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The Phoenix and the 'Bonfire': The Death and Transformation of Sherman McCoy |
| Section: MODERN THOUGHT / LITERATURE |
| Author: James Thompson |
| Publication: The world & I online |
| Issue Date: 1/1/1993 |
| Size: 5,614 Words, 33,608 Characters |
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More success is inadequate for a back nowadays. To satisfy everyone involved--author, publisher, booksellers, readers--a book must be an event, preferably a big event on a scale that realizes a press agent's most fevered dreams. Judged by this standard, Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities may have been the novel of the 1980s. Serialized in Rolling Stone to great éclat, the completed book appeared in late 1987 and quickly became the most talked-about work of fiction in years. Before the commotion abated, the book received a fresh jolt of publicity from the announcement that Hollywood would convert the story into what publicity floggers call a "major motion picture!" Although Brian De Palma's film flopped with the critics and died with a whimper in the theaters, its premiere attracted an...
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...n typical fashion, Wolfe gives this incident a comic twist when a horrified Sherman convinces himself that Buffing's message of doom is aimed solely at him. This does not vitiate the intensity of the scene; nor does it remove the sting from Wolfe's verdict upon the febrile glamour and ostentatious riches that in the 1980s danced before the eyes of Americans are pinnacle of social perfection.
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