1987; 690 pages. New Author? : No, but it’s been decades since
I read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Genres: Contemporary American Fiction; Lawyers
and Criminals; Racism. Overall Rating: 8½*/10.
By any objective assessment, Sherman McCoy has
made it bigtime.
He lives in a posh $3-million
apartment on Park Avenue in New York City, and by “apartment” we mean a
multi-room affair with 12-foot-high ceilings and a separate wing for the
servants.
He’s got a 6-year-old daughter
who adores him, and a 40-year-old wife, Judy, who fancies herself an interior
decorator and is still fairly good-looking for her age, in Sherman's opinion. He’s the top-performing bond trader for the
prestigious firm of Pierce-&-Pierce, drives a big, black, fancy
Mercedes-Benz, and thinks of himself as the “Master of the Universe”.
Oh, and he has one more status
symbol that many upper crust males of society acquire sooner or later: a
mistress. Maria Ruskin sports a Southern
accent, and is sleek, sexy, and dark. And married.
Sherman’s got it made. At least, as long as Judy doesn’t find out about Maria.
What’s To Like...
There are three major protagonists in The Bonfire of the Vanities, all of them white,
and all of them flawed. Besides Sherman
McCoy and his severe case of white privilege, we follow Larry Kramer, a lowly
Assistant District Attorney, Jewish, and scared that he will never amount to
anything in his law career. Rounding out
the trio is Peter Fallow, a journalist and alcoholic who works for a NYC-based
tabloid newspaper called The City Light.
Tom Wolfe uses these three men
to present a view of New York City in the 1980s, when it's suffering from a de facto
case of segregation: the minority white “haves”, and the numerically superior
“have nots” consisting mostly of blacks and Puerto Ricans. This disparity
manifests itself in various ways, and here the author uses racism,
anti-Semitism, the almighty dollar, social status, and hatred towards gays to cast a spotlight on the division.
The book’s title refers to a
historical event that took place in 1497 Italy, where religious zealots burned
objects that they felt contributed to the sin of vanity such as cosmetics, art,
and books. There’s no direct tie-in of
that event to the book’s storyline, although I suspect it refers to Sherman being
stripped of his white privilege “vanities”, as he tries in vain to
avoid the consequences of an unfortunate event that suddenly threatens his well-to-do lifestyle.
I was impressed that none of the
characters here—black or white, Jew or Italian, rich or poor—are entirely good
or evil. Sherman initially wants to do
the right thing, but gets talked out if it.
Reverend Bacon commendably wants seeks equal justice for all races, but
is not above manipulating events to further that cause. Bronx District Attorney Abe Weiss might
desire to give Sherman preferential treatment, but there’s an election coming
up and he needs all the black votes he can get.
The ending is exciting,
surprising, and logical. The epilogue raises more questions than it answers, but that’s not a
criticism. I think Tom Wolfe intended it
as a “the fight goes on” message.
Kewlest New Word ...
Logorrhea (n.) : excessive and often incoherent talkativeness
or wordiness.
Others: Empyrean (n.); Orotund (adj.), Paradiddle
(n.); Malapert
(adj.).
Ratings…
Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 4,288 ratings
and 531 reviews.
Goodreads: 3.89*/5,
based on 77,877
ratings and 3,335 reviews.
Excerpts...
“Hey, Sherm! Howya doin’?”
That was what Sherman really detested. It was bad enough that this man insisted on
calling him by his first name. But to
shorten it to Sherm, which no one had ever called him—that was
escalating presumptuousness into obnoxiousness.
Sherman could think of nothing he had ever said, no gesture he had ever
made, that had given him the invitation or even the opening to become
familiar. Gratuitous familiarity was not
the sort of thing you were supposed to mind these days, but Sherman minded
it. It was a form of aggression. You think that I am your inferior, you
Wall Street Wasp with the Yale chin, but I will show you. (pg. 100)
“Welcome to the legion of the damned . . .
now that you’ve been properly devoured by the fruit flies.”
“The fruit flies?”
“The press.
I’m amused by all the soul-searching . . . insects do. ‘Are we too aggressive, too cold-blooded, too
heartless?’—as if the press were a rapacious beast, a tiger. I think they’d like to be thought of as
bloodthirsty. That’s what I call praise
by faint damnation. They’ve got the
wrong animal. In fact, they’re fruit
flies. Once they get the scent, they
hover, they swarm. If you swing your
hand at them, they don’t bite it, they dart for cover, and as soon as
your head is turned, they’re back again.” (pg. 578)
There was no
turning back! Once you had lived in a $2.6 million apartment on Park Avenue—it
was impossible to live in a $1 million apartment! (pg. 143)
The
Bonfire of the Vanities was an instant major bestseller when it came out, but I found a
couple of nits to pick.
There’s a lot of cussing, with
a definite bias for the f-bomb. There
were 41 instances in the first 50 pages, which extrapolates out to 565 over the
entire book. In fairness, however, Harlem was
a gritty neighborhood in the 1980s, and probably still is. So we can tolerate the swearing for the sake of realism.
The pacing is slow. The key incident that leads to all of
Sherman’s woes doesn’t happen until page 90, so the reader is forced to endure quite a bit of scene-setting at the start. Several
reviewers have pointed out the wordiness of the book, and that it could’ve been
shortened substantially. Sadly, I have to agree.
But I quibble. The book’s message of white
privilege and lip service to civil rights is just as important today as it was
30+ years ago when The Bonfire of the Vanities came out. The story may be long-winded, but so is the
saga of the struggle for equal rights. Tom Wolfe’s
writing skills were sufficient to keep me interested in how it all was going to
turn out for Sherman and I’m sure those present-day book-burners (via the banning of select books in schools and public
libraries) will seek to have this opus removed from the shelves.
8½ Stars. The Bonfire of the Vanities was made into a 1990 movie of the same title, starring, among others, Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman, and Bruce Willis. The film was a commercial flop, Wikipedia notes it cost $47 million to make, and grossed just over $15 million. Curiously, I’m presently reading another book that was later made into a film also featuring Bruce Willis, and which garnered him a Golden Raspberry Award for “Worst Actor”. Stay tuned.
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