The Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe
The Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe
All at once, Sherman was aware of a figure approaching him on the sidewalk, in the wet black shadows of the town houses and the trees. Even from fifty feet away, in the darkness, he could tell. It was that deep worry that lives in the base of the skull of every resident of Park Avenue south of Ninety-sixth street--a black youth, tall, rangy, wearing white sneakers. Now he was forty feet away, thirty five. Sherman stared at him. Well, let him come! I'm not budging! It's my territory! I'm not giving way for any street punks!
The black youth suddenly made a ninety degree turn and cut straight across the street to the sidewalk on the other side. The feeble yellow of a sodium vapor streetlight reflected for an instant on his face as he checked Sherman out.
He had crossed over! What a stroke of luck!
Not once did it dawn on Sherman McCoy that what the boy had seen was a thirty eight year old white man, soaking wet, dressed in some sort of military looking raincoat full of straps and buckles, holding a violently lurching animal in his arms, staring, bug-eyed, and talking to himself.
Wolfe's racially charged book where the wealthy elite of Park Avenue are contrasted with the down and out of The Bronx, came out in 1987--I checked, and was surprised to find that it could not have been influenced by Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing movie, nor a true incident in which Al Sharpton and other civil rights leaders made a political football out of a black woman's discredited claim to have been gang-raped, nor yet another true incident in Crown Heights where a limo in a Jewish motorcade allegedly hit and run a black kid, with ensuing riots that stoked the paranoia of both communities. All of those things came after The Bonfire of the Vanities and were eerily foreshadowed by it.
The book comes as close to old fashioned Epic as you'll find in 20th century fiction set in the 20th century. That said, it suffers badly from the lack of any likable characters. The wealthy are insulated, amoral, narcissistic snobs; the advocates for the poor are cynical self-serving manipulators, and the poor themselves are an unthinking, undereducated mob of violent criminals. The main antihero, Sherman McCoy, is a racist, adulterous Wall Street shark who likes to think of himself as "Master of the Universe", because he's so rich; uncultured, unable to relate to anyone, partly redeemed only by his sincere love for his daughter. His wife is an ice queen; his mistress a gold-digging horror.
The pivotal event involves McCoy and the mistress in the Bronx, at night, terrified of Those Black People, knocking down a pedestrian while speeding away from what they assume (correctly, but still too quickly) is a carjacking attempt and not reporting it, because adultery. The Bronx criminal "justice" system, which colloquially refers to the crowd of People Of Color arraigned every court day as "the chow", is disinclined to put their insufficient resources to work on an iffy case with no evidence and no leads, until a status seeking reporter and a thinly disguised Al Sharptongue caricature of a civil rights advocate decide to make the comatose victim (who they call an "honor student" by neighborhood school standards, in that he showed up and didn't get in much trouble) their poster boy for Black Lives Matter. At which point, all the racist elected officials in the borough decide to court minority votes and show how not-racist they are by investigating and prosecuting the living shit out of this case. The tone of the book ranges from deliciously cynical to depressingly cynical, and it never lets the reader forget how black, or Wasp, or Jewish, or Irish, or Puerto Rican, any given character is.
I was expecting a tense courtroom drama, but very little of the story takes place in court, although there are pontificating lawyers, especially District Attorneys, everywhere. More than half of the 600 pages involve McCoy indulging in Raskolnikov-ish guilt/angst while elsewhere the cops bitch about having to investigate such a nothing crime and the reporter and civil rights advocate enrich themselves fanning the flames. Prosecutors fake evidence to make McCoy look guilty; McCoy's lawyer fakes evidence to make him look innocent.
Two scenes stand out especially. In one scene, right after the press has savaged McCoy for being such a horrible person as to leave the scene of an accident without stopping to offer assistance, the reporter dines at a fancy five star restaurant where an old man has a heart attack. Not only does nobody offer assistance, but customers trample the dying man while rushing to leave, pausing to say "eww" as they look down to see what they've stepped on, and the maitre d' doesn't want to let the paramedics into the restaurant where they might further disturb people eating. The other scene is the long chapter in which McCoy, in a single day between arrest and release on bail, is transformed from a well-dressed, well-groomed man into a hot mess from a long perp walk in the rain through a long booking process and several hours in filthy holding pens with the rest of "the chow." His defenders are appalled by his appearance and speak of police brutality against a man presumed innocent; his prosecutors pride themselves on treating him "just like everyone else, with no special privileges. Equal justice." It occurs to no one, except maybe the reader, that maybe the big problem is that anyone is treated like this, and that it shouldn't just be an issue when it happens to the rich.
The Bonfire of the Vanities is ugly, full of racial stereotypes, problematical, suspenseful, epic, and unfortunately as relevant today as it was in the 1980s. Very highly recommended.
