Talk:The Bonfire of the Vanities

Not just Wall Street
Removed the part abaout 'vanitites of Wall Street' and replaced it with New York. McCoy the Wall Street-er is surely the protagonist but the novel touched upon multiple personalities within the greater New York area and gives equal coverage to all. I do not think it is appropriate to label this as just a Wall-Street story.

Disambiguation
As I have just mentionned at Talk:Bonfire of the Vanities, the current distinction between these two articles (the "The") seems a bit random and arbitrary. Perhaps a better kind of disambiguation is needed. - IMSoP 11:25, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Accuracy
The plot description on this page is wholly incorrect. Fallow does not provide the tape to McCoy, and his opinion of McCoy doesn't change significantly throughout the book. It's so inaccurate that I don't even know how to repair it without deleting the entire thing -- and I really don't have the time to write a replacement. 18.214.1.86 18:50, 19 November 2005 (UTC) MR

Its easy, I'll just delete the offending sentence. MasonicLamb 23:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Kramer?
How is it possible to have an article about this book and not mention one of the lead characters, assistant DA Larry Kramer, once? He was at least as important to the plot as Fallow was.

Spoilers...
You guys need to rethink the placement of spoiler tags in this article. The entire article is a spoiler? You hit a spoiler warning even before the Introduction! --Gwern (contribs) 23:22, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Addition to Trivia Section
How about adding some information on The New York City Light...? It seems to me to be a fictional newspaper as i cant find a record of it anywhere...
 * It is simply one of many usages of a roman a clef throughout the book, in this regard dealing with the often salacious headlines of the New York City tabloid, the New York Post.Dough007 (talk) 03:58, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Lead characters
I don't think you can say there were four principle characters (McCoy, Bacon, Kramer and Fallow). Others (Weiss, Killian, Kovitsky, Ruskin etc) were just as important in different times. If we had to say there was a lead character, it was McCoy only. Kransky 12:03, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Bonfirewolf.jpg
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BetacommandBot (talk) 04:59, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

"would-be muggers"
This issue has already been resolved, so the following paragraph can be ignored. Mesopelagicity (talk) 17:36, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I read this book about ten years ago, so my memory might be wrong; but as I remember it, the two black men were not necessarily "would-be muggers" as described in the plot summary. The Master of The Universe and his mistress stop because there is a tire blocking the road. The two men (really a man and a boy, a high school student) happen to be walking by. The older one says, "Yo! Need some help?" Whether it's a threat or an offer of help is a matter of interpretation. The millionaire and his mistress panic and flee, hitting and possibly killing the teenager with their car. I don't have the book anymore; would someone who has it please check, and if appropriate, re-write the sentence about "would-be muggers"? Mesopelagicity (talk) 23:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Uncertainty

 * Although it's been decades since I read the book, I'm pretty sure the reader is never told whether the two blacks who approach McCoy on the on-ramp "happen to be walking by." That's a question McCoy wrestles with — during and after the encounter.  Wolfe, I think, never answers it.


 * The following passage is from the encounter, which is in the book's fourth chapter ("King of the Jungle"). Ruskin's shout has just alerted McCoy to the approach of the two blacks:


 * "Yo!" said the big one. "Need some help?"
 * Sherman stood there, holding the tire and staring.
 * "What happen, man? Need some help?"
 * It was a neighborly voice. Setting me up!  One hand inside his jacket pocket!  But he sounds sincere.  It’s a setup, you idiot!  But suppose he merely wants to help?  What are they doing on this ramp!  Haven’t done anything — haven’t threatened.  But they will!  Just be nice.  Are you insane?  Do something !  Act!


 * Later (same chapter), when McCoy and Ruskin are in their Manhattan love nest, Sherman is suggesting they go to the police and tell "what happened." Ruskin demurs:
 * "Sherman, I’m gonna tell you what happened. I’m from South Carolina, and I’m gonna tell you in plain English.  Two niggers tried to kill us, and we got away.  Two niggers tried to kill us in the jungle, and we got outta the jungle, and we’re still breathing, and that’s that."


