(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)The CCLaP 100: In which I read for the first time a hundred so-called "classics," then write reports on whether or not they deserve the labelEssay #43: Vanity Fair (1848), by William Makepeace ThackerayThe story in a nutshell:Subtitled "A novel without a hero," and named after an infamous chapter in John Bunyan's A Pilgrim's Progress in which our narrators stumble across a permanent country fair dedicated to human greed and sloth, it's clear from the outset that William Makepeace Thackeray's 1848 Vanity Fair (first published serially in 1846 and '47) is not going to be the rosiest look at humanity ever penned; and in fact, it uses almost a thousand pages and a cast of dozens to get across in a blackly comic way just how worthless humanity ultimately is. Set largely in the Napoleonic Era thirty years previous, it's primarily a look at the changing fates of two old school chums, the rich but gullible Amelia Sedley and the poor but scheming Becky Sharp, who begin the book in really not that bad a situation; they have just graduated and both moved to London, where Amelia has been long engaged to card-playing military man George Osborne (even while being pined after by cuckolded good-guy best friend William Dobbin), while Becky forms a flirtatious relationship with Amelia's brother Joseph (or Jos), even while getting settled into her post-school job as governess for the dysfunctional family headed by the stern Sir Pitt Crawley, whose rakish son Rawdon eventually becomes Sharp's husband.Befitting its serial nature, then, the actual plot of this massive book relates the epic up-and-down adventures of the two women in the three decades following, with details too numerous and convoluted to try to cover here (see Wikipedia for a good detailed recap), as first one of them thrives and the other suffers, then the other thrives while the first suffers, with deaths and children and bankruptcies and balls and famous battles thrown in liberally. The main point of this soap-operaish story, however, is for Thackeray to devastatingly prove that literally every character seen is guilty in one way or another of being a bad person, even in cases where those people at first seem traditionally virtuous -- even kindly Amelia, for example, ends up desperately grasping onto the false saintliness of her war-dead husband so tightly as to cause legitimate pain to others, while the near-angelic Dobbin (who many consider a stand-in for Thackeray himself) suffers more than almost everyone else, as his wimpy, lovelorn nature prevents him from ever standing up for himself or claiming the rewards in life that he rightly deserves. As our story ends, then, with the surviving characters all essentially now middle-aged wrecks, our most definitely opinionated narrator (who in good Victorian fashion is constantly interjecting his personal thoughts into the scenes we're witnessing) seems to imply that this is all any of us can hope for, as we slowly age and society slowly continues decaying, finishing the novel on the same humorously cynical note in which he began.The argument for it being a classic:Well, for starters, say its fans, this book should be afforded 'classic' status merely to acknowledge the influence Thackeray had over literature in general; because although it's been largely forgotten by now, Thackeray was so popular during his own times, he was one of only a handful of writers to have an entire color associated with his works, so that when a person for example was walking by their neighborhood newsstand and saw a light-blue manuscript on the shelves, they knew immediately that the newest chapter of Thackeray's latest serial project was now available. Barring pure popularity, though, fans argue that this is still worth classic status for being a nearly perfect example of the Victorian Novel, otherwise known as the Romantic Novel, a huge hit from the first decades of these movements that profoundly helped shape all the books that came after it -- after all, it deals masterfully with such period topics as the aristocracy, social justice, the fate of young single women in 19th-century Britain, young soldiers shipped off to far-flung exotic colonies, and a lot more, all while shedding much of the linguistic finery and pat moral lessons that were required of literature in the Enlightenment Age just previous. (In fact, Thackeray always considered himself one of the first of the literary "Realists," although his definition was quite different than the one coined by Henry James and others half a century later; as mentioned, for example, his books feature an actual physical narrator, one who is constantly adding his own asides and opinions as if you were literally listening to him sit around a parlor telling you the story, while Realism novels these days are largely expected to feature an invisible narrator who is more like a ghost, silently hovering over the shoulders of the book's characters and impartially listening to what they have to say, known in