“Your self…is other people, all the people you're tied to, and it's only a thread.”

High flying Wall Street bond dealer and self-styled Master of the Universe, Sherman McCoy, is conducting a clandestine affair with Maria, the sexy young wife of an ageing multi-millionaire. One evening after telling his wife that he's working late, Sherman collects Maria from the airport but, in a moment of inattention, he finds himself stuck in the wrong lane on the freeway and lost in the depths of the Bronx. As they drive around ever more frightening streets trying to find a way back to Manhattan, a young African American boy is accidentally knocked down by their car. They drive away in their panic, unaware of the injuries that the boy has suffered, and return to their insulated life within wealthy, white New York.

Sherman wants to report the incident but Maria over-rules him saying that she doesn't think that they will hear anything more about it. However, Henry Lamb, has been badly injured. Having attended hospital for treatment of a badly hurt wrist he returns home where he complains of head pains, and subsides into a coma. A radical activist in the African American community, Reverend Bacon, desperate for a crusade gets involved in the case. Bacon is determined to use Lamb's case as a cause célèbre. As demands for justice for the stricken boy gathers pace, McCoy's seemingly secure existence begins to disintegrate.

Meanwhile, Peter Fallow, a particularly odious and struggling British journalist, finds himself being given a string of exclusives about the case as the activists harness the tabloid press to forward their cause. Fallow gradually finds his fortunes waxing as McCoy's wane.

There are no heroes in this book. Everyone, except poor Henry Lamb, is seen to be tainted and self-serving to some degree. Sherman McCoy, indeed, emerges as one of the nicer characters. He at least recognises that he has, inadvertently, done something dreadful and the hollowness of his previous existence but ultimately is unable to change courses. He becomes a pitiable character incapable of choosing the correct advice to take. There are a number of other memorable characters, in particular Thomas Killian, McCoy's lawyer, and Supreme Court Justice Myron Kovitsky, all of them are flawed in some way but Wolfe only illuminates them briefly before reverting back to McCoy.

Wolfe wonderfully captures the racial tensions and jealousies between the two communities, the gilded but seemingly hollow lives of the super-wealthy but directs most of his satire against the vagaries of the American criminal justice system, where local District Attorneys and judges must seek periodic re-election against an increasingly volatile political landscape. Sherman McCoy becomes the ‘Great White Defendant’, the token box-ticking target every prosecutor yearns for.

Wolfe's writing is dazzling at times and his dialogue is fantastic. There are several funny scenes, particularly towards the end, with one in a restaurant being absolutely brilliant. All in all, I would highly recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys gripping character-driven satirical fiction but be warned the book is both long and hard to put down!

Dieser Tom Wolfe kann wirklich gut erzählen und ich bin froh, dass ich mit meinem Lesefreund Armin dieses Buchprojekt letztendlich in Angriff genommen habe. Das ist der dritte Roman des Schriftstellers und so begeistert war ich noch nie.

Im Prinzip ist dem Autor ein grandioses Sittenbild des New York der späten 80er Jahre gelungen - was er auch genau so geplant hat. Dieses umfasst die ganze Stadt, die Menschen, die darin wohnen, arbeiten und vegetieren von der Upperclass bis zum Lurch der tiefsten Gesellschaftschichten der Bronx und das erweiterte Verwaltungspersonal der checks and balances am Rande wie Legislative, Exekutive, Presse und Politik inklusive natürlich der Geschichten, die in diesem realen New York passieren.

Von der Konstruktion des Plots hat sich Wolfe aber eine innovative großartige aber ungewöhnliche Entwicklung einfallen lassen. So wie viele Schwarze auf Grund der Umstände, zur falschen Zeit am falschen Ort zu sein, zwangsläufig in vielen Vierteln quasi ohne ihr zutun in die Bredoullie kommen und vom System zermalmt werden, erwischt es diesmal einen weißen WASP Wall-Street-Heini, der komplett unschuldig zum Handkuss kommt.

Sherman McCoy, erfolgreicher Wertpapierhänder, Sproß einer angesehenen Familie, mutiert in Wolfes Setting zu einem Hiob der Wallstreet, dessen einziger Fehler es ist, als WASP seine Frau mit der falschen Geliebten zu bescheißen und zur falschen Zeit am falschen Ort zu sein. Na so alles, was viele US-Schwarze eigentlich täglich erleben. Bei einem erfolglosen Raubüberfallsversuch überfährt die Geliebte McCoys in Panik auf der Flucht einen der beiden Täter (wahrscheinlich auch einen eher unschuldigen Mitläufer, der zufällig in der Gegend herumstand).

