involved with the great characters in this book, young attorney, Larry Kramer, writer Peter Fallow, Reverand Reginald Bacon, and of course, Sherman McCoy. Wolfe wrote in such terrific detail that you feel as if you'd known these characters all your life. I started talking about them in conversations like they were close friends of mine. The story itself is incredible, taking you through the highs and lows of four main characters with Sherman being the tie that binds them all. Now, as for the life-changing part, I knew very little about the stock market, but after seeing the high-life that Sherman led, the luxury car, the Park Ave. Co-Op, and of course his lovely ladies, wife Judy and mistress, Maria Ruskin, I knew thats what I wanted for myself(except for the mistress, of course). So, I took a couple of classes, read a few books and I passed my stockbroker exam on the first try. Wall Street has been great to me--I have a job I love, great friends and surroundings and I met my wife at my firm. In short, I have never been happier and I have Tom Wolfe and his tale of a wealthy financier to thank. Must also recommend the DOGWOOD book by McCrae and another called A MAN IN FULL by the author of BONFIRE.

Rating:
Summary: Dark, bleak, dirty and dead
Review: I have not bothered to read the last 100 pages of this book because the firtst 450 are just filled with self-serving, hypocritical, lying ogres. Everyone is either living a lie, milking the system, or worse. If you want to read about a corrupt world, where idealism is dead, pickup this book and read away.

Rating:
Summary: Lots of great descriptive writing, not much else.
Review: The subject of The Bonfire of the Vanities is Tom Wolfe's creative and perfectly illustrative descriptive writing. For example, the author refers, in one scene, to a character wearing a "'F--k You' necktie." The main enjoyment in crawling through this 700-page beast, is awaiting each next colorfully described scene.

The marketing for this novel, and the aura that surrounds it, bills Bonfire as capturing the 80s. There were some period elements such as the media-circus of hot lawsuits. It also had scenes, such as the McCoy's offices for bond-trading, that felt 80s. But you can more efficiently immerse into that period by watching Network and Wall Street. Plus, the scenes with aristocrat McCoy and hotshot Assistant D.A. Kramer, were written in a style that reminded me of film from the 50s.

The transformation of Sherman McCoy is not well-developed. When it arrives it comes as a shock.

There is engaging drama and interesting plot, but nothing occurs of great significance. Only at one point, when a character describes an Edgar Allen Poe poem, does the novel rise above the milieu of its multiple intersecting plotlines.

The book is a large investment of your time. Do great descriptions and fun plots make it worth it? I think so, but only minimally so.

Rating:
Summary: Wildly Entertaining Social Commentary
Review: What a great book! I loved it. Wolfe expertly paints the struggle between socio-economic factions, including racial and economic unrest, among various neighborhoods and burroughs of 1980s New York City. Get a glimpse of Park Avenue luxury , inner city slumming, and working class struggles to make ends meet, and what happens when the paths of all three come crashing together.

Wolfe does an excellent job at exposing the vulnerabilities and weaknesses of all his characters without coming right out and creating a villain of anyone, proving that none of us are our worst deeds--nor our best.

Tragic and severe at times, at others hilarious and outrageous, but always astute in his powers of observation, Wolfe has created one of the must-reads for contemporary American culture.

The conclusion robs the book of 5-star status.

Rating:
Summary: It could have been a contender
Review: This formulaic novel is fast-moving (except for Chapter 15.) It also provides insights on human nature and the sociology of New York City, circa 1987.

Unfortunately, the plot breaks down near the end, in Chapter 31. The riot scene in the courtroom seems unrealistic, as does Sherman McCoy's too sudden transformation from petrified Wall Street elite to a guy ready to take on everyone in the Bronx.
The story, which progresses steadily and surely through the first 30 chapters, comes to a too easily wrought end with the equivalent of a roaring car chase rather than by bringing all of the strands of the story together at trial.