All at once, Sherman was aware of a figure approaching him on the sidewalk, in the wet black shadows of the town houses and the trees. Even from fifty feet away, in the darkness, he could tell. It was that deep worry that lives in the base of the skull of every resident of Park Avenue south of Ninety-sixth street--a black youth, tall, rangy, wearing white sneakers. Now he was forty feet away, thirty five. Sherman stared at him. Well, let him come! I'm not budging! It's my territory! I'm not giving way for any street punks!
The black youth suddenly made a ninety degree turn and cut straight across the street to the sidewalk on the other side. The feeble yellow of a sodium vapor streetlight reflected for an instant on his face as he checked Sherman out.
He had crossed over! What a stroke of luck!
Not once did it dawn on Sherman McCoy that what the boy had seen was a thirty eight year old white man, soaking wet, dressed in some sort of military looking raincoat full of straps and buckles, holding a violently lurching animal in his arms, staring, bug-eyed, and talking to himself.
Wolfe's racially charged book where the wealthy elite of Park Avenue are contrasted with the down and out of The Bronx, came out in 1987--I checked, and was surprised to find that it could not have been influenced by Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing movie, nor a true incident in which Al Sharpton and other civil rights leaders made a political football out of a black woman's discredited claim to have been gang-raped, nor yet another true incident in Crown Heights where a limo in a Jewish motorcade allegedly hit and run a black kid, with ensuing riots that stoked the paranoia of both communities. All of those things came after The Bonfire of the Vanities and were eerily foreshadowed by it.
The book comes as close to old fashioned Epic as you'll find in 20th century fiction set in the 20th century. That said, it suffers badly from the lack of any likable characters. The wealthy are insulated, amoral, narcissistic snobs; the advocates for the poor are cynical self-serving manipulators, and the poor themselves are an unthinking, undereducated mob of violent criminals. The main antihero, Sherman McCoy, is a racist, adulterous Wall Street shark who likes to think of himself as "Master of the Universe", because he's so rich; uncultured, unable to relate to anyone, partly redeemed only by his sincere love for his daughter. His wife is an ice queen; his mistress a gold-digging horror.
The pivotal event involves McCoy and the mistress in the Bronx, at night, terrified of Those Black People, knocking down a pedestrian while speeding away from what they assume (correctly, but still too quickly) is a carjacking attempt and not reporting it, because adultery. The Bronx criminal "justice" system, which colloquially refers to the crowd of People Of Color arraigned every court day as "the chow", is disinclined to put their insufficient resources to work on an iffy case with no evidence and no leads, until a status seeking reporter and a thinly disguised Al Sharptongue caricature of a civil rights advocate decide to make the comatose victim (who they call an "honor student" by neighborhood school standards, in that he showed up and didn't get in much trouble) their poster boy for Black Lives Matter. At which point, all the racist elected officials in the borough decide to court minority votes and show how not-racist they are by investigating and prosecuting the living shit out of this case. The tone of the book ranges from deliciously cynical to depressingly cynical, and it never lets the reader forget how black, or Wasp, or Jewish, or Irish, or Puerto Rican, any given character is.
I was expecting a tense courtroom drama, but very little of the story takes place in court, although there are pontificating lawyers, especially District Attorneys, everywhere. More than half of the 600 pages involve McCoy indulging in Raskolnikov-ish guilt/angst while elsewhere the cops bitch about having to investigate such a nothing crime and the reporter and civil rights advocate enrich themselves fanning the flames. Prosecutors fake evidence to make McCoy look guilty; McCoy's lawyer fakes evidence to make him look innocent.
Two scenes stand out especially. In one scene, right after the press has savaged McCoy for being such a horrible person as to leave the scene of an accident without stopping to offer assistance, the reporter dines at a fancy five star restaurant where an old man has a heart attack. Not only does nobody offer assistance, but customers trample the dying man while rushing to leave, pausing to say "eww" as they look down to see what they've stepped on, and the maitre d' doesn't want to let the paramedics into the restaurant where they might further disturb people eating. The other scene is the long chapter in which McCoy, in a single day between arrest and release on bail, is transformed from a well-dressed, well-groomed man into a hot mess from a long perp walk in the rain through a long booking process and several hours in filthy holding pens with the rest of "the chow." His defenders are appalled by his appearance and speak of police brutality against a man presumed innocent; his prosecutors pride themselves on treating him "just like everyone else, with no special privileges. Equal justice." It occurs to no one, except maybe the reader, that maybe the big problem is that anyone is treated like this, and that it shouldn't just be an issue when it happens to the rich.
The Bonfire of the Vanities is ugly, full of racial stereotypes, problematical, suspenseful, epic, and unfortunately as relevant today as it was in the 1980s. Very highly recommended.