Reviews for Vanity fair

The average rating for Vanity fair based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-07-02 00:00:00 JACK GENSER Here I am, 54 years old, and for the very first time reading William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair. "Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero." I disagree with Thackeray. The 'Hero' of Vanity Fair is the steadfast and stalwart William Dobbin; of that there is no doubt. This novel is not the coming of age, or bildungsroman, of Becky Sharp. No, Miss Rebecca Sharp sprang from the womb enlivened with her desire to claw her way to the top. She can't help it, and nor should she; is she really any different than any of us? No, she's not. It is her methods that vary from what you and I might use; or do they? To me, the narrator's voice in the novel was most amazing. It seemed that at every opportune moment, the narrator took a step back and informed us, the reader, of some nugget, some little moral, that placed the actions of the participants in the Fair in context. Vanity Fair is with us, all around us; and many times we never fully understand the roles that the players play. This voice of reason grounds us; makes us understand the joy, the pain, the happiness, and the sorrow that accompanies each of us in our journey through life. If we care to, we can learn to become better parents, better husbands, better wives, and better friends. I also learned through the course of the novel that I can't outright condemn Becky Sharp. Becky is perhaps not a woman easily liked, but she is an admirable woman, a tough woman, and a woman I can respect. Strong-minded and willed, a terrible mother, but a battle-axe to those who take her head-on. Miss Becky Sharp -- Mrs. Rawdon Crawley -- is committed to living life at its fullest, and not one jot less. She is a woman of purpose, and that is a rare quality in many people. The novel drips with satire from page to page; it is full of wit and sardonic humor. It is through the use of satire that we realize that the characters at the Fair are us -- have been us, and always will be us -- generation after generation, and nothing will change; only the time will change. There will always be Lord Steynes, Jos Sedleys, Old Osbornes, Mother Sedleys, Sir Pitt Crawleys, Miss Crawleys, the George Osbornes, William Dobbins, and Amelias. Our task, according to Thackeray, is to figure out how best to treat them, how best to interact and understand them, how to live with them. The real challenge, however, is how best to love, appreciate, and care for the Miss Becky Sharps in our lives. We do deserve to know her, to care for her, to appreciate her for whom she is, and she deserves to be brought in from the rambunctiousness and vagaries of the Fair. In the end, it is Miss Sharp that gains at least some measure of redemption. It is she, and she alone, that removes the mote from Amelia's eyes regarding her feelings for William Dobbin. For Becky Sharp does understand honor, virtue, and integrity (or, does she?). Thackeray finishes appropriately -- For truly it can be said, "Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied? -- Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out." A magnificent novel from start to finish.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-08-28 00:00:00 Tapio Niiranen Written in 1848, Vanity Fair is an excellent satire of English society in the early 19th Century. Thackeray states several times that it is a novel "without a hero", and at a couple of points tries to claim that Amelia, a good person but who inevitably comes across as rather wishy-washy, is the heroine. But we all know that a "bad" girl or boy is infinitely more interesting than a "good" girl or boy, so I suspect Thackeray of dissembling even here. Becky Sharp is out and out the anti-hero(ine) in this book, which could well have been named, "The Rise and Fall of Rebecca Sharp". Thackeray apparently saw people as "abominably selfish and foolish", and this negative view comes across loud and clear with his use of vicious vocabulary, and his unremittingly dark portrayal of human nature. The author's voice is continually present, and his wry observations do contribute to making the novel vastly entertaining. They were also intended to make it instructive to his readers. Interestingly the author makes a habit of commenting on particular instances of female behaviour, and drawing from this to make a general observation of all women. At first the reader is inclined to think how astute this is; how well Thackeray knows women and how unusual and refreshing it is to find this in a male writer of his day. However, these observations are invariably judgemental, whereas he tends not to apply the same maxims to his male characters. The men are seen much more as individuals. A modern reader becomes uneasy with this after a while; it begins to seem less witty and apt, and in fact rather tiresome. Here is an example of Thackeray's views on women: "What do men know about women's martyrdoms? We should go mad had we to endure the hundredth part of those daily pains which are meekly borne by many women. Ceaseless slavery meeting with no reward; constant gentleness and kindness met by cruelty as constant; love, labour, patience, watchfulness without even so much as the acknowlegement of a good word; all this, how many of them have to bear in quiet, and appear abroad with cheerful faces as if they felt nothing. Tender slaves that they are, they must needs be hypocrites and weak." Thackeray's perceived audience will have been male readers, of course, and this is clear when he addresses the reader personally referring to "your wife", "your sister" or "your servants." And the audience will have been educated, land-owning white males at that. Some of the "witty" observations about an heiress from St. Kitts, or a black manservant called "Sambo" make the modern reader cringe. The author is scathing about all his characters' partialities and weaknesses, yet because he is a man of his time, culture and class, he cannot see his own prejudices, complacently considering that this is the only correct stance. Vanity Fair was serialised in 20 monthly parts. As with other novels which were originally issued in this way, the structure is not as tight as the reader would wish. There are great swathes of writing about charades, or a play, or a battle, which are rather flabby. Some parts seem very ponderous, or lead nowhere, whereas others are extremely witty and/or exciting. Authors such as Thackeray and Dickens (to whom this applied for nearly all of his novels) would surely have wished to edit their work, or even rewritten scenes or altered characters, had they had the opportunity. It is incredible to a modern reader that they fared as well as they did under this draconian regime. And it is therefore unfair to compare this with the more structured later novels, as it is not a level playing field. "Vanity Fair is a wicked foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions," states the author. This theme of "Vanity Fair" is reiterated over and over again, and throughout the reader will be thinking that nothing has changed over a century later. Thackeray's observations of human behaviour are so apposite, the descriptions of situations, personalities, expressed motives and hidden motives (which are inevitably very different) are timeless. And this of course, coupled with the deliciously droll manner of Thackeray's writing, is what makes this novel a classic. It is hugely entertaining in parts, and would have been a 5 star novel had Thackeray's voice and attitudes not been quite so dominant throughout. EDIT: Interestingly each monthly installment of Vanity Fair only ever sold 5000 copies at the most. At the same time, the hugely popular figure Charles Dickens was publishing his novel "Dombey and Son", which was also being serialised by the same publisher. Before long the episodes of "Dombey and Son" were selling 40,000 copies per month - eight times as many! Yet of the two, nowadays, probably Vanity Fair is the more popular.