‘The Bonfire of the Vanities’ by Tom Wolfe

In defiance of established logic I would like to begin this review by making a pointed remark: I absolutely love this book. In fact, I think adore might be a more suitable verb. The Bonfire of the Vanities is Tom Wolfe's seminal satirical novel of 1987, first published in serial form for Rolling Stone magazine beginning in 1984. A precursor to Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho and Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis in that it sends up capitalism and unwarranted extremes of wealth, this electrifying feast of a novel skilfully embodies the money-hungry spirit of 1980s Manhattan. I speak in reference to insights I have been given through this and other select works of literature, as I was neither alive nor anywhere near New York City in the eighties.

The Bonfire of the Vanities operates on two levels. First, and perhaps foremost, it tells the story of Sherman McCoy, a wealthy Wall Street financier and inhabitant of Park Avenue, the son of the head of a prestigious law firm, all chiselled good looks and exceptional breeding. In short, McCoy is your archetypal WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, just for the record) and a self-proclaimed 'Master of the Universe,' a title used liberally throughout the novel's 720 pages. However, when McCoy and his young mistress Maria Ruskin are involved in a car accident in a bad patch of the South Bronx, the result of an incorrect lane change on the Triborough Bridge, The Bonfire of the Vanities opens up to become a fable of modern day New York and all the many judicial and racial inequities that lurk around her fabled streets. After unwittingly running down Henry Lamb, a promising black youth and resident of the evocatively named Edgar Allan Poe housing projects, McCoy's assumedly perfect WASPy existence is promptly blown apart, ushering in an array of intriguing characters, particularly those from legal and journalistic backgrounds. Ultimately, it is a novel of New York, in the same way that Dickens' key works are novels of London; Wolfe leaves no concrete paving slab unturned with regards to the city of New York and her astounding host of cultures and ethnicities.

Following last weekend's incident - like Henry Lamb I was struck by a moving vehicle, though in my case it was a Citroen as opposed to a Mercedes-Benz and unlike Sherman McCoy, the driver stopped - I found myself struggling to read efficiently, mainly because the incident was on action replay in my head. I tried to make a start on two other novels, for good taste's sake I will refrain from naming them, but only The Bonfire of the Vanities was able to revive my compromised attention span. I was reeled in by Wolfe's informative introduction, which outlines his initial and evolved intentions for the novel, which was originally going to be a non-fiction novel, a novel exclusively of New York.

I do not find it hyperbolic to declare this novel a masterpiece. It has earned a place among my favourite books of all time, simply because it succeeds in doing so many things so damn well. Personally I cannot fault it in any way, and I struggle to see how or why anyone else could or would. Unlike many other novels of a similar thickness, The Bonfire of the Vanities fuses real world issues with fictional events without being arduous or trying to read. It has the brisk pace of a crime thriller and all the scope of a late twentieth-century Dickens, combining to create an utterly essential piece of writing. Read it, live it, let it marinate a little, and you will no doubt agree that this is a modern classic, no two ways about it.

This piece was originally published on alisonlaurabell.tumblr.com in December 2011.