For anyone who wonders whether September ll has changed the city,
I would recommend a re-reading of Tom Wolfe’s masterpiece
about the greed and ethnicity that consumed New York in the 1980s,
The Bonfire of the Vanities.
The city that comes to life in this novel
offers a strange nostalgic comfort.
Perhaps most out-of-date is the central character,
stockbroker Sherman McCoy,
whose workplace confidence, high-maintenance mistress and consumer excesses
seem like something from another century.
Today he would be mourning dead colleagues,
fussing at his accountant
and trying to make his marriage work.
The title,
The Bonfire of the Vanities,
comes from the 15th century monk Savanorola’s fire
in the Piazza del Signoria where the citizens of Florence
cleansed themselves of sin by burning their worldly goods.
The first fire was such a success
that a second was arranged;
by then the Florentines had had enough
and the third fire immolated Savonarola himself.
Happily the talented Mr. Wolfe survived his immolation
of NYC’s excesses
and went on to write
A Man In Full,
an equally fine novel about another time and another place.
July 2002