Was dann folgt ist ein atemberaubendes Spiel, in dem jeder lügt und betrügt, dass sich die Balken biegen und jeder sein Süppchen aus politischem Kleingeld, Karriere- bzw. Geldgeilheit und Vertuschung kocht: Staatsanwalt, Presse, Polizei, der schwarze Reverend, die eigentliche Täterin, das überlebende vermeintliche Opfer (eigentlich der Räuber), neu eingesetzte Richter, die Grand Jury, sein Arbeitgeber, Immobilienmakler... . Sogar sein eigener recht bemühte Anwalt und seine Familie tricksen ihn auf gewisse Weise letztendlich aus als das Geld nicht mehr fließt. Auf der Strecke bleibt unser "Underdog", Sherman von seiner Ausgangsposition her privilegiert, der als Sündenbock für alle herhalten muss und wie mit einer Rolltreppe abwärts immer tiefer in den Sumpf unverschuldeter Kalamitäten fährt.

Sherman kann einem richtig leid tun und ehrlich gesagt tut er mir das als Person auch, als politisches Statement ist er aber grandios plaziert, denn endlich dreht mal ein Autor fiktional den Spieß um und denkt die Diskriminierung in einem grandiosen "Was wäre Wenn Spiel" mal spiegelverkehrt von der anderen Seite.

Was noch zu erwähnen ist sind die derart pointierten bis zur Bösartigkeit getriebenen Skizzierungen der zahlreichen handelnden Personen, die in Summe sowohl ein Sittenbild der Upperclass, der Wall Street und Finanzwirtschaft, des Gerichtssystems, der Politik, und der Bronx, der Religion, des Wohlfahrtssystems und natürlich der Presse ergeben. Also den Makrokosmos New York City als Moloch fand ich äußerst gut getroffen. Natürlich schreibt Wolfe episch breit, wie viele Amerikaner, aber durch die treffenden Figuren und Milieubeschreibungen habe ich mich keine Sekunde gelangweilt.

Gewürzt wird das ganze dann noch mit tiefschwarzem grotesken Humor, der sich in völlig absurden Szenen entlädt. Da ist zum Beispiel der Auftakt mit dem Dackel, der als Gassi-Geh-Alibi zum Anruf bei der Gliebten herhalten muss und ums verrecken bei dem Regen nicht hinausgehen will. Also wird der Hund dramatisch über die Fliesen durch die Lobby gezerrt (Die Filmszene mit Tom Hanks ist köstlich).

Oder die groteske Schuhputz-Szene als Göttin Karma plötzlich zurückschlägt:
"Sherman genoss es wie der Lappen gegen seine Mittelfußknochen drückte [...] dieser große, stämmige braune Mann zu seinen Füßen der ihm die Schuhe polierte, blind für die Hebel, mit denen Sherman eine andere Nation, einen anderen Erdteil bewegen konnte, alleine indem er ein paar Worte via Satellit in die Gegend schleuderte." Im Anschluss an diesen Gedanken als Sherman sich wie Gott fühlt, blickt er zu Boden und findet sein Konterfei als Beschuldigter in der täglichen Lokalzeitung, die dieser in Shermans Augen unbedeutende Schuhputzer neben seiner Arbeit liest.

Die Sterbeszene im Restaurant schlägt sowieso alles - aber jetzt bin ich still, die müsst Ihr selber lesen, denn ich will nicht zu viel spoilern.

Fazit: Das pure Lese-Vergnügen. Diese Mischung aus Gier, Macht, Politik, Vertuschung, Lüge, Geldgeilheit, Puritantertum, Snobismus, Geilheit und Testosteron gepaart mit Humor.

P.S.: Tja eigentlich eignet sich das Buch auch für meine Book2moviechallenge 2019 in der Kategorie Hollywood Blockbuster. Mal schaun, ob ich den Film auswähle

“Who but an arrogant fool would want to be a Master of the Universe?”

