Vanity Fair

I started reading Thackeray's Vanity Fair with low expectations - 19th century literature, whilst worthy, is rarely gripping or particularly interesting...a sweeping statement, I realise.

VF is a massive book (800 pages + footnotes in my edition), and was originally published chapter-by-chapter as installments in a weekly magazine. This makes it really readable, as each chapter is structured to hold attention and stimulate interest enough to make readers pick it up again the next week.

It is described by the author as a novel without a hero, and is immensely refreshing for this genre...the female characters are not good, meek, moral, waiting for their parents to set up the perfect match. Instead they act against parents and relations, set up their own marriages, and the real story starts after the wedding, rather than the wedding being the ultimate goal.

Thackeray's characterisation is brilliant - his aim is the satirisation of "polite" society, and he takes great joy in uncovering the unsavoury elements of behaviour. Gambling, financial dishonesty, the petty politics particularly within the female circles...hypocrisy, the way that people flock to associate with the "right sort", who just happen to have come into some money...it's all there. There are comeupances, love stories, redemptions. His central female characters are the perfect antidote to the view of 19th century society as portrayed by Austen - Becky Sharp could totally take on Elizabeth Bennett in a literary "Celebrity Death Match".

I also enjoyed the way that the narrator's tone was continuously faintly disapproving of the goings on with "Vanity Fair" (i.e. polite society), and equally scathing of minor indiscretions (taking slightly too much spirit and water) and major (causing the ruin of an old family retainer by failing to pay rent to the extent that his creditors foreclose), leaving the reader to make their own moral judgement.

There is a lot that I could write about this, but again I would be in danger of reproducing York Notes on the subject. It took me by surprise, and was an utterly gripping read, both in terms of the story, and the social commentary. Towards the end, a couple of chapters were a bit drifty, making me wonder whether he was ready to bring it to an end, but had to spin it out for a certain number of weeks, but that is pretty much the only criticism I have. It brings me to the conclusion that the flawed are much more interesting than the good - Amelia is basically good but the narrator makes no secret of his disdain for her as she is a bit of a wuss with no initiative! - and I have to be honest, that I often find this to be the case in real life too...

If you haven't read this, you should most definitely do so! I have a copy available on loan if anyone wants to borrow it...

37 left to go!