modern times as "omniscient narration" and the basis behind 95 percent of all novels ever written.)As such, then, fans claim that Vanity Fair is also important for a related reason -- that after decades of Austenesque tales in which heroes and villains were supposed to be unambiguously identified by the author, with good (or at least "good sense") ultimately triumphing over evil (or chaos, if you will), it was early Romantic artists like Thackeray, Charles Dickens and Gustave Flaubert who first introduced the idea of moral relativism to the arts, and the concept that perhaps the world isn't filled with black and white decisions but rather an endless series of grays. And then if this wasn't enough, the book also gives us one of the greatest and most complex antiheroes (sympathetic villains?) of the entire 19th century, the beguiling and instantly fascinating Becky Sharp, a charming yet completely sociopathic social climber capable of both great harm and great good (sometimes in the course of a single evening), and who metaphorically represents many of the tough decisions that single women with ambition were forced to make in the decades after the Industrial Revolution but before the equal rights movement.The argument against:As is the case with many Victorian novels, one of the biggest complaints you find online of Vanity Fair is its sheer length; because since so many of these 19th-century tales we now think of as standalone books were actually designed to be digested in small bits weekly over the course of an entire year or two, and since these writers were generally paid by the word, what could've been a tightly told 300-page story in so many of these cases turn out to be twice that length or more, a problem that only started going away as society began getting more and more literate in the 20th century, and as more and more of these long-form stories started being envisioned in book form right from their starts. Also, you see lots of people argue that Thackeray was just a little too good at his characterizations, ironically creating people so despicable that it's hard to gather the sympathy or even interest to finish the book in the first place; and this is especially true of our dear Miss Sharp, who is as passionately hated by some readers as she is passionately loved by others.My verdict:I think it's no secret by now that I'm a big fan of Victorian literature, and that it takes an out-and-out stinker for me to actively dislike any particular title from the 19th century; but that said, while I ultimately enjoyed Vanity Fair, I think it's fair to say that I enjoyed it less than other books published in those same years, and that it can't really hold a candle to such tight masterpieces as, say, Jane Eyre by his contemporary Charlotte Bronte, or Madame Bovary by the aforementioned Flaubert. And yes, a big part of this is caused by exactly what its critics charge, its excessive length and serially-inspired micromanaged plot, with there being plenty of moments while I was reading this that it felt like it was NEVER GOING TO FREAKING END; and I'm now looking forward to checking out some of the film and TV adaptations that have been made of it over the years, in that I suspect that this story will move a lot faster and better once you start cutting away giant amounts of chaff from the wheat (starting with each and every reference to the children that Amelia and Becky eventually have, whose problems take up a huge chunk of this novel's last third but that don't offer up even a single interesting or unique thought).But that said, like many, I sort of fell in love with Becky Sharp from nearly her first appearance, because of her fondly reminding me of several trainwreckish ex-girlfriends from my youth; and although all of us eventually discover the hard way what a nightmare it is to date a human trainwreck, they still remain utterly fascinating creatures, a big part of what draws us to such people in the first place, as Thackeray shows us through Sharp's mastery (for example) at weaseling out of bills, her decision to simply start dating French dudes if the Napoleonic Wars end up going badly, etc. There are better Victorian novels out there to pick, if you have only a casual interest in the subject and are looking for a mere handful of books that best illuminate this period of the arts; but if you've now read those and are hungry for something meatier, this still remains 160 years later an excellent choice. Like Thomas Hardy and Nathaniel Hawthorne, I believe we are on the last cusp of history to find Thackeray wildly popular; and unlike such timeless masters as Dickens and Bronte, I have a feeling that in merely another 50 years or so, a book like Vanity Fair will be generally seen in much more critical terms than it is now. That makes it a perfect novel to consume here in the early 2000s before it's too late, and I encourage those with an interest to do exactly that.Is it a classic? For now(And don't forget that the first 33 essays in this series are now available in book form!)
