Bonfire of the Vanities.

[Jack_Aubrey]

I'm reading this now, not very far into it. Anyone here read it?

[Sancho]

Give it a good run Jack; it's a helluva good romp through Manhattan and Wall Street and, of course, The Bronx. I've read it, as well as just about everything else Tom Wolfe has written. You can skip the movie - it stinks (in my opinion). Let's chat about it as you journey through this novel.

Cheers

[Jack_Aubrey]

Thanks, good to hear some positive feedback. I'm going to start it tonight.

[chmpman]

I've also read it, and seen the atrocious movie directed (to my bewilderment) by Brian de Palma of Scarface fame. Very comical and pessimistic to the nature of New Yorkers.

[Sitaram]

Jack! I am proud to say that I am half way through reading the TITLE. And once I finish reading the title, I shall surely read the book which bears the title.

I need to psyche myself up to spend money and time.

I saw this post and said to myself, "Oh, you must read Jack's post, since he is quite a clever fellow and his posts are worthwhile."

When I first started reading Jack Aubrey's posts, I thought he was a middle-aged man like me. I was so startled when I got to know him through chat and correspondence, and realized how young he is.

Jack, you have a wonderful appetite and curiosity for someone so young. I really anticipate some important things from you over the next ten years.

Anyway, I must look at anything which catches Jack's interest. I found the following link, which the amusing phrase "taxi-meter" pace.

http://www.tomwolfe.com/Bonfire.html

"It's the human comedy, on a skyscraper scale and at a taxi-meter pace..." —Newsweek

I so prefer human comedy over bovine comedy (though, that cheese, "Vache qui ri", laughing cow, is pleasant.

There is such a never ending stream of clever turns of phrase like "in a New York minute" with no end in sight.


We seek the new and fresh and different like a drug, and no sooner do we become intoxicated with some clever fad, and it becomes trite and worn, and off we go again, into the alleys, looking for the dealer of something newer, fresher still.

Here is another useful review of "Bonfire"

http://www.issues-views.com/index.php/sect/5000/article/2100

Well, here I am, sipping my coffee at 5am, thinking about "Bonfire of the Vanities" and the language and style of review writers and critics.

There is some special literary technical term to denote as a class those phrases such as "time and tide" though I can't remember it at the moment. I wonder if there is a technical term to denote this phenomenon of neologism in reviews of books and wines.

There is even a term for it: winetalk.

http://semanticcompositions.typepad.com/index/2004/05/fruity_noses_an.html


http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000880.html





The winespeak style has recently colonized many other categories of food and drink, for example bourbon ("the palate bears some leather, tobacco, vanilla and hints of caramel" ... "a deep vanilla nose with hints of dark berries and mint"), scotch ("with a powerful smoke, seaweed, iodine, and faint nutty notes to the nose"), beer ("Bready, strawberry sweet start with a silky smooth citrus hop finish" ... "Hints of pine and mustiness to the nose"), coffee ("Fresh aromas of moist herbs and alpine flowers lead to complex, dark notes in the mouth with a silky, subtle finish"), tea ("wonderfully creamy texture ... with notes of ripe fruit and green bamboo"), olive oil (" intensely grassy with an underripe pungency"), cheese ("balanced saltiness and notes of chalk, grapefruit and hay") and chocolate ("Distinct cedar and brandy tones becoming lightly tart with mild nutmeg spiciness at peak").



St. Paul was a critic of sorts, critiquing all those philosophers on the "Hill of Mars", always "seeking some new thing." Good thing St. Paul didn't known any "winetalk", and describe for us the "fruity notes" of Plato's Dialogues. Of course, he blamed the Jews for always seeking miracles. Our postmodern task is so much easier, since it is so hard to come up with another new thing, that any new thing at all is a miracle in itself.


Here is a link on cliche phrases.

http://www.businessballs.com/clichesorigins.htm

"BONFIRE of the Vanities", great title, a title that really makes you want to read the book!

