Addio Nanda, sei stata un faro nella notte, e un modello ... stasera piangerò per te.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Fernanda Pivano (18 luglio1917- 18 agosto2009)
Addio Nanda, sei stata un faro nella notte, e un modello ... stasera piangerò per te.
Monday, August 10, 2009
The Bonfire of The Vanities
I recently re-read a book which has won the name of contemporary classic, The Bonfire of The Vanities. 
The novel by Tom Wolfe tells the story of Sherman McCoy, stockbroker at Wall Street- who calls himself Master of the Universe-, who has a 1 million dollar revenue and who lives in a luxurious apartment in Park Avenue. He loses all when driving, along with his mistress Maria Ruskin, his car runs over Henry Lamb- a black student from Bronx-. McCoy is then caught up into a sort of playing-at-chess-game with his destiny: the Bronx Attorney Abe Weiss, the Assistant Attorney Larry Kramer (a lustful and envious guy), Reverend Reginald Bacon (a black episcopal ministry that controls the black community for his own ends), and alcoholist journalist Peter Fallow, all use Sherman McCoy as their scape-goat to be burnt on the bonfire of the vanities.
The novel by Tom Wolfe tells the story of Sherman McCoy, stockbroker at Wall Street- who calls himself Master of the Universe-, who has a 1 million dollar revenue and who lives in a luxurious apartment in Park Avenue. He loses all when driving, along with his mistress Maria Ruskin, his car runs over Henry Lamb- a black student from Bronx-. McCoy is then caught up into a sort of playing-at-chess-game with his destiny: the Bronx Attorney Abe Weiss, the Assistant Attorney Larry Kramer (a lustful and envious guy), Reverend Reginald Bacon (a black episcopal ministry that controls the black community for his own ends), and alcoholist journalist Peter Fallow, all use Sherman McCoy as their scape-goat to be burnt on the bonfire of the vanities. The book is a huge human comedy in the style of Balzac, Flaubert and Zola- the masters of Naturalism; but, more than that, it is the first attempt, after half-century of the American novel focusing on the self, to bring the realistic novel back into the American letters: only Frank Norris with A Hazard of New Fortunes succeeded to picture New York and his commercial-now financial- greed. The book has all the common traits of such a novel: the protagonist Sherman McCoy is a fallen man into a world of grudge, lust and above all vanity; and more important, no character at all is saved in this novel: they're all burnt on the huge bonfire of the vanities,as they all give up their moral duty to achieve their own ends (and whims). This is particularly evident in the case of the Assistant Attorney Larry Kramer whose actions are moved by lust and envy of the rich Sherman McCoy. For example, he craves McCoy's mistress, Maria Ruskin, and in doing so he spoils the case.
Tom Wolfe's novel pointed a new path to the American novel: after new journalism, a new realism.
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