In my senior high school English class we had to read Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe. I didn’t like it. First, I was mad because all the local bookstores had essentially sold out of it by the time I wanted it (it’s not one of those books they tend to keep caseloads of in anticipation for school assignments), so I had to buy the hardcover. I didn’t particularly enjoy reading it, but what really got to me was all the cussing it it. To me, it was extreme, and I sort of got that it was part of the characterization but it still bothered me. I read it with a black market and blacked out every bad word and then showed my dalmatian-like copy to my teacher when we finished it as officially entering my word of protest. I never really got why we had to read Richard III, Dr. Faustus, and… a book written about the 1980s. In fact, I just finally threw the thing out recently but not before whining to Adrian about it and showing him my desecrated (or perhaps improved) copy as evidence of the language.
Fast forward a few years (ahem… I am failing to give the specific year not because it makes me feel old but because I don’t like drawing attention to what I feel is my relative youngness. I think people don’t take me seriously sometimes because they think I’m young) . Today, there’s a huge backlash against Wall Street and stockbrokers and we’ve taken a sudden economic downturn to put it lightly. And what have I noticed? Little references are popping up all over to the Sherman McCoys of Wall Street (this was just casually mentioned in a New York Times article this morning) and to Tom Wolfe’s writing. I feel smart every time I catch the reference.
Did my high school English teacher know we’d face this? He focused a lot on literary allusions. We had a massive project relating to biblical and mythological allusions that I still use because it does in fact help me understand references in news articles or books. So it’s fitting that the book I was so annoyed with now helps me catch nuances in articles about current events.
Perhaps he was just trying to warn us, his little class of A.P. seniors–especially when I think about Dr. Faustus as well–about the dangers of allowing our hubris to destroy us as we went out into the world. Either way, I’m learning to soften my view of the whole thing, and I like him even more. You see, anything would have been an improvement over junior English, where the standout of that year was Grapes of Wrath. Ug. I really hope the economy doesn’t get to the point where I find some twisted appreciation for reading THAT once upon a time.