Brilliantly constructed evocation of time, place and social class
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This was a brilliantly constructed "masterpiece", capturing its time and place superbly (as promised on the jacket); it sweeps across the social classes by interweaving the lives of a disparate set of characters all brought to what looks like it will be a final climatic court scene. The author was able to provide sympathetic hooks for each of the characters in the story such that it was difficult to know who to "root for" in what seemed to be the inevitable court showdown. But this is where the book let this reader down. The final few chapters could have brought a memorable book to a crescendo; instead it all fell flat tailing off into a series of footnotes about what happened to the characters after the main story had been told. It was as if the author had become bored with the story, or could not work out how to end it satisfactorily. For this reader this book had parallels with Fielding's Tom Jones - a cracking multi-character narrative brought to the brink; and then tailed off through an author's dis-interest or disinclination to continue in the same style. Maybe the sheer size of both books is the clue.
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Race or class?
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This is a brilliant book of 80s excess and aspiration mixed with attitudes towards race. Just because a person is rich should they be guilty of racism and just because a person is poor should they be a victim of this. However, this is not the story just the legal case! A great story with real meaning even today twenty years later. A future classic as this social situation aint going anywhere!
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Black or white, you're scum
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This book destroys the pretence of modern America: a place to make you're dreams come true? a land where anyone can become President? If you're white and live in uptown Manhatten you are a one-dimensional ego-maniac, probably with a God-complex who regards anyone below your social status as vermin. You have no friends, only competitors. If you're black you are on the take, whether committing a car-jacking or white-collar fraud but you're protected by the white politicians desperate for black votes. If you can read you're regarded as some sort of evolutionary miracle.
Tom Wolfe has created a book where no-one comes out alive, the friends of Sherman McCoy, the former Master of the Universe, turn on him, the white DA tries to destroy him and the Reverand Bacon sails on protected by the colour of his skin. This book is a revelation: no heroes, just villains.
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The master at work
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There is no better writer in America today. The book is an astonishing insight into the ironies of modern America. Unfortunately they made a horrible mess of the film with Brian de Palma as Director and Tom Hanks as the lead. It was truly awful! Ignore the film, enjoy the book.
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Wolfe in Fiction Mode
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This is apparently Tom Wolfe's first foray into writing a novel. I am a big fan of his journalistic writings and on that basis, Wolfe uses a similar cutting and witty style to satirise New York politics through the story-line. Interestingly, in the introduction, Wolfe states that he set out to write a book about New York, which explains why this story encapsulates so much of the colourful society within this city. More importantly, the story revolves around the politics and tensions between these facets of race and class, resulting in a combustible plot.
Throughout the novel, the inimitable Wolfe style made me laugh out loud as it has done previously, however because it's fiction, Wolfe has free rein using plotline to comment on the ridiculousness of certain aspects of New York society .
Beyond the cleverness and humour of the story, Wolfe takes the social issues and makes you think twice about what is really going on. How can Sherman McCoy, the arrogant reptilian protagonist be the subject of your pity? How can liberality be the gaoler of truth? This ambiguity is what makes this a thought-provoking and memorable book.
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