At the risk of seeming vain, and although still following the formulaic structure, I believe Wolfe would have been better served by the following outline for an ending:

The case goes to trial ... Kramer argues the State's case ... Maria Ruskin testifies against McCoy ... Roland Auburn testifies against McCoy ... Killian plays the tapes ... Judge Kovitsky discovers that Killian and McCoy have tried to get a crucial tape of a conversation between Ruskin and McCoy into evidence despite knowing it was illegally made ... Peter Fallow makes headline news of all of this and Reverend Bacon states that vindication is at hand ... just when all seems lost for McCoy,
Henry Lamb awakens from his coma, and being the honest, college-bound kid he is, testifies that Ruskin and Auburn lied about how he got hurt ... the rest of the newspapers and TV stations
in NYC jump on this news, crucifying Fallow's reporting, Bacon's posturing, and Kramer's baseless prosecution ... now comes the verdict: not guilty ... Maria Ruskin is convicted of perjury and perhaps it looks like she'll lose her fortune gained from marrying the geriatric and now-deceased Arthur Ruskin ... Auburn is also convicted of perjury, his plea deal is cooked and he is sent to Rikers for all of his prior offenses ... Fallow is fired and finished in journalism: he returns to England to rot in his alcoholic stew ... Kramer keeps the job he so hated before taking on the McCoy case, never again the star in the D.A.'s office and with even less of a chance of getting a job like the high-paying kind in a Wall Street firm he so envies; Kramer's nascent affair isn't discovered, but the girl with brown lipstick won't have anything more to do with him ... McCoy no longer must fear being thrown into Rikers, but his marriage is destroyed; McCoy's ability to regain his former stature on Wall Street and look at life from the point-of-view of an American aristocrat is irreparably compromised; McCoy's 8-year-old daughter is really the only one who still believes in him just as much as in the days when he thought himself a Master of the Universe ... can there really be any winners after The Bonfire of the Vanities?

As it is, Wolfe's novel is surely more than passable entertainment, but misses the mark as one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century because of its formulaic structure and subpar ending.

Rating:
Summary: A Modern Classic
Review: Although several reviewers have claimed that elements of this novel have dated the essence of this novel will always be relevant. True this was written pre-internet, pre-Clinton, pre 9/11 but the vanities that drive the chattering classes, so perfectly satirised by the author, are an inherent characteristic of moneyed urban dwellors anywhere on this planet. The spiralling nature of the plot complements the authors heady character descriptions and set-pieces.

I know several people who have read and hated this novel because of its ultimately bleak portrayal of humanity. I however found it marvellously uplifting (not to mention hilarious) and view the book more as a dark fable on the perils of ambition in a capitalist society. The reader should note that most of the novel's characters would be regarded as successful in their respective professional lives and that each of those characters have lost a little bit of their soul to get where they are. What Wolfe allows us to ponder is : Is this what it takes to get to the top?

Rating:
Summary: brilliant and compelling
Review: I was put off this book for quite some time because of having seen the film, but, finally decided to give it a go (despite having a paperbackl edition with the film characters on the cover...) This book is an example of what a meticulous, fearless and talented writer of prose can come up with in response to the world around him. While being a great 'page-turner' as far as plot goes, Wolfe manages, through a complex web of ironies and double ironies, to examine humanity as a social creature in a certain time and place. He deals so breath-takingly honestly with his characters that many readers might blanche, and want to point fingers at the author, something Wolfe is couragous enough to bear, obviously. He does not set himself up as a prophet - like many modern 'social-awareness' authors - and I am sure does not absolve himself from many of the 'vanities' that are examined in this book. He tries to be honest, deal honestly with his characters and, thus, his readers, which is perhaps so strange in this literary day and age that it is considered reactionary. It is not. It is a novelist. I will certainly be reading more Wolfe, who has now become my favourite living American author.

Rating:
Summary: Fast paced narrative
Review: Best description of this book is that of bridge between the genre novels and literature. It is not very good literature nor is it as bad (some might say less interesting) as genre novels. The characters and character descriptions are overstated and could very well have been written by anyone after reading 10-15 crime thrillers. The redeeming feature of this book is the work Tom Wolfe put into collecting a lot of information about a particular period in a particular city, varying from inner-city housing projects, jail cells, attorney's offices and high society life.

The story is that of a fundamentally decent white male getting caught up in a minor traffic accident and getting exploited by the society around him. A criticism I have is that the characters who donot belong to the traditionally wealthy (means non WASP men according to the author) are portrayed as upstarts resentful of old wealth and wanting to bring them down to their level. For some reason there is not a single character in this book who want to rise up and be equal to the traditionally wealthy by honorable means.