How Vain Is Tom Wolfe?
I honestly don’t know! … I have mixed feelings about this one. On the plus side, this Tom Wolfe novel compares well with Balzac’s stuff. I mean, the methods are similar. The story follows several very different characters living in New York, and each scene is detailed, particularized, diced, analyzed, painted with a very fine brush. Many layers of New York society are represented, and most situations go beyond merely believable; they’re totally authentic, and masterfully so. There are in this book, when all is said and done, no moral messages, no lessons to be learned, just life in New York in the late ‘Eighties or early ‘Nineties at its most intense, presented as “business as usual.” There are corrupt politicians, lascivious prosecutors, moronic members of the jury; Ivy League graduates working the stock market and imagining they are on top of the world; cynical lawyers; less-than-bright policemen; political opportunists; socialites; priests; opera singers; real estate agents with f
