Vanity Fair in Pick-a-Shelf

Jan 12, 2011 Rosemary rated it liked it

Shelves: 1001-books, ultimate-teen-guide

Thackeray's famous classic describes middle class society of the early 19th century, with particular focus on the amoral social climbing of Miss Rebecca Sharp.

The beginning and end of this are great, but the middle really dragged for me. I thought we could have lost 200 pages there with no problem at all.

John Carey in his introduction suggests this is the greatest English novel and comparable with War and Peace. I don't think so. It's true that it's way ahead of its time in the portrayal of a ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Sep 27, 2012 Lucinda Elliot rated it really liked it

Despite the sentimentality, the unquestioning patriarchal attitudes of the age, I have to admit this is one of my favourites. Some people tell me they can't get through the first few pages. Well, this geek admits to reading it THREE TIMES.

I am puzzled as to why I, as a paid up, card holding champion of women's rights, dislike Rebecca so much; after all, she is far from being the most despicable character in the book and her circumstances have made her into a heartless opportunist; the fact remai Despite the sentimentality, the unquestioning patriarchal attitudes of the age, I have to admit this is one of my favourites. Some people tell me they can't get through the first few pages. Well, this geek admits to reading it THREE TIMES.

I am puzzled as to why I, as a paid up, card holding champion of women's rights, dislike Rebecca so much; after all, she is far from being the most despicable character in the book and her circumstances have made her into a heartless opportunist; the fact remains, I don't enjoy her as so many people do. Maybe it is partly because, as one critic says, she is too much of the same thing; once we have got to know allher tricks, to see them repeated as she moves up (and later down) through society is a bit too much of a good thing.

I think it is largely because she is so treacherous towards poor ineffectual Amelia Sedley - she knows that in setting him up along with her 'card sharp' spouse she is ruining him, and therefore Amelia too, and she doesn't give it a second thought. Not only that, but she is prepared to encourage his infatuation with her, ruining a large part of Amelia's short married life with him.

I found the scene where Becky disillusons Amelia with George's memory very sad - she tears his character mercilessly to pieces, having very fortuitously kept his love lettr to her asking her to grun away with him and settling her argument by producing it. She insists 'He was weary of you' and Amelia makes no further effort to defend him, yet the reader knows that this judgement is unfair; after he receives news of the coming battle of Waterloo, and goes back to see Amelia in their rooms, Georges is overcome with remorse. 'He heartily wished that night's work undone'. He later comments to Dobbin as they stand watching the enemy troops that he has been 'mixed in a foolish intrigue with a woman; I pray if I drop Emmy doesn't hear of it...'

In fact, I have always felt sorry for weak, vain, impulsive Georges; he is nothing like so bad a character as he is so often accused of being in arious critical essays; - 'Wholley contemptable' etc etc.

It is fascinating to speculate on Thackeray's own infatuation with a friend's wife...

Overall, despite the uneven quality of the writing, the authorial intrusion, etc, a very interesting read.

...more

Like · see review

Jan 16, 2011 Rosanna rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: barnes-and-noble-classics, bbc-big-read, boxall-1001, bloom-western-canon

I opted to listen to this book, as I very much want to know the classics, but lugging around a 700+ page book isn't always convenient.
As an audiobook... it's 23 discs of satirical 19th century English literature. I have trouble getting contemporary jokes; I do not get classic humor at all. Thus, Vanity Fair isn't funny to me. Twenty-eight hours and forty-five minutes of continually not getting the joke. This is a little painful.
It's like a vulgar, incoherent Austen novel gone terribly, terribly ...more

Like · see review