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After Tom Wolfe defined the '60s in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers and the cultural U-turn at the turn of the '80s in The Right Stuff, nobody thought he could ever top himself again. In 1987, when The Bonfire of the Vanities arrived, the literati called Wolfe an "aging enfant terrible."

He wasn't aging; he was growing up. Bonfire's pyrotechnic satire of 1980s New York wasn't just Wolfe's best book, it was the best bestselling fiction debut of the decade, a miraculously realistic study of an unbelievably status-mad society, from the fiery combatants of the South Bronx to the bubbling scum at the top of Wall Street. Sherman McCoy, a farcically arrogant investment banker (dubbed a "Master of the Universe," Wolfe's brilliant metaphorical co-opting of a then-important toy for boys), hits a black guy in the Bronx with his Mercedes and runs--right into a nightmare peopled by vicious mistresses, thin wives like "social x-rays," slime-bag politicos, tabloid hacks, and Dantesque denizens of the "justice" system. If the Coen and Marx brothers together dramatized The Great Gatsby, Wolfe's Bonfire would probably be funnier. Many think his second novel, A Man in Full, is deeper, but Bonfire will never die down.

You might find it interesting to compare the film The Bonfire of the Vanities, a fascinating calamity perpetrated by the geniuses Brian De Palma and Tom Hanks, with The Right Stuff, one of the very best films of the '80s. --Tim Appelo

From Publishers Weekly

In his spellbinding first novel, Wolfe proves that he has the right stuff to write propulsively engrossing fiction. Both his cynical irony and sense of the ridiculous are perfectly suited to his subject: the roiling, corrupt, savage, ethnic melting pot that is New York City. Ranging from the rarefied atmosphere of Park Avenue to the dingy courtrooms of the Bronx, this is a totally credible tale of how the communities uneasily coexist and what happens when they collide. On a clandestine date with his mistress one night, top Wall Street investment banker and snobbish WASP Sherman McCoy misses his turn on the thruway and gets lost in the South Bronx; his Mercedes hits and seriously injures a young black man. The incident is inflated by a manipulative black leader, a district attorney seeking reelection and a sleazy tabloid reporter into a full-blown scandal, a political football and a hokey morality play. Wolfe adroitly swings his focus from one to another of the people involved: the protagonist McCoy; Kramer, the assistant D.A.; two detectivesone Irish, the other Jewish; a slimy, alcoholic British journalist; an outraged judge, etc. He has an infallible, mocking ear for New York voices, rendering with equal precision the defense lawyer's "gedoutdahere," the deliberate bad grammar ("that don't help matters") of the wily "reverend" and the clenched-teeth WASP locution ('howjado"). His reporter's eye has seized every gritty detail of the criminal justice system, and he is also acute in rendering the hierarchy at a society party. He convincingly equates the jungles of Wall Street and the Bronx: in both places men casually use the same four-letter expletives and, no matter what their standing on the social ladder, find that power kindles their lust for nubile young women. Erupting from the first line with noise, color, tension and immediacy, this immensely entertaining novel accurately mirrors a system that has broken down: from the social code of basic good manners to the fair practices of the law. It is safe to predict that the book will stand as a brilliant evocation of New York's class, racial and political structure in the 1980s. 200,000 first printing; $200,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild dual main selection; author tour.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Format: Kindle Edition
Dateigr��e: 1035 KB
Seitenzahl der Print-Ausgabe: 706 Seiten
ISBN-Quelle f�r Seitenzahl: 0312427573
Verlag: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Auflage: 1 (21. Februar 2002)
Verkauf durch: Amazon Media EU S.� r.l.
Sprache: Englisch
ASIN: B003GYEGNO
Text-to-Speech (Vorlesemodus): Aktiviert

Durchschnittliche Kundenbewertung: 4.4 von 5 Sternen Alle Rezensionen anzeigen (69 Kundenrezensionen)

Amazon Bestseller-Rang: #37.890 Bezahlt in Kindle-Shop (Siehe Top 100 Bezahlt in Kindle-Shop)
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6 von 6 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

In a New York state of mind 29. Juli 2000

Von Krista

Format:Taschenbuch

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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Die, Yuppie scum! 3. Dezember 1999

Von Doug Vaughn

Format:Gebundene Ausgabe

I have been a Tom Wolfe fan for over two decades but continue to think that his real talent is for the essay and not for long fiction. Like Mailer, he seems to be able to string words together with unnerring skill but has trouble sustaining a tight narrative. Mostly, for me, what kept this book from coming alive was my dislike for the main characters. I just didn't care what happened to them. Rather, nothing could be bad enough. This is pure prejudice on my part, but I can't get past it. I hate these folks - their lifestyle, their values, their friends, their work, their entire social world - and I really don't want to read about them. Certainly not read this many pages. Couldn't he have punctured the hero's little life in half the number of pages and not left the reader so numb?

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Dull 15. Juni 2000

Von C. Buechner

Format:Gebundene Ausgabe

I'm not sure why this book got so many five star reviews. It's not a terrible book, but I found it to be incrediably predictable and dull. I had pretty much figured out everything that was going to happen within the first hundred pages or so. There wasn't much point in finishing it. I love long books, but this one was pointlessly so. Wolfe goes into a lot of useless rambling that has little if nothing to do with the plot. I found myself skimming many of the pages without feeling I has missed out on anything important. Definately the sort of book you read only if there is nothing else around.

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Beliebte Markierungen

A lie may fool someone else, but it tells you the truth: youre weak. &quote;

Markiert von 44 Kindle-Nutzern

And now that boy, that good actor, had grown old and fragile and tired, wearier than ever at the thought of trying to hoist the Protectors armor back onto his shoulders again, now, so far down the line. &quote;

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And in that moment Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later. For the first time he realized that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps, love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life. &quote;

Markiert von 34 Kindle-Nutzern

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