 * Once again, McCoy wrestles with this, mentally:
 * But if [Maria and he] — if Maria had hit the boy, then it was better to grit his teeth and just tell what happened. Which was what?  Well … two boys had tried to rob them.  They blocked the roadway.  They approached him.  They said ... A little shock went through his solar plexus.  Yo!  You need some help?  That was all the big one had said.  He hadn’t produced a weapon.  Neither of them had made a threatening gesture until after he [McCoy] had thrown the tire.  Could it be – now, wait a minute.  That’s crazy.  What else were they doing out on a ramp to an expressway beside a blockade, in the dark — except to — Maria would back up his interpretation — interpretation! — a frisky wild animal — all of a sudden he realized that he barely knew her.


 * I'm pretty sure, too, that the reader is never actually told — even indirectly — that the hospitalized Henry Lamb is the boy from McCoy and Ruskin's on-ramp experience. (When I say "even indirectly," I mean I don't recall a scene in which, say, McCoy sees a newspaper photo of Lamb and thinks, "That's the boy who was on the ramp.")  I'm also pretty sure we're never told what was reported to police about the circumstances of the accident in which Lamb was purportedly injured.71.242.138.95 (talk) 22:47, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

McCoy name reference
Would it be desirable to have it pointed out that the name of the main character, McCoy, is likely a reference to the Hatfield-McCoy feud? A McCoy, being someone that always desires more and more and needs to prove himself to others (like when he'd rahter take the limo than to be seen walking a few blocks), defining himself no by what he is, but by what he has.

This interpretation I have taken from Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, who understand the term "Hatfield and McCoy" in their song "Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)" as being "like the Hatfields and McCoys", worrying about money and material belongings more than about the really important things in life. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.75.4.155 (talk) 06:44, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Ambiguity
I have undone another editor's revision of 01:59, 3 May 2009. The editor had changed the plot summary's statement that Maria Ruskin, at the wheel of Sherman McCoy's car, "apparently" strikes one of the two blacks who approach Sherman on the highway ramp in the Bronx. The editor's summary of his/her revision was this:


 * no ambiguity here, book says "The car end fishtailed . . . thok! . . . The skinny boy was no longer standing . . ."

As is seen, that edit summary defeats itself. The quoted passage is ambiguous. Ambiguity is at the heart of the book. The book contains, as I recall, no statement that:


 * 1) Henry Lamb was struck by a car
 * 2) Henry Lamb was one of the two blacks who came onto the ramp when Sherman and Maria were there
 * 3) Sherman's car, as driven by Maria, struck the skinny boy

Yes — the reader of the book is given to think each one of those three things likely — even very likely; but again, not one of them, as I recall, is stated. The ambiguity is literary, subtle.

I say "As I recall" only because I no longer have the book, which, as I also recall, vaguely, I gave to someone on the understanding that it needn't be returned. (Loved the book; hate owning books.) If I am incorrect, and any one of the above statements appears in the book, an editor will kindly provide the quote, here, and adjust the article accordingly.71.242.128.3 (talk) 06:25, 3 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I am the reverted editor. You'll note that my first edit yesterday was to correct the book's ISBN.  Since like you I no longer have the book at hand, before I made my other changes to the article I used the corrected ISBN and Amazon's "Look inside" feature to refresh my memory by reading some excerpts; this avoids the need for the phrase "as I recall".  If you do the same, search for 'thok', 'wrist' and 'concussion' for starters.  I don't think a close reading will find support for your negation of points 1, 2, or 3 above. I won't revert your 'allegedly/apparently' changes again, or copyedit for readability; perhaps someone else will ring in.


 * Having said all that, it seems that the entire "Plot summary" section is a collection of well-meaning original research and opinion that many contributors have built up by applying their own direct reading of the book. I have tagged the section as "Original research.  It should be dumped and rebuilt using actual citations to published sources.  --CliffC (talk) 16:35, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Geography of the misadventure
The fateful encounter at the heart of the novel seems to take place on a Sheridan Expressway on-ramp — though I, a non-New-Yorker, find it hard to tell whether the fictional geography comports strictly with actual geography.

