I am one of those who believes that Tom Wolfe is among the most penetrating and understandably literate social observers and social commentators of the age. Actually, you have to go back to Thorstein Veblen to read someone so evocative of the realities--sometimes grim, sometimes silly--amidst which we live. And as for a readability comparison you may have to go back to the English novelists of the nineteenth century. It's not only The Bonfire of the Vanities, which, in its day, touched on matters that were taboo, is correct society. It's also his occasional journalism, a journalism that does evoke someone else, H.L. Mencken. [click here to read the rest of Peretz's item]Not exactly the way I would put it.
Every wonder if there was any relation between Marty Peretz and the Meretz Party? I did...and managed to get an amused Emily Yoffe to look into it.
--Marshal Zeringue
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