Reading “The Bonfire of the Vanities” was my first experience with Tom Wolfe. He had an extraordinary ease and facility with words. He is erudite without being pretentious. I also enjoyed his skill at writing chapter titles. Some examples: “Saturday’s Saturnine Lunchtime”, “The Last of the Great Smokers”, “Donkey Loyalty”. They are fun and apt to what the chapter details.
This novel primarily focuses on three men; Sherman McCoy (a creature of Wall Street, breeding & wealth), Peter Fallow (a British journalist who was brought to NYC on a cloud of high expectations and has not met them), and Larry Kramer (a self-serving assistant district attorney for the Bronx). Mr. Wolfe brings the lives of these three disgruntled and selfish residents of NYC in the 1980s together in a seamless and enjoyable method in this text.
Tom Wolfe writes the ambiguities of self-perception with a keen eye. I have yet to read an author who so expertly writes about the arrogances we ALL have about ourselves, but would never divulge to others, with such a perceptive perspective on it. This is excellently illustrated in the text when we also get the contrast of what the characters think about themselves and their qualities compared to how others see them. For instance, one character sees himself as witty and delightful company; others see him as a loud drunk. Mr. Wolfe makes it clear to the reader that the more accurate reality of these characters is the version of them that is seen through the eyes of other people.
As alluded to already, Wolfe’s characterizations are biting and frustrating in a good way. Especially harsh is his scathing satire of racial hucksters in the vein of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson through the character of Rev. Bacon. This crook who uses racial politics to steal, self-aggrandize and generally make the world a worse place for those he pretends to help made me angry to read, but its inclusion in the novel is key to the larger themes of how politics, media and class envy can pervert justice.
Having said that, although the protagonist (Sherman McCoy) is unfairly treated in this text’s conclusion (you will have to read it for yourself to see how) he almost deserves it on the grounds of his behavior. Except disgusting behavior is not illegal. It really puts the logical reader in a hard place. In chapter 14 we watch as unmitigated hubris makes a man, who knows better, make all of the wrong moves in a moment that will alter his life forever. Every wrong decision McCoy makes is prompted by his arrogance alone. He even has the unmitigated gall to think, “And whatever happened, he was morally correct (nothing to fear from God).” As if he has God’s hands tied! That one line says so much about people’s modern mentality.
My major complaint with the text is the Epilogue, written as a newspaper article published 1 year after the events of the final chapter. It is cheap and irritating. In a word, I hated it. Mr. McCoy is the only character who really pays any price for his bad choices, and since almost every male character in the text makes an abundance of bad choices, I did not like the unfairness of it. That was the point, I get it, but I did not need it. The text would have been better if it had ended at the conclusion of the final chapter.
Regardless I read this almost 700-page book in under 2 weeks and enjoyed it every time I picked it up. It is just as relevant today as it was in its publishing year, 1987. That in itself is enough to justify your attention.

Now that I've read Cosmopolis and American Psycho, I need to read this one as well!

Couldn't. Wait. For. It. To. Be. OVER.

n  "Bullshit reigns."n
The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe

A brilliant and shrewdly constructed satire of mid-1980s America, particularly NYC. The Bonfire of the Vanities is big, biting and humorous. Wolfe belted NYC/USA with jab upon jab--each simultaneously ruthless and fun--burning: the Wall St. excesses; tabloid journalism; the social set; high profile racial violence as in Howard Beach, Queens, 1986; the justice system, men's egos; insatiable sexual appetites and infidelities; politics, politicians; vigilante justice a la Bernie Goetz (who in 1982 shot a group of black men attempting to mug him on the subway) and exploitative narcissists who parade as "reverends," seeking self-promotion with fingers in the spigots flowing to and from community redevelopment.

I love E. L. Doctorow's definition of satire, that its "nature is to be one-sided, contemptuous of ambiguity, and so unfairly selective as to find in the purity of ridicule an inarguable moral truth.” Wolfe audaciously accomplished this in Bonfire, mounting a mirror in front of NYC.

The novel follows three primary characters:

Sherman McCoy, the chief character, is an arrogant WASP bond trader who lives in a expensive co-op on Park Avenue. Sherman runs into trouble when he gets lost at night in the Bronx with Maria Ruskin, his 20-something voluptuous Southern mistress.

Peter Fallow, a has-been, acarine British expat journalist, is an alcoholic trying to tread water at a NYC tabloid until fed a story about a comatose black kid, a victim of a hit-and-run in the Bronx by a white couple in a rich man's car. The Right Reverend Reginald Bacon--a mix between the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton--is trying to manipulate the tabloid into exploiting the racial aspect only. Fallow is along as more of an outside observer of the Manhattan and American culture, to wit:

"Like more than one Englishman in New York, he looked upon Americans as hopeless children whom Providence had perversely provided with this great swollen fat fowl of a continent. Any way one chose to relieve them of their riches, short of violence, was sporting, if not morally justifiable, since they would only squander it in some tasteless and useless fashion, in any event."

Last, Larry Kramer, a Jewish assistant DA assigned to the Bronx, is being pushed by the media-hogging DA to make an arrest that will make a splash for his upcoming re-election campaign.. Larry constantly questions his career path in public service and seeks recognition for something other than the obscure, low-publicity cases he prosecutes every day in the Bronx.

Nabokov observed that “satire is a lesson [and] parody is a game.” Yet, in Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe has created a splendid satire that felt like a game, in being both fun and funny, as well as an enlightening lesson on the excesses of American culture, particularly in the 1980s.

I know, I know. It is supposed to be a classic portrait of 1980's Wall Street society, and it was made into a major motion picture which brought fame and fortune to Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis, but it still stinks. The language is vulgar, the story telling is plodding and unrewarding, and the subject, immorality, is celebrated in crass manner. I read the whole thing & then couldn't think of anyone I disliked enough to give it to so tossed it in the trash where it now resides with similar junk.

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 starts down. It's overpowering hot inside. All jammed together. Aaah, aaaahh, aaaaaaah, aaaaaaaahhhh. Sherman realizes it's himself, gulping for air, himself and Quigley, too and Brucie and the other court office, the fat one. Aaaaah, aaaaahhhh, aaaaaaahhhhhh, aaaaaaahhhhhhhh, aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh.

There are many, many of those in the novel and they all make me dizzy and I want to vomit. I have been busy and a bit pressured last week and this 690-page painful-to-read novel did not help in anyway. Wolfe's writing reminds me of the many kids plays I used to share with my now in the overseas elder frugal brother:

Kuya: (while holding an old paint brush) Meron akong airplane! Wooooooo.... tsoooooong.....weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (and the paint brush flies)

Me (while holding a broken flashlight) Ako naman ay barko! Tsug tsug tsug tsug wuuuuuuuuuuuu pot pot! (and the flashlight sails)

Kuya:: (the paint brush goes near my flashlight) Bobombahin daw ng airplane ko ang barko mo para lumubog! Swisssssssh.... Ratatatatat..... KABOOOM! (and he kicks my flashlight).

Me: (i run to the kitchen and shout) Nanay, o si Kuya ......!

If I were a teenager or a lot younger, this novel The Bonfire of the Vanities (first published in 1987) could have been an enjoyable read. It tells us about New York in the 80's at the time when the racial discrimination cases were still rampant. Go to Wikipedia and read the historical background of this novel:

In 1982, there was black guy Willie Turks, who was murdered in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn and in 1986, another black guy Michael Griffith in Howard Beach, Queens. Both guys were killed by whites. In another episode was a reversal of role and it that became a subject of much media attention, white guy Bernhard Goetz became something of a folk-hero in the city for shooting a group of black men who tried to rob him in the subway.

I could make a long litany of how the characters in this novel participate in the circus trial. How the 39-y/o WASP, Yale educated, Park Avenue resident, Wall Street financier Sherman McCoy losses everything when his Mercedes car sideswipes an 18-y/o black honor student, dreaming to enter college but poor Henry Lamb. How Sherman's mistress Maria Teresa Ruskin tries to evade her responsibility (she is the driver at the time of the incident) by going to Italy. How the black preacher Reverend Bacon is planning to make money out of black communities' anti-racial sentiment. How a lowly report Peter Fallow wins the Pulitzer award by being always in the right place and time releasing scoops about the case no matter how devious are the ways he gets his information. How the second-rate District Attorney Lawrence Kramer rises to fame and fortune by manipulating the black community and turning it into a mob heckling the court proceedings. I could write a nice anti-apartheid review and use big words to express my sentiments and flatter my Goodreads friends who care to read my review.

However, I will not do that because I hate this novel. Reasons:

1. This came into a time when I was not in the mood for this kind of noisy novel. My head is dizzy from working at extended hours and reading 690-page noisy novel when I come home is a torture.

2. I could not relate to this novel's setting. I have not been to New York so I have no idea of the locale. How could Sherman missed a turn, from picking up Maria at the airport, and found themselves in the Bronx. Then they tried hard to find the Manhattan Bridge that would be their only way to go back to downtown New York. Neither do I have any idea of how Park Avenue and those high-class apartments look like.

