Bonfire of the Vanities Finished:

This was the second book I've read by Tom Wolfe, and after finishing it I instantly bought the remaining two -- Man in Full and Back to Blood.  I'm sold on this guy's literary merits.  Not only did Bonfire make me laugh throughout, it nigh made me cry when Campbell artlessly confessed her love for Daddy.  The tragedy of Sherman McCoy, of all unjustly accused men, rings me like a bell.  It's so horrid, so awful, how powerless you are in the face of liars saying things other people want to hear.

And Bonfire holds no punches.  There is no justice for Sherman anywhere to be found.  He's still on trial, bankrupt and divorced (the author uses the more polite term of 'estranged' but it amounts to as much) when the curtains close.  The only thing that's changed is his defeatist attitude to one of 'fuck all ya'll, I know I'm in the right.'  I guess that in itself is glorious, sort of like Mel Gibson's last stand in Braveheart -- 'anything you want to confess?'  "FREEEEEDOMMMMM!"

That guy didn't win in Braveheart, either, but he won inside his own mind.  That's a victory that reverberates through the ages.

Tom Wolfe is a great author, I hope the remaining two novels are only half as good as Bonfire and I'd be satisfied.  He joins my good books hall of fame at #36 among fiction authors.  To make room I kicked out George R.R. Martin, whose series was supplanted by the tv show anyway so has no real literary merit.  It doesn't help that it's been nine years and he still hasn't written the next volume of the series, leaving all of his fans out to hang.

So to hell with George R.R. Martin, and to hell with all liars.  Including Andrew Anglin, the punk ass bitch pretending to be a million things but actually being nothing, and the Democrats trying to impeach Trump for accurately noting how corrupt Joe Biden's family was in a phone call.