• Complain

Tom Wolfe - Bonfire of the Vanities (Picador Books)

Here you can read online Tom Wolfe - Bonfire of the Vanities (Picador Books) full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 1999, publisher: Pan Books Ltd, genre: Detective and thriller. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Tom Wolfe Bonfire of the Vanities (Picador Books)
  • Book:
    Bonfire of the Vanities (Picador Books)
  • Author:
  • Publisher:
    Pan Books Ltd
  • Genre:
  • Year:
    1999
  • Rating:
    5 / 5
  • Favourites:
    Add to favourites
  • Your mark:
    • 100
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

Bonfire of the Vanities (Picador Books): summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Bonfire of the Vanities (Picador Books)" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

One night in the Bronx a millionaire, Sherman McCoy, and his mistress have an accident. The next day a young Black is in hospital in a coma as McCoy heads for disaster. His humiliation is at the centre of a satire on the decaying class, racial and political structure of New York in the 1980s.

Tom Wolfe: author's other books


Who wrote Bonfire of the Vanities (Picador Books)? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

Bonfire of the Vanities (Picador Books) — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Bonfire of the Vanities (Picador Books)" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make
Additional Praise for The Bonfire Of The Vanities Brilliant Bonfire illumines - photo 1
Additional Praise for
The Bonfire Of The Vanities

Brilliant Bonfire illumines the modern madness that [was] New York in the 1980s with the intense precision of a laser beam.

People

Impossible to put down.

The Wall Street Journal

Marvelous.

Business Week

Its The Human Comedy , on a skyscraper scale and at a taxi-meter pace.

Newsweek

Vintage WolfeThe plot is an astonishing intricate machine that manages to mesh at every turn.

The New York Times

Its a monstrous pleasure to watch this world burn. Wolfes conflagration sweeps away New York in a great tragicomic circus. Wolfes the uncanny master of the inside angle on style, our best meteorologist of hip.

New Haven Register

One of the most impressive novels of the decade.

Library Journal

Nasty, satirical, probing, and dead-on accurateWolfe falls so naturally into this colorful, supercharged account of New York high life and low life that its hard to believe he hasnt been writing fiction all his life. It also reads at a veritable gallopthose pages flash by you as you watch, with fascinated horror, the meticulously charted fall of Sherman McCoy.

The Seattle Times

Reverberates with subjects in todays news. However, it also touches passionately on perennial themes that will give it staying power. Bonfire is news that will stay news because a century hence readers will find preserved in it the strong flavor of some unfortunately important slices of life in our time.

George F. Will

A smash.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

A swirling, satisfying, educational, noisy, moral whirlpool of a bookPlot and principals sumptuous enough to make Jackie Collins Hollywood seem like Hee Haw by comparison.

The Dallas Morning News

Wolfe leaves no head unbashed. His eye and ear for detailed observation are incomparable; and observation is to the satirist what bullets are to a gun.

Boston Sunday Globe

Doffing his hat the author dedicates this book to COUNSELOR EDDIE HAYES - photo 2

Doffing his hat,
the author dedicates this book to
COUNSELOR EDDIE HAYES
who walked among the flames,
pointing at the lurid lights.
And he wishes to express
his deep appreciation to
BURT ROBERTS
who first showed the way

Contents
Prologue: Mutt on Fire

And then say what? say, forget youre hungry, forget you got shot inna back by some racist copChuck was here? Chuck come up to Harlem

No, Ill tell you what

Chuck come up to Harlem and

Ill tell you what

Say, Chuck come up to Harlem and gonna take care a business for the black community?

That does it.

Heh-heggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Its one of those ungodly contralto cackles somewhere out there in the audience. Its a sound from down so deep, from under so many lavish layers, he knows exactly what she must look like. Two hundred pounds, if shes an ounce! Built like an oil burner! The cackle sets off the men. They erupt with those belly sounds he hates so much.

They go, Hehhehhehunnnnhhhh-hunhhhThats rightTell em, broYo

Chuck! The insolenthes right there, right there in the fronthe just called him a Charlie! Chuck is short for Charlie, and Charlie is the old code name for a down-home white bigot. The insolence of it! The impudence! The heat and glare are terrific. It makes the Mayor squint. Its the TV lights. Hes inside a blinding haze. He can barely make out the hecklers face. He sees a tall silhouette and the fantastic bony angles the mans elbows make when he throws his hands up in the air. And an earring. The man has a big gold earring in one ear.

