Book Report: Vanity Fair
I recently finished wading through this tome of many chapters, and I have to say, I enjoyed it. The book is a good antidote to Jane Austen. All props to her, but she does mostly get ingenues together with their forever man, and then imply a happily ever after. Vanity Fair starts with the courtship and marriage of its protagonists, and then spends most of its 60-something chapters on the not-so-happily ever after.
Thakeray was writing in Dickens' time, but Vanity Fair is set in the Austen milieu, hence the comparison. It follows the ups and downs of two women: Amelia Sedley and Becky Sharp. The former is sweet and passive, the latter is whip smart (sharp, ha ha) and scheming. I personally have a lot of sympathy for Becky; she sees the game that women (and men) must play to succeed, and manipulates it with a great deal (though sometimes not enough) of unsentimental skill. It is her lack of sentiment that finally turned me off her as a character, though, because she is too careless of hurting other people.
Amelia is similar to Fanny Price, which makes her hard to take, especially when the author puts in asides about how educated women sneer at her simplicity when (he implies) they could stand to be more simple themselves, especially if they want to get the menfolk. She has serious reverses of fortune and struggles most of the book, though in a meek, accepting way. But the book does not hold her up as a paragon; she is shown to have her own stubbornness, pride, and lack of empathy, flaws often not pointed out in these passive, suffering female types, who were often considered to be examples of correct female behavior at the time.
The book is about human foibles, represented allegorically as a fair. At the beginning Thakeray invites us to roll up, and throughout the story he comments in asides about the behavior his characters are displaying, indicating by his deadpan delivery that we all share these flaws. There is some Dickensian outcry against social injustice, but presented more subtly. Thakeray is much less black and white about his characters' motives and behavior, much more psychological. Dickens didn't try to understand his thoroughgoing bastards; Thakeray digs deeper. Here he is doing a good job describing the effects of narcissism:
"Which of us is there can tell how much vanity lurks in our warmest regard for others, and how selfish our love is? Old Osborne did not speculate much on the mingled nature of his feelings, and how his instinct and selfishness were combating together. He firmly believed that everything he did was right, and that he ought on all occasions to have his own way -- and like the sting of a wasp or serpent his hatred rushed out armed and
poisonous against anything like opposition. He was proud of his hatred as of everything else. Always to be right, always to trample forward, and never to doubt, are not these the great qualities with which dulness [sic] takes a lead in the world?"
If you want a doorstopper to read, like Victorian serialized melodrama, want more psychology in your Dickens or more reality in your Austen, I recommend Vanity Fair.
Thakeray was writing in Dickens' time, but Vanity Fair is set in the Austen milieu, hence the comparison. It follows the ups and downs of two women: Amelia Sedley and Becky Sharp. The former is sweet and passive, the latter is whip smart (sharp, ha ha) and scheming. I personally have a lot of sympathy for Becky; she sees the game that women (and men) must play to succeed, and manipulates it with a great deal (though sometimes not enough) of unsentimental skill. It is her lack of sentiment that finally turned me off her as a character, though, because she is too careless of hurting other people.
Amelia is similar to Fanny Price, which makes her hard to take, especially when the author puts in asides about how educated women sneer at her simplicity when (he implies) they could stand to be more simple themselves, especially if they want to get the menfolk. She has serious reverses of fortune and struggles most of the book, though in a meek, accepting way. But the book does not hold her up as a paragon; she is shown to have her own stubbornness, pride, and lack of empathy, flaws often not pointed out in these passive, suffering female types, who were often considered to be examples of correct female behavior at the time.
The book is about human foibles, represented allegorically as a fair. At the beginning Thakeray invites us to roll up, and throughout the story he comments in asides about the behavior his characters are displaying, indicating by his deadpan delivery that we all share these flaws. There is some Dickensian outcry against social injustice, but presented more subtly. Thakeray is much less black and white about his characters' motives and behavior, much more psychological. Dickens didn't try to understand his thoroughgoing bastards; Thakeray digs deeper. Here he is doing a good job describing the effects of narcissism:
"Which of us is there can tell how much vanity lurks in our warmest regard for others, and how selfish our love is? Old Osborne did not speculate much on the mingled nature of his feelings, and how his instinct and selfishness were combating together. He firmly believed that everything he did was right, and that he ought on all occasions to have his own way -- and like the sting of a wasp or serpent his hatred rushed out armed and
poisonous against anything like opposition. He was proud of his hatred as of everything else. Always to be right, always to trample forward, and never to doubt, are not these the great qualities with which dulness [sic] takes a lead in the world?"
If you want a doorstopper to read, like Victorian serialized melodrama, want more psychology in your Dickens or more reality in your Austen, I recommend Vanity Fair.