Dakota rube
Stylish Dinosaur
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Wolfe spent some time on the Salomon Brothers trading floor researching his book. I recognized several people in the book. As a former bond trader from South Georgia, I think Bonfire and Man in Full were his best worksQuote:
(tgfny @ April 10 2005,16:59) Wolfe spent some time on the Salomon Brothers trading floor researching his book. I recognized several people in the book. As a former bond trader from South Georgia, I think Bonfire and Man in Full were his best worksQuote:
Hmm, the images I have of New York in the early to mid-1980s was Bernie Goetz, the Guardian Angels, Tawana Brawley, increasing racial tensions, crime rates exploding and a city that clearly was tottering on the edge of fiscal and social disaster. When I read the book it certainly resonated for me -- at least based on the diet of media images that a young teenager consumed from his safe perch in northern OntarioPart of my problem with BOV is that it just seems outdated when I read it today. You read the passages about the white fear of crime, and its hard to comprehend with my image of an increasingly gentrified NYC.
I believe that the cartoon was based on the toys. During that period, the FCC lifted a ban that prevented cartoons from basically serve as infomercials to promote a line of toys- He-Man, Transformers, etc...2) Wolfe makes clear that Sherman "stole" the phrase "Master of the Universe" from the toys that were based on the cartoon.
3) The Fallow phenomenon -- sponging Brits (especially journalists) taking advantage of Americans' sense of awe upon hearing an upper-class English accent -- was very real in the New York of the 1980s. Â (Apologies to our British members.) Â
I think some of Wolfe's writing is okay, but usually mediocre, which is not bad, considering how much junk gets published. BOV, which I read when it came out, so it's been a while, is one of his better works. In some ways many of the characters are composites. I thought McCoy's self-awareness & growth was evident. I think you're supposed to see the utter horror of the characters' vacuity, lust and greed. Not only McCoy but attorneys on both sides, his wife, his girlfriend, the newspaper reporter, the judge. A pox on all their houses then. Perhaps Wolfe displays some regard for McCoy's father (the "Lion" as I recall) and his generation. Nice contrast between the Old Boys and the McCoys, as it were. The Old Boys club wasn't one of virtue, but it was one of restraint.The strange thing is that I liked Man in Full much more than Bonfire of Vanities. Maybe my expectations were too high.
Part of my problem with BOV is that it just seems outdated when I read it today. You read the passages about the white fear of crime, and its hard to comprehend with my image of an increasingly gentrified NYC. Its like reading Morris' biography of Reagan, especially when it talked about Reagan's stewardship during the 80s . It just seems so inconsequential with the passage of time.
I don't think Wolfe does a good job of capturing the different characters or their enviornments, especially when he leaves Park Avenue. It all seemed shallow, and full of caricatures. Rev. Bacon is supposed to be Al Sharpton, right?
I found Sherman McCoy to be weak and uninteresting, not somebody I would want to read about. His hubris of lust just doesn't make him a dynamic character enough for me. Am I supposed to symphathize with him, or cheer his downfall?
Excellent post, Manton. I just wanted to add something to your opening comments. As you know, Saul Bellow just died. I love the fact that Bellow published Augie March right after the calls about the "Death of the American Novel". He then went onto write several more excellent works. If we really want to be serious, then I think we should admit that Wolfe, held up to many of his contemporary novelists, doesn't make the grade. But he's a very fine occasional journalist, and he's written a few truly great pieces. For a different take on Wolfe, one might see last issue of the Harvard Advocate. There's a small anecdote in one of the stories about Wolfe's reception of a Paris Review intern that had Plimpton aghast. Actually, come to think of it, I can't think of it, I can't think of two people less similiar in values (including dress -- superficial "value" though it is") than Plimpton and Wolfe.Wolfe got a Ph.D. at Yale in the 50s in "American Studies," which required that he read (among other things) a lot of American fiction from the first half of the 20th century, which was primarily "realistic" in character.  (Not that he wouldn't have anyway, for all we know; just that it helps explain the literature that in some respects formed his mind.)  At this time, there was a lot of talk at the upper reaches of acadamia about the "death of the novel."  Lionel Trilling, who dominated the literature discussision in a way that is hard for us to imagine (much more than, say, Stanley Fish ever did), proclaimed at one point that the life-blood of the novel was the old (pre 20th century), primarily European class structure, and that its erosion meant the end of the novel. Wolfe chose not to go into academia but to be a reporter.  As such, he was writing mostly about hard facts.  Later, he excelled as a "feature" writer: "soft", long-format stories about personalities, trends, etc.  This experience convinced him that Trilling and others were wrong: the old class structure may have been gone, but human nature being what it is, it had been replaced, almost seamlessly, with the somewhat more elastic but no-less-real concept of "status."  People still organized themselves, either conciously or subconciously, into hierarchies, but not according to birth and wealth strictly, but according to a whole range of complex factors. Wolfe has said that one of the most misunderstood yet brilliant devices of Balzac was to go on at such length about furniture.  This drove some of his critics nuts; they argued that it was proof of Balzac's superficiality.  Wolfe counters: not so; it is Balzac's way of showing where his characters fit into the class and status structure of the society of his time.  And, more importantly, where they themselves thought they fit. Clothes are to Wolfe's novels what furniture is to Balzac's.  Shoes especially.  One reviewer of Bonfire (I can't remember who it was) was so turned off by this aspect of the book that he dismissed it as a "catalogue of shoes." As to why he mentions this or that specific brand, I can only guess.  He does mention Lobb in some of his non-fiction writing from the 70s.  I suppose he may have used N&L to give a plug to George Cleverley, who was at the time his shoemaker.  I suspect is was more that Lobb was an iconic brand, and very well-known, and he wanted to show that Sherman was obsessive enough to be discerning enough to seek out and find a slightly less-known (and arguably better) shoemaker.  I agree with the notion that Huntsman was selected because it makes a sharp silhouette.  At one point, when Wolfe is writing one of Sherman's frequent internal monologues, he hints that Sherman would have liked to wear double-breasted, but didn't feel he could get away with it on Wall Street (a sly, early indication of Sherman's conformity and lack of courage).  So perhaps the severity of the Huntsman silhouette was as far as he thought he could go.  It's notable, too, I think that Sherman always wears nailhead. Other random points: 1) Bacon is not Sharpton.  The Bacon character was conceived and written for the Rolling Stone serialization of the book long before the rise of Sharpton.  Wolfe in a sense predicted Sharpton and his success. 2) Wolfe makes clear that Sherman "stole" the phrase "Master of the Universe" from the toys that were based on the cartoon. 3) The Fallow phenomenon -- sponging Brits (especially journalists) taking advantage of Americans' sense of awe upon hearing an upper-class English accent -- was very real in the New York of the 1980s.  (Apologies to our British members.)  A lot of people assumed that Fallow was based on a real person, and there were at least a dozen theories as to who he was supposed to be.  Personally, I don't think Fallow was a roman à clef character.  But Nick Stopping is clearly supposed to be Alexander Cockburn. 4) As to crime and the 80s, well, I guess you had to be there.  Certainly, the 6 train these days is not much of a problem.  But for a little taste of "Old New York", crawl down onto the 8th Avenue line at 2 am.  It's ... a little different.
Hmm....Anyone else suspect Manton of being Wolfe? Ha ha, we know he really isn't.
The Title for Wolfe's next book on the heels of I am Charlotte Simmons... "I Am Not Wolfe" But Manton...I think that the comparison of you to Wolfe is in your respective fields... Awww....Comparing me to Wolfe is just about the greatest compliment anyone could possibly pay me. I am not Wolfe. I can only dream of writing that well.
How about a form of alliteration?. . . Wolfe describes the male cheerleaders "twirling their whirling girls" through the air. Â That's a lovely turn of phrase, to my eye/ear anyway. Â There is probably some technical term for the kind of literary device that's being used (sort of a visual analogue of onomatopoeia) but I'm at a loss to think of what it might be. Â Any of you literary sophisticates out there have an insight?