The Mayor leans into the microphone and says, No, Ill tell you what. Okay? Ill give you the actual figures. Okay?

We dont want your figures, man!

Man , he says! The insolence! You brought it up, my friend. So youre gonna get the actual figures. Okay ?

Dont you shine us up with no more your figures!

Another eruption in the crowd, louder this time: Unnnnh-unnnnh-unnnhTell im, broY on the caseYo, Gober!

In this administrationand its a matter of public recordthe percentage of the total annual budget for New York City

Aw, maaaan, yells the heckler, dont you stand there and shine us up with no more your figures and your bureaucratic rhetoric!

They love it. The insolence! The insolence sets off another eruption. He peers through the scalding glare of the television lights. He keeps squinting. Hes aware of a great mass of silhouettes out in front of him. The crowd swells up. The ceiling presses down. Its covered in beige tiles. The tiles have curly incisions all over them. Theyre crumbling around the edges. Asbestos! He knows it when he sees it! The facestheyre waiting for the beano, for the rock fight. Bloody noses!thats the idea. The next instant means everything. He can handle it! He can handle hecklers! Only five-seven, but hes even better at it than Koch used to be! Hes the mayor of the greatest city on earthNew York! Him!

All right! Youve had your fun, and now youre gonna shut up for a minute!

That startles the heckler. He freezes. Thats all the Mayor needs. He knows how to do it.

Youuuu asked meeeee a question, didnt you, and you got a bigggg laugh from your claque. And so now youuuuure gonna keep quiiiiet and lissssten to the answer. Okay ?

Say, claque? The man has had his wind knocked out, but hes still standing up.

Okay ? Now here are the statistics for yourrr community, right here, Harlem.

Say, claque? The bastard has hold of this word claque like a bone. Ain nobody can eat statistics, man!

Tell im, broYoYo, Gober!

Let me finish. Do youuuuu think

Dont percentage no annual budget with us, man! We want jobs !

The crowd erupts again. Its worse than before. Much of it he cant make outinterjections from deep in the bread basket. But theres this Yo business. Theres some loudmouth way in back with a voice that cuts through everything.

Yo, Gober! Yo, Gober! Yo, Gober!

But he isnt saying Gober . Hes saying Goldberg .

Yo, Goldberg! Yo, Goldberg! Yo, Goldberg!

It stuns him. In this place, in Harlem! Goldberg is the Harlem cognomen for Jew. Its insolentoutrageous!that anyone throws this vileness in the face of the Mayor of New York City!

Boos, hisses, grunts, belly laughs, shouts. They want to see some loose teeth. Its out of control.

Do you

Its no use. He cant make himself heard even with the microphone. The hate in their faces! Pure poison! Its mesmerizing.

Yo, Goldberg! Yo, Goldberg! Yo, Hymie!

Hymie! That business! Theres one of them yelling Goldberg and another one yelling Hymie. Then it dawns on him. Reverend Bacon! Theyre Bacons people. Hes sure of it. The civic-minded people who come to public meetings in Harlemthe people Sheldon was supposed to make sure filled up this hallthey wouldnt be out there yelling these outrageous things. Bacon did this! Sheldon fucked up! Bacon got his people in here!

A wave of the purest self-pity rolls over the Mayor. Out of the corner of his eye he can see the television crews squirming around in the haze of light. Their cameras are coming out of their heads like horns. Theyre swiveling around this way and that. Theyre eating it up! Theyre here for the brawl! They wouldnt lift a finger. Theyre cowards! Parasites! The lice of public life!

In the next moment he has a terrible realization: Its over. I cant believe it. Ive lost.

No more yourOutta hereBooooDon wannaYo, Goldberg!

Guliaggi, the head of the Mayors plainclothes security detail, is coming toward him from the side of the stage. The Mayor motions him back with a low flap of his hand, without looking at him directly. What could he do, anyway? He brought only four officers with him. He didnt want to come up here with an army. The whole point was to show that he could go to Harlem and hold a town-hall meeting, just the way he could in Riverdale or Park Slope.

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Bonfire of the Vanities (Picador Books)»

Look at similar books to Bonfire of the Vanities (Picador Books). We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «Bonfire of the Vanities (Picador Books)»

Discussion, reviews of the book Bonfire of the Vanities (Picador Books) and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.