Rating: 
Summary: Exquisite Moments
Review: I think that one of the most startling things about this novel is that, for everyone who reads it, there is a different pivotal image, a separate moment in the book which forms an axis for the work. For me, it's Sherman McCoy's phone conversation with his estranged wife, in which he talks about the days when, as he went off to work, he would turn on the street under the window where she was watching, and give the black power sign. It meant, to this white son-of-a-lawyer, that he wasn't going to get sucked into Wall Street, that he was only using it; that it wouldn't change him.Fast forward a dozen or so years, and Sherman is 38. He's one of New York's leading Bond salesman, a self-titled Master of the Universe who makes a million dollars a year (and that isn't enough), barely sees his wife, and is cheating with another man's gold-digging spouse. As a matter of fact, when we first meet Sherman, the only redeeming feature he has is that he does seem to really love his five-year-old daughter. Sherman is not the only disgusting character we find as our story opens. There's the mistress, Maria, who laughs at her husband from the confines of her sublet rent-controlled love-nest. The wife is bitchy enough to lose sympathy with the reader despite her husband's philandering. There's the alcoholic tabloid journalist, who is an expert at getting other people to pick up the tab. And there's a thinly veiled reference to the Rev. Al Sharpton, just to complete the picture. When the book opens, the only character with whom the reader can sympathize is Larry, a lawyer who chose to work in the Bronx D.A.'s office because he wants to "make a difference". And yet, the reader is sucked into the lives of these people. At first it may only be for a tittlating look at how bad bad people can be, but very soon (Wolfe doesn't tease us long) we stay to find out whether our characters will get caught for the crime they have committed; finally, we stay because we have come to admire Sherman McCoy. It is a testament to Tom Wolfe's abilities that by the end of the novel, we have come to completely different views of most of the characters in this novel. The wife isn't bitchy, she's just dissatisfied with a life that she didn't set out to get. The mistress isn't harmless, she's a viper. The reporter will print any lie to increase the drama of the crime he's uncovering; the lawyer will justify anything to catch his "Great White Defendant". Sherman begins the book by telling us that he is entitled to his penthouse, his sports car, his mistress, his Saville Row suits. He finishes it standing alone, unable to afford a lawyer and "dressed for jail". But he's standing, and once again, he's raising a fist in the air, determined to overcome.
Rating:
Summary: America's Twisted Glory
Review: In *Bonfire of the Vanities*, pop journalist Wolfe takes a sneering satirical look (from a surprisingly European point of view) at American culture and all of its absurdities and obsessions. New York is treated as the microcosm of 80s America with all of its fads, rivalries, economic woes and class inequality mixing together uneasily and then exploding. Sherman McCoy, the supremely irritating central charater, is a fresh-faced adolescent of 38 years who just doesn't get the fact that the world is a harsh, dangerous place--that is until he becomes the fall guy in a politically and racially charged scandal. Peter Fallow (by far the best character in the book)is a delightfully cynical and misanthropic British journalist who observes the parade the do-gooder activists, slick political manipulators, confused cops, thuggish cops, skeletal society ladies, urban punks, garish architecture, trash culture and trendy clubs with an acid wit and always a few stiff drinks under his belt. If they ever make a real movie out of this book (the existing one doesn't count) PLEASE get Jeremy Irons to play Fallow. Some people see this book as some kind of right-wing propaganda. It isn't. Wolfe, despite his own more or less conservative views, allows the story to tell itself without a lot of interpretation from above. Each character is a complex individual with his or her own unique motivations and mixture of vice and virtue. We spend time inside the minds and private lives of a wide variety of people and are allowed to make our own judgements about who deserves what measure of praise or blame. If there is any prejudice in the book it is against people who simplify complex issues. Wolfe's world, like the real thing, is brimming with paradox.
Rating:
Summary: A classic
Review: A contemporary classic, detailing the social dynamics of the 80s. Perfect in every way, form, function and style, it was "unputdownable".
