The Bonfire of the Vanities

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Filling the cavities

So many people, whose opinions I otherwise value, have told me how incredibly impressed they were by The Bonfire of the Vanities that I wonder what I'm missing, since I have only a middling appreciation for Tom Wolfe's first novel.

I can tell you however what the book is missing.

A heart.

I know that sounds corny and simplistic. What does "heart" mean anyway? Sentimentality? A happy ending? Inspirational passages?

The Bonfire of the Vanities is certainly one of the cleverest novels you'll ever read. Not clever in its plot—it is somewhat simple compared to your average legal thriller these days. A rich, white guy and his mistress take a couple of wrong turns in his car and end up running down a black kid in a poor neighbourhood. The woman was actually driving but various forces—including the police, district attorney's office, mayor, newspapers and community activists—work to catch and convict the guy for the allegedly hate-motivated crime, mainly because he is rich and white.

The cleverness is in how the various worlds within New York are depicted through the eyes of these characters and fit together in the big, messy mosaic: the worlds of high-stakes bonds traders, inhabitants of the projects, toilers in the Bronx court system, tabloid reporters at their hangouts, Park Avenue high society at their parties. And, this being Tom Wolfe, the cleverness is in the flashy, overheated, kaleidoscopic presentation of the mental lives of these people. In particular we follow Wall Street wunderkind Sherman McCoy, the rich, white guy who refers to himself internally as a Master of the Universe.

But somehow, despite the endless detail about McCoy's life and despite us sharing his thoughts and fears for endless pages, he remains the rich, white guy who is persecuted for a crime he didn't commit although he is guilty of much else. That is, we never really get to know him beyond his role as representing a certain kind of person in New York in the 1980s. This is even more the case for the lesser characters.

I'm not sure why this is so. I'm not sure why some other writers can tell you almost nothing about a character and yet the character takes root in your consciousness. He becomes flesh and blood.

Certainly there are in Bonfire many episodes that reveal characters' foibles and hidden strengths. Perhaps this is done too calculatedly. Perhaps we're too dazzled by the surface spectacle to go beyond that level. I don't know what indefinable quality is missing, but I call it heart.

I don't care for any of the characters. I don't care about any of the characters because I accept they are just pieces being manipulated by Wolfe to make his cynical points.

The points being? That everyone is out for himself or herself. That people are grasping swine. That calls for justice and equality are covers for cash grabs or power grabs. That we shouldn't take any of it very seriously, just sit back and be entertained. This is a profoundly reactionary book.

Near the end of Bonfire Wolfe, writing from the point of view of all-seeing author for a change, discusses a belief of certain native peoples that individual minds do not exist, that the community fills the cavity in each person. (See "Favourite lines" above for the corollary to this.) It's an interesting idea. But Wolfe takes it as his creed. The superficial matters of social status, wealth and manners are poured into each character to define him. People are nothing but the parts given them to play and the costumes provided them to wear.

— Eric

© Copyright 2004 Eric McMillan. All rights reserved.