McCoy and Ruskin accidentally enter the Bronx after they go onto the Triborough Bridge from Queens. While they are northward-bound on Ward’s Island and Randall’s Island, they miss the exit for the bridge’s span that goes westward, into Manhattan. As things are told in the book, the sign of the toll plaza that is then before them is this:


 * BRONX UPSTATE N.Y. NEW ENGLAND

They are now heading toward unknown territory. McCoy, who is driving, proceeds through the toll plaza and on across the bridge into the Bronx:


 * At the end of the bridge the expressway split into a Y. MAJOR DEEGAN GEO. WASHINGTON BRIDGE ... BRUCKNER NEW ENGLAND ....

He takes the latter — Bruckner — but immediately comes to another Y:


 * EAST BRONX NEW ENGLAND ... EAST 138TH BRUCKNER BOULEVARD

Again, he takes the latter — and comes abruptly down a ramp to ground level — to what I take to be Bruckner Boulevard:


 * He seemed to be underneath the expressway.

The expressway he's under would seem, geographically, to be the Bruckner Expressway, beneath which, according to Wikipedia, Bruckner Boulevard runs.


 * They were traveling north underneath the expressway. But what expressway?  Two lanes, both heading north ... To the left a retaining wall and cyclone fencing and concrete columns supporting the expressway....

McCoy hopes to turn left — westward — to find an avenue that will take him south again, into Manhattan, but he finds it impossible to turn left at 138th Street:


 * A big opening in the wall ... 138th Street ... But he can’t turn left! To his left are four or five lanes of traffic, down here underneath the expressway, two going north, two going south, and another one beyond them, cars and trucks barreling in both directions — there’s no way he can cut across that traffic ... So he keeps going ... into the Bronx.

After passing another opening where, again, he can’t turn left, he plans, at the next opening — the third — to make a right turn and then make a U-turn, so he’ll be able to pass westward, beneath the expressway. When the third opening comes, he’s not yet over in the right lane, whose traffic prevents him from executing his plan. Advancing to the fourth opening, he does, indeed, turn right — onto a "wide street."

Wolfe does not give this "wide street" a name, and it's hard to tell just how far north McCoy and Ruskin have driven at this point. As I've indicated, they seem to have reached the fourth "opening" in the retaining wall alongside which they'd been driving.

On this wide street are many persons, who "look Latin." There is a "long low building with scalloped dormer windows ... like something from a storybook Swiss chalet...."

After advancing through an intersection with a traffic light, McCoy makes his planned U-turn and heads back toward the expressway:


 * But when they crossed the big thoroughfare under the expressway, they found themselves in a chaotic intersection. Streets converged from odd angles.  People were crossing the street in every direction... Dark faces ... Over this way a subway entrance... Over there low buildings, shops... Great Taste Chinese Takeout... He couldn’t tell which street went due west....

I don’t know whether that intersection corresponds to any actual intersection. Wolfe now just about quits indicating direction, as he communicates mostly that McCoy and Ruskin are lost. When McCoy takes another "wide street," the one that seems to him likeliest to go due west, he finds it more or less blocked by double-and-triple-parked cars, plus people. After another turn or two, he ends up on a street that "quickly merge[s] with a narrow side street and [runs] between some low buildings."

After making turns that take them along deserted streets with fenced-and-razor-wired low buildings, seven- or eight-story unlighted apartment buildings, entirely-razed blocks, and a "long slope" to a lone-surviving three-or-four story building whose ground floor houses a bar or some such place where music is playing (apparently via illicitly-tapped electricity), McCoy yet again turns, soon "[coming] upon a little park with an iron railing around it":


 * You had to turn either left or right. The streets went off at odd angles. ... It no longer looked like New York.  It looked like some small decaying New England city.  He turned left."

Before long, McCoy and Ruskin are back near the subway stop and the Chinese Takeout: McCoy has gone in a circle. He decides to turn right — apparently southward, in other words — to drive once again along what I have taken to be Bruckner Boulevard. What I have taken to be the Bruckner Expressway is "right up above":


 * "I’m gonna take a right. I’m gonna head back down under the expressway."

Ruskin, who doesn’t want him to do that, sees a sign:


 * "Sherman! Look over there!  It says George Washington Bridge!"