"But as we are to see a great deal of Amelia, there is no harm in saying, at the outset of our acquaintance, that she was a dear little creature. And a great mercy it is, both in life and in novels, which (and the latter especially) abound in villains of the most sombre sort that we are to have for a companion so guileless and good natured a person. As she is not a heroine, there is no need to describe her person; indeed I am afraid that her nose was rather too short than otherwise and her cheeks a good deal too round and red for a heroine..."I just chose this passage randomly out of the first few pages of the novel to illustrate how much I love Thackeray's voice. He himself is the best character in the novel. To use theatre terminology, he definitely breaks the 4th wall into the story quite frequently. Reading it is rather like watching the play, but with periodic pauses for the playwright to jump up on stage and offer his commentary upon the action, and also upon his perceptions of the feelings of those watching his creation. (Thackeray himself terms the "Vanity Fair"- his comment on society in general- a sort of play.) This might sound annoying to some, but, really, it isn't. If you're already reading the book critically... I suppose it could also be compared to reading a chunk of a book for class and then stopping to discuss your reactions with a professor determined to make you see things beyond the surface and expose whatever prejudices you might have against the book. I loved debating with Thackeray in interpreting scenes and actions. The margins are filled with my disagreements or indulgence of his point of view. And I almost never write in books. It was irresistable in this case. It is as interesting trying to draw a portrait of Thackeray's character as it is the rest of them. He is sometimes defensive, sometimes judgemental of his audience, at times quietly insightful, at times ironic, at times as gleeful as a child at some trick he believes he's played upon us. You can just see him cackling over his writing, clapping his hands when he thinks of something good and scribbling away furiously into the night. He makes the tale seem brightly, urgently alive just in the sheer immediacy of his feeling and force of personality.Right. As to the story itself? Very solid, old fashioned tale of love, war, betrayal, money, family. All the standards for an epic. But in the way it is executed, it is anything but standard. Particularly for its time. It was subtitled, "the novel without a hero," by Thackeray. It is a book filled with, as the best are, very grey characters with motivations and actions sometimes very hard to fathom. The epitome of this is of course Becky Sharp, the main character if not the "heroine," of the piece. Capable of both acts of great kindness and selflessness, and sheer, naked cruelty when it suits her, it is hard to either condemn or praise the woman in the end. I grew to root for her anyway, though. She's awful, she really is, but she does seem to learn by the end of the book. She changes, progresses, and all while getting everything she's ever really seemed to want. She's ambitious and cutthroat, but manages to do well in a world that tries to slap her down at every turn. (Not that she doesn't deserve it sometimes, I will admit.) There is also a more standard, sweeping love story for those of you in it for the more conventional aspects. The above described Amelia is involved in that plotline.Also? This book has the best, the longest, the most throughly researched and detailed description of the battle of Waterloo that you are likely to find. A huge chunk of the book is devoted to that day and the reaction to that day, and it is as epic a war novel as one could hope to find for that space of time.In some ways, I feel like Thackeray was trying to encompass his century as a whole, not just the very specific time of the Napoleonic wars. He deals with class, money, ambition, war, roles and rights of women, questions of morality, and times that inevitably change and change again, pushing the old world and the old ways into ever faster irrelevance. Just as the 19th century did. I think Becky Sharp might well be a fitting symbol of the whole century: she wants to rise high in society, she wants as much money as she can get her hands on, she wants the appearance of morality (but doesn't much care for the actuality), she is from the lower class and spends the book working her way up the ladder tooth and nail through representatives of the "old guard," at any cost to herself or others. And yet, she still holds sentimental feelings for Amelia, for her husband, she does what she thinks is best for her son (however controversial that might be and at whatever cost in pride), and she cannot quite bear to be completely alone.... I don't know. I'm really just remembering things I wrote down when I read this over two years ago, re-piecing together theories, so I hope you'll forgive me if they're a wee incoherent.There is more to it than that, but I do not think that any review of reasonable length can encompass everything in this book, particularly when I've already rambled about my favorite things for so long, and things are already this disorganized. Fitting, I suppose, in such a merrily chaotic book. So I'll just leave you with the quote that I think explains and drives much of the action and is one of the major points of the novel:"Vanitas Vanitatium! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? Or having it, is satisfied?"
What do You think about Vanity Fair (2003)?
According to the description on the back of my copy, this book is "deliciously satirical." If that means the book is supposed to be taken as a joke, then I definitely read it the wrong way. Maybe I should try rereading it while repeating under my breath, "It's Oscar Wilde, it's Oscar Wilde, it's Oscar Wilde" until I see that it's funny, but frankly I'd rather not. Here, presented in simple list form, are the reasons I disliked this book:-William Makepeace Thackeray is a condescending ass. Maybe this was all part of the satire, but a danger of writing a satirical book is that people might accidentally take it seriously. I am one of those idiots, and because of this I just rolled my eyes at the book while reading quotes like this: "What do men know about women's martyrdoms? We should go mad had we to