National Review, December 18th, 1987
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe (Farrar, 659 pp., $19.95) ONCE--AND, AS FAR as I can tell, only once, and that was 14 years ago--Tom Wolfe got reckless. In 1973, in a 52-page essay introducing a collection of the best of the New Journalism, the veil slipped for an instant, and the high priest of vanity-of-vanities journalism, who has made a small fortune demonstrating the entertainment value of other people's hubris, revealed the truth to the entire world: he takes himself seriously. He didn't mean to do it. Originally the essay was to have been your usual five-page pro-forma prefa...
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