Well well, I find I never reviewed this one. It wooshed back into my mind yesterday when I came across the hangover scene in Lucky Jim – Tom Wolfe was clearly trying to go one better with the various hangover scenes suffered by his slimy English journalist character. This is something that happens in art. You like a thing, could be a movie or a novel, and then you find a chunk of it was an artful homage or riff on or nod toward or blatant ripoff of something you hadn’t come across yet. I would give you ten examples of this but it's late.


This novel has a few problems, let’s mention two obvious ones – the movie, which is a hideous wreck, that is going to put you off, and the author, who can be a pain in the arse with his white suit posing and annoyingness. Also, Tom Wolfe's writing style will not be everyone's decaffeinated macchiato, this perpetual speedy hipster high level ranting, it will be a problem if you don’t like it. Well, you might like it in small doses (his great early essays) but this is a whopping dose. Also, he does kind of get a big idea about American society (hey, it’s really racist and class-ridden) and beat that idea dead, page after page. Also, all said and done, this book is a cartoon, Tom Wolfe writes in cartoons. It's not grown-up. It's a comedy. Also, it’s very passe, you know, we’ve had Rodney King and OJ Simpson and Trayvon Martin, we’ve seen all Spike Lee’s movies, even the bad ones, it's all old hat. This hat is old.

But I thought this was a great top-of-division-two novel, for all that. If you have room in your reading for guilty pleasures, you could do much worse. If Tom Wolfe gets you on his wavelength you will be lolling for a whole week.

‘The Bonfire of the Vanities' by Tom Wolfe, which is a novel describing how a media circus develops around a hit-and-run, nails it. The characters - some who are graduates of elite colleges, some who climbed up into money and power out of the underclass, others who were born into the upper-crust of generational well-connected folks - work the system within the class layers of New York City.

The stereotypical characters in the novel, who imho are not truly fictional at all because each one has an equivalent real-life personality/celebrity filling the fictionalized role described in the book in every real-life community, are in

-law
-political offices
-the 1%
-news media
-organized religions
-business

where identity politics is the primary weapon of choice to sway public opinion regardless of justice, common sense, or facts.

‘The Bonfire of the Vanities’ was published in 1987. It is not in the least dated. I highly recommend everyone read it to understand how things happen behind the curtains of power and authority. All leadership of whatever political faction, union, religion, bank, or interest group they are controlling must either be appalled/ashamed by this exposé of how they make deals behind closed doors or they will only smile knowingly and cynically because they are safely hidden from public awareness of their own real-life machinations and trading of favors. Whatever. These people are rarely made accountable. People don’t really read much of anything informative of governance-process or politics-how-it’s-done-behind-the-curtain articles or biographies or histories, including books like this, or care about it, or believe their heroic leader would ever sellout their values on occasion as described in novels like this one.

Of course, many leaders have important goals to genuinely change society for the better and help people! But it also true there are political interests to be worked, and many competitive, some selfish, and all self-interested, people to be satisfied or made impotent.

Tom Wolfe wrote fiction novels about political process (all types - many of which are not strictly about politicians in public office) in a satirical voice, using comedy and real-life headlines as a guide. He tends to overwrite scenes and internal dialogues in making his point. But I think he nails the character types exactly. Exactly.

Gentle reader, you won’t like any of these characters. I didn’t when I worked for people like them as a secretary in real life.

Vanity is the hidden elephant stinking up the room when people have a position to protect, or a public image, whether it be one of an authoritative father within a family or a President of a company or the Director or Department Head or police officer or trophy wife. Even if one has Power, Money, Position, a person’s Vanity and especially threats to their Vanity, will make people act stupid or dangerously. I had forgotten about this important drive of human nature. Tom Wolfe hasn’t.

This book is a whole other beast. Throughout Wolfe uses phonetics to great effect in casting his characters in all their brutal-and-suave-tongued rage. The Haves rave against the Have-nots; the Have-nots rage against the rich. And in the end, every single character, the Haves and Have-nots alike, is no better than the other. The only way you win is to embrace your animal nature, the nature to survive at all costs.

I found the character of Peter Fallow dull throughout most of the novel, but as the book was written he was a needed character in order to propel the plot forward. I enjoyed all of other characters, with their chest-thumping and sheer conceitedness. It makes for hilarious reading. The depths of irony that Wolfe portrayed when each character began to inwardly judge the other: brilliance.

The writing style can take some getting used to. There are lots of inner monologues, soul searching, coming to terms w/ ones nature and the nature of the world, and the above mentioned use of phonetics can give the reader pause. There are times when inner monologue and direct dialog vie for position on the page, and other times where characters talk over each other and may or may not be carrying on to entirely different conversations. But if you stick with it, Wolfe shows you the method to his madness by using and reusing his techniques until they feel like second nature.

If you want to experience some amazing literary innovations this is well worth the read. But you'll stay for the intricately woven plot that has as much inevitability as Shakespeare at his best.

Γύρω απο την πυρά της ματαιοδοξίας χορεύει η ανθρωπότητα, η φωτιά αναζωπυρώνεται συνεχώς
απο αμαρτίες και ανομολόγητα ή χιλιοειπωμένα πάθη και λάθη, απο χάρτινες καρδιές,
πλαστικές συνειδήσεις σαν πιστωτικές κάρτες απαλλαγής τύψεων και εξόφλησης με πίστωση.
Οι αποδείξεις ανάληψης ευθυνών εκδίδονται σε φθηνό χαρτί για να αποφεύγεται η δραματική αυταπάτη όταν θρυμματίζεται.

Το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο θα μπορούσε εύστοχα
να χαρακτηριστεί σαν το μυθιστόρημα της αποτυχίας του ανθρώπινου πνεύματος που χρωματίζει μια σκληρά ειλικρινή εικόνα της ηθικής που αργοπεθαίνει απο έλλειψη αυτογνωσίας.
Κάπου στα τέλη του 20ου αιώνα και ευρύτερα ίσως, κάπου ανάμεσα στο πάντα και το επαναλαμβανόμενο ψέμα, στην κοινωνία της ηδονής των εξουσιών και του οργασμού των εξουσιαστών κάθε θεσμού και φορέα με επίκτητες ανεπάρκειες τιμής και εκτεταμένες προσδοκίες αισχρής και βιωματικής κερδοσκοπίας.

Δεν υπάρχουν ήρωες σε αυτή την ιστορία, υπάρχουν κομμάτια απο χαρακτήρες που μεταβάλλονται στα σκοτάδια των ελαττωματικών προφητειών,
των ανίερων ευχών για μια αποκάλυψη στη γη
της απύθμενης άγνοιας, στην χώρα της ανυπόστατης φύσης, στην άστοργη επικράτεια της ατομικής μάχης
με το φρικτό και ακατάσχετο Εγώ.
Όταν αρχίζει να πλησιάζει στην πυρά, μεθυσμένο
απο την απόλαυση του «φαίνεσθαι» και δυστυχώς αδύναμο να αντισταθεί στην υστερία των καιρών
και την ιστορία των κατασκευασμένων ζωών,
καίγεται απο τις φλόγες των ψεμάτων, της εξαπάτησης και της διαφθοράς.

Ο συγγραφέας καταφέρνει με ήπια καταστροφικές σκέψεις να αναδείξει τις φανταστικές, κατασκευασμένες ανθρώπινες σχέσεις προσεκτικά και ανελέητα σε ένα δίκτυο απο κυκλώματα που τολμάμε να ονομάζουμε «κοινωνία».

Εκεί, εκτελούνται με επιτυχία συνήθως υπόγειες εκθέσεις παιχνιδιών τρόμου και λαγνείας
που αποσκοπούν στην κυριαρχία
και την επιτηδευμένη καταδίωξη πολιτικής ορθότητας
σε ένα σύμπαν ρατσισμού, ανώτερης χοντροκοπιάς, κληρονομικής αγένειας ευγενών, σε εκφυλισμένες αριστοκρατίες κάθε ράτσας απωθημένων και κάθε είδους μεταλλαγμένων ανθρώπινων ιδιοτήτων.