Here is a site which calls phrases such as time and tide an "old English doublet"

http://www.edgewaysbooks.com/5th/Misuse.html



House and home is a characteristic Old English doublet (kith and kin, time and tide) in formation, but not in sense, for there is still a difference between house and home. (Doublets can anyway sometimes contrast, as in thick and thin.) The difference was sentimentalized in the Victorian age with samplers declaring “East, West, Home’s Best” and the song “Home Sweet Home” (“Be it never so simple, there’s no place like home”). House would not be a substitute. We do not go to our long house unless like myself we happen to live in one. Homing pigeons could not be renamed housing pigeons and on the website you could not begin with a house page, though publishers do have a house style.


Hey, "BONFIRE" is a weird word, a really neat word. I think we should investigate the word BONFIRE.

http://faculty.whatcom.ctc.edu/lthomp/personal/wordfor.htm



When we think of a bonfire, we usually think of a heaping pile of wood blazing away as we sit with our friends in the evening telling stories by the fire. Or, if we've been watching any old movies on the American Movie Channel (AMC), we might think of the sort of bonfire college classes had during the 40s and 50s. However, bonfire originally referred to a fire made from a pile of bones.

A bonfire was originally some kind of ceremonial pagan custom (its purpose somewhat sketchy and undetermined, but recognizing some of the superstitions practiced in various cultures as a means of appeasing the gods and attempting to bring good fortune for the upcoming year, my guess is it was used in this context), whereby bones, especially those of animals, that had collected over the year were heaped together and burned in a huge fire.

Eventually, the bone fire shifted from such a specific application and came to mean any large outdoor fire, and the spelling became modified (bonfire), thereby also losing the appearance and clue to its original meaning.



So, BONfire is really BONE-fire. Cool! Wicked cool!

Hey, okay, dont rush me. First I am reading (reading into) the title of the book, "Bonfire of the Vanities", then I will read the book itself.

Bones! "The rag and bone shop of the heart" (Yeats)

Now "VANITY" makes me think of the Bible and Solomon, "vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

Our hankering after new, clever turns of phrase, like "taxi meter pace", is a form of vanity.

I was thinking of writing something entitled "When New was Young". New becomes old very quickly, you see.

Well, the speed of this post of mine can hardly be described as "taxi meter pace." Look at how long it takes me to discuss the first word of the title!






1:1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

1:2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is
vanity.

1:3 What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the
sun?

1:4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh:
but the earth abideth for ever.

1:5 The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his
place where he arose.



Shades of Hemingway!

I recently read that there were some difficulties in arranging Hemingway's funeral, because of the stigma which surrounds suicide. The preacher simply read "Vanity of vanities" and skipped over the verse which says "The Sun Also Rises."

[Jack_Aubrey]

Well I'm glad you think that way. And for what I've read so far (about 135 pages) it's an awesome book. Very funny, brutally satiristic.

I'm glad that my reading of this book and posting about it here has lured Sitaram into posting, and it was a very good funny post. Thanks.

[chmpman]

I was curious if anyone had read Tom Wolfe's new book 'I am Charlotte Simmons.' Just curious if it lived up to the author's previous works.

[Jack_Aubrey]

I've heard that it was good. And I saw him do an interview about it on The Daily Show. It sounded good.

[chmpman]

Thanks, I might check it out.

[mister_noel_y2k]

yeah charlotte simmons is about a million times better than bonfire, the writing and story are much better.


by the way, bonfire of the vanities is a reference to an event that took place in the early 16th century when the people of florence overthrew the ruling of the medici family and, by way of celebration, burnt all of these works of art that represented medici rule. that burning was called the bonfire of the vanities. works by botticelli among others were irretrievably destroyed.


:banana:

[chmpman]

very nice to know.

[mister_noel_y2k]

you're welcome

dance banana dance!

:banana: