Dandy With a Taste for Literary Spats (Tom Wolfe - Bush Supporter)

Financial Times ^ | 5/5/07 | Robert Collins

[Clemenza]

Tom Wolfe is the authour of one of my three favorite novels of all time (The Bonfire of the Vanities), which is THE book to read if you want to understand NY in the 1980s.

Of course, pick up Radical Chic sometime for a real laugh at the expense of the glitterati's attempts at trying to coopt the Black Panthers.

[Clemenza]

Ping!

[livius]

(The Bonfire of the Vanities), which is THE book to read if you want to understand NY in the 1980s.

I agree. Personally, I think this was probably his best novel.

[cardinal4]

Bonfire of the Vanities was a great book..

[livius]

He bloomed at the New York Herald Tribune, a paper known for its cultivation of writers,

Nobody remembers the Trib now, but when I was a kid, it was neck and neck with - in fact, often ahead of - the Times.

[Cacique]

bump

[Bigg Red]

Wonderfully drawn characters

[Steely Tom]

This is not to say that Wolfe’s geniality should be taken lightly. Many a writer who is charming in person can turn vicious on the page – as the composer Leonard Bernstein discovered when Wolfe savagely mocked him in “Radical Chic”, an account of a fundraiser for the Black Panther Party that Bernstein and his wife threw at their 13-room penthouse on Park Avenue in 1966.

Lenny Bernstein had a wife?. My eyes are rolling.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

Indeed, Wolfe might as well have sprung fully-formed from Richmond, Virginia, in 1930, so well have the aegis of a cream suit and its dandy-grade accoutrements (spats, bold tie, florid pocket square) rendered him an icon: Tom Wolfe! (as Tom Wolfe might exclaim).

[Dumpster Baby]

I’ve been reading his books since they first appeared, and I still use some of his terminology since it’s so deadly accurate. One of my favorites is “mommyhubby”, used to describe the adult drones one sees all around in the stores and public places, as viewed by teenagers from the surfer world. I understand that view even as a 60 year old. :0)

[Finny]

mark

[Mordacious]

Tom Wolfe is the authour of one of my three favorite novels of all time (The Bonfire of the Vanities), which is THE book to read if you want to understand NY in the 1980s.

I have 4 paperback copies of it and whenever someone tells me he hasn't read it, I deposit one in his hands.

[STONEWALLS]

I recently fnished Charlotte Simmons (loosely based on Duke)and thought it was great....I’ve been a fan since his first article in appeared in Esquire entitled “Junior Johnson, Yes!...the last American Hero”....that was in the early 1960s...Wolfe IMHO is our greatest observer of the social scene....nobody can poke holes in puffed up egos like he can...

[STONEWALLS]

I recently fnished Charlotte Simmons (loosely based on Duke)and thought it was great....I’ve been a fan since his first article in appeared in Esquire entitled “Junior Johnson, Yes!...the last American Hero”....that was in the early 1960s...Wolfe IMHO is our greatest observer of the social scene....nobody can poke holes in puffed up egos like he can...

[Fred Hayek]

“(The Bonfire of the Vanities), which is THE book to read if you want to understand NY in the 1980s.”

That novel did an excellent job illustrating the messed up priorities in New York City yuppie culture. One company I had worked for had “unwritten” conspicuous consumption rules. All that mattered for some people were Money! Power! Image! (wood, hay, and stubble), and of course these were people who did not really produce anything, just empty suits.

[the invisib1e hand]

yeah. bonfire of the vanities. one of those blank pages at the end was worth more than a truckload of "Wall Street" screenplays.

this article, though, is too stuffy. The writing in the first paragraphs was too highbrow for me to get through. I guess the guy is trying to outwolfe his subject.

[happygrl]

“Bush is portrayed as a moron. I’ve only conversed with him a couple of times – not for very long – but I found he was more literate on literature than the editor of the New York Review of Books, Bob Silvers. I’ve talked to both of them, and he makes Bob Silvers look like a slug.”

heh, heh, heh, it helps to have a librarian for a wife.

[Diago]

bum

[happygrl]

bum

Referring to Bob Silvers, who called President Bush a moron (I hope)?

[Finny]

this article, though, is too stuffy. The writing in the first paragraphs was too highbrow for me to get through. I guess the guy is trying to outwolfe his subject.

I noticed that. He redeems himself by using lots and lots of quotes from Tom Wolfe. Well worth reading -- skip the other stuff!

I've read pretty much all Wolfe's books, many of them more than once. I haven't read the latest, about the college girl. Kind of a downer topic. Tangerine Striped Baby, about the car culture, on the other hand, was great! Maybe it's time to read it again!