 * [H]e saw it. It was on the far side, beneath the expressway, in the decrepit gray gloaming, a sign on a concrete support ... 95.  895 EAST.  GEO. WASH. BRIDGE ... Must be a ramp...




 * He drove across the five lanes toward the little sign. He was back under the expressway.




 * The ramp looked like a black chute stuck up between the concrete supports.




 * The headlights shot across the concrete columns in a delirium. ... He turned left around an abutment and gunned it up the ramp.

In real life, 895 — which seems to be the road whose on-ramp McCoy has entered — is the Sheridan Expressway. It runs north-south, not east-west; and, indeed, a photo at Wikipedia’s article about it seems to confirm that its lanes are labeled north and south, not east and west.

After McCoy and Ruskin have their encounter with the two strangers on the partially-obstructed on-ramp, they (McCoy and Ruskin) go up onto the highway — again: apparently 895 — and drive — northward, apparently — toward the Cross Bronx Expressway:


 * Then [McCoy] stared at a sign over the highway up ahead: CROSS BRONX GEO. WASH. BRIDGE.

They take the Cross Bronx — westward, it would seem — and reach the interchange that connects it with what in real life would be the Major Deegan Expressway:


 * Then, overhead: MAJOR DEEGAN TRIBORO BRIDGE.

They take that — southward (and then eastward), in real life. After passing the exit for Willis Avenue, they come to the exit they want:


 * Over the highway a big sign: TRIBORO.

They take this exit and are now "on the long incline that led to the bridge and to Manhattan." After they go across the bridge and into Manhattan, they go down the "FDR Drive, along the East River." They get off at Seventy-first Street and go to their love nest.

In a sense, of course, the book takes place in a fictional locale — not really New York City at all; but still, I thought it might be interesting to post these details here, in case anyone who is familiar with the lower part of the Bronx can shed any light on what Wolfe describes.

To recap: McCoy and Ruskin seem first to drop down into the Bronx on Bruckner Boulevard, a little below 138th Street, in what would be, in real life, the borough’s Port Morris section. After wandering around, they seem to leave the Bronx via an on-ramp to what would be the northbound Sheridan Expressway.

Wolfe’s description of the on-ramp is so intriguing that I have to wonder whether someone who is familiar with that highway’s ramps would, in reading the description, be put in mind of a particular ramp.

Incidentally, in leaving Kennedy Airport, McCoy and Ruskin take the Van Wyck Expressway north to the Grand Central Parkway, which they then take all the way to the Triborough Bridge. As I look at a map, I’m inclined to think I would exit from the Grand Central Parkway at the Long Island Expressway, which would take me west into Manhattan at midtown. Why drive all the way up to the Triborough Bridge and then back down to the East Seventies through Harlem? Maybe somebody familiar with the driving in the New York area can answer this.

Anyway — some short version of this information might be an interesting addition to the Wikipedia articles on, say, Port Morris and the Sheridan Expressway — as well as to this article, about the novel.71.242.138.95 (talk) 06:36, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Gore Vidal insult?
I've read that the character Nunnally Voyd was so named as a mark of disrespect to Gore Vidal, but I can find no confirmation on that. Was this the case? --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  06:04, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I've read Bonfire of the Vanities, and several essays and articles by Vidal over the years. I think the identification of Gore Vidal with "Nunnally Voyd" is a stretch.  Other writers in the New York social scene fit the implied charge of vacuity in the name "Voyd" (a homophone of "void"). Vidal, like his work or not, wasn't vacuous.
 * I actually thought "Lord Buffing" was a closer fit to Vidal, macabre rendition of Poe's "Masque of the Red Death" at a dinner party and all... but there's no evidence that Vidal suffered AIDS as that character did. Vidal died of pneumonia, but his other known concomitant illnesses could have accounted for that.  loupgarous (talk) 23:31, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Amazon adaptation
The reference to an Amazon miniseries does not seem to have any news updates since October 2016. 30 months This may not even occur, so at some point may have to be edited out. 2600:8807:4800:2130:285C:92EC:2A34:6C37 (talk) 19:24, 18 April 2019 (UTC) (dfoofnik not logged in)