Rating:
Summary: The Master of the Universe is Tom Wolfe
Review: I saw the bizarre trainwreck of a movie many moons ago and did not give much thought to reading the book. There are times I wonder at my own stupidity. It was only as the year 2001 dawned that I began smarten up. Why had I never read this book? Got me. Two my favorite books of recent vintage owed a debt to Wolfe (or mentioned him outright): Turn of the Century (Kurt Anderson) and Last Days of Disco (Whit Stillman). I figured maybe it was time to read the Master himself. I remember when Man in Full came out, it was as if George Washington himself had risen from the dead. Who was this guy? I consider myself quite well-educated, but it was time educate myself about Tom Wolfe. I bought the paperback. I just finished it. I'm sad because the book ended. I love anything about the '80s, but this book basically defined it. The style is priceless as are the characters. These characters, even the smaller ones, Abe Weiss, Miss Shelly Thomas, Arthur Ruskin among them, are fully formered. The book is a true masterpiece. I knew it was a satire, but came to really care about these characters, winners and losers all of them. When I took a step back I could see the brillance the names in this book, satirically speaking: The author Nunnally Voyd, the law firm Dunning, Sponget, and Leach. And on and on. Peter Fallow. I should stop here. Readers should find out these treasures on their own. The book is so great because it evokes a time not long ago yet now a memory. Wolfe brings it life again. It works at so many levels. Tragedy, farce, brillance... Don't be dumb like I was. Just go read it. You'll thank the true of Master of the Universe later.
Rating:
Summary: If you like self-destruction, this is a great book.
Review: I remember this book caused quite a stir in the late 80's. Reading it now I enjoyed it very much. It's certainly not a defining, breathtaking, world changing book (back then everyone was fawning over it) but it is quite good for what it is. I don't think the point of the book was for you to feel sorry for Sherman McCoy or anyone else for that matter, but simply to see what can happen to someone who has his life utterly destroyed. I like these stories (check out "Leaving Las Vegas") and consequently I liked this book.
Rating:
Summary: THE BEST BOOK I'VE EVER READ
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. 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 stock broker exam on the first try. Wall Street has been great to me--I have a job I love, great friends and durroundings 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.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent novel turned into a comedy
Review: New York, The Brits, the Yanks, Racism, Politics, Institutions, Money and People go all mixed up in this great book, so great that will become a classic. Impossible to put it down. So special I have no particular comments, you have to read it and judge by yourself.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent novel turned into a comedy
Review: New York, The Brits, the Yanks, Racism, Politics, Institutions, Money and People go all mixed up in this great book, so great that is a classic. Impossible to put it down.
Rating: 
Summary: Funny, but shallow
Review: I used to live in New York City, so I thought Tom Wolfe was right on target in describing its politics and different social scenes, and satirizing them. However, I couldn't relate to any of the characters; they were far too stereotypical and not enough like real people for my taste. You had your token Irish cops and pols, your token Italian pol/mafiosos, your token Upper West Side Jewish intellectual lawyers, and your token doofus WASP stockbrokers and socialites. I wouldn't be surprised if some people found these depictions insulting. Maybe I'm personalizing this, but it's also almost as if Wolfe is saying that if you don't fit any of these stereotypes, you can never be a true "hip" New Yorker. I would have found this book more interesting had the characters been much more complex.
Rating: 
Summary: In a New York state of mind
Review: Tom Wolfe's kinetic style of writing takes some getting used to. He piles words on top of words, images on top of images, flinging them all at the reader with a fastball pitch. The pitch, though, is well-thrown. Wolfe's subject is New York City during the 1980s. He touches as many groups as he can -- wealthy Upper East Side socialites, tabloid journalists, criminals and burnt-out agents of justice in the Bronx, cut-throat sleazy lawyers, unscrupulous Wall Street stockbrokers... No class of people escapes having its faults exposed in Wolfe's sharp, accurate prose. Wolfe is sociologist first, novelist second. He probes the psychology of all these disparate groups and finds a common denominator: selfishness. All people are out for themselves no matter who is destroyed along the way. At the same time he satirizes the dark side of the human experience, Wolfe makes it impossible to hate any of the characters. There is no true villain in this story. As readers, we are left with just the uncomfortable sensation of recognizing human nature's ugly parts. "How much differently would you act in this situation?" is Wolfe's implicit question. There are no easy answers.
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