3. I could not relate to this novel's characters. I have not been into a court and I am no lawyer. I have not had any real interactions with black people. I have not been into a trading floor. I only have Petron stocks that I bought through SSS loan many years ago and I don't know what to do with those. I have not been incarcerated but only saw those gruesome filthy pens in the movies or read in the books, recently for example in Brendan Behan's Borstal Boy.

However, because of Wolfe's writing style, I think this is one of the cases when I think a movie adaptation (1990 starring Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith and Bruce Willis - see how young they were in the book cover) will be a lot better than its book. Sounds will be real and each shriek, each bang will only last for few seconds. Unlike in the book that it lasts until you are done with the particularly scene.

I only regret the 6 days that I spent reading this long novel. However, I don't regret spending PHP30.00 (US$0.55) when I bought this in Booksale Megamall in March 2009. In fact this is one of the first 1001 books that I bought. This novel and Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit are two of the books that I almost always see when I visit any Booksale outlets. Now if you see this book and you care about New York in the 80's go and grab a copy and if you are in the mood for bang-bang non-war related noise that will linger in your ears for days, be my guest - read this book.

I HATED this book. I hate everything about it. It is the worst of everything about prosecutors and investigators. Believing the snitch! Feeding the witness the story you want to hear! And my god, the Brady and ethical violations!!! Even though Sherman is being treated unfairly, I couldn't bring myself to care because he's so loathsome. There was genuinely no one to like in this entire book. I went into it to try to appreciate the characterization and descriptions since they're supposed to be Dickensian and wonderful- but no. The writing was florid and self indulgent. This book was loathsome. It put me to sleep every single night. Never again, Tom Wolfe. Never again.

I think the thing that I took away from this the most was that everyone was so caught up in the perception of justice that they failed to try for actual justice. All of the egos, the greed, the vanity, the arrogance, the self-love, the narcissism was getting in the way.

The book is told from multiple POVs and all of them were quite nauseating. After a bit of time though, I started to see that all of these appalling POVs were actually illustrating all of these lovely qualities that pervaded the 80s in New York. Not a particularly lovely place to live. Also, the racism and bigotry were really quite difficult to stomach. I do feel that the author did a very accurate job of giving us an example of what was going through people's heads at all times. Kramer's obsession with his sternocleidomastoid muscles, McCoy his Yale chin, Fallow's journalistic brilliance, all of these things are normal warped perceptions that everyday people have.

One major curiosity I have: All of the legal people at the end had names starting with "K". Kovitsky (judge), Kramer (A.D.A.), Killian (Defense Attorney) - I just don't think this was an accident but I don't know what the purpose was.

Overall, this took a long time to read but it was incredibly good and I'm glad I read it.

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 of characters without having any understanding of the current of the times they live in. Wolfe never left me with this feeling for a moment...in fact...he crafted a history and portrait of events so snug, so thorough, that I sometimes forgot I was reading fiction.

A gourmet meal of a book.

He tardado un mes en leerme esto los 31 días que más me han lucido un sueño febril en toda mi vida. Qué decir la verdad sobre esta obra de…algo. Si me preguntaran como escribe el autor diría que como un genio y luego me cagaría encima del papel. De los libros que mas largos se me han hecho, o sea amore cada pagina lucía la piedra rosetta, no era necesario que explicarás cada sentimiento que pasa por la cabeza de cada personaje. Aun así, esto no significa que no me haya gustado, el argumento es realmente sencillo, pero con un entramado de personajes e historias cruzadas que enganchan al lector en cada capítulo. Una novela que a medias abandonarías, pero necesitas acabar por pura curiosidad y empatía hacia los personajes. Mezclando el ambiente neoyorkino de los 80-90, la alta sociedad, los intereses individuales y la corrupción junto con el egocentrismo y la arrogancia, da resultado a una muy bien elaborada narración de la caída, psicológica y financiera, de un importante agente de bolsa. No quiero entrometerme en más detalles, pues lo mejor es darse cuenta de ellos en cuánto avanzas en la novela, pero como conclusión, es una historia algo cruel pero real, asimismo con un toque de comedia, que nos enseña como todo en este mundo (el mundo de nueva york, la verdadera protagonista de la novela) está maquinado y escondido bajo un interés individual. Así pues, un libro recomendado pero que debes tomarte en calma dado lo espeso y lento que es.

Fins aquí avui amores espero us hagi agradat. Un petó de la #GataLesbiana