The Bonfire of the Vanities (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Tom Wolfe
- First Published: 1987
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Journalism or journalists, Class conflict, New York City, 1980’s, Poverty or poor people, Greed, Corruption, Newspapers, Wealth, Reporting or reporters, Wall Street
- Locales: New York, NY
The Bonfire of the Vanities provides an interesting contrast to Wolfe's earlier work. It is a huge, sprawling novel that runs to more than 650 pages, yet it reveals the same fascination with wealth, power, and status that dominated The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, his first book. In the novel, which was a long time in the making, Wolfe skillfully introduces a large and diverse cast of characters representing many levels of New York society while setting multiple, intersecting plots in motion. It begins as a meticulously constructed work. It is...
[The entire page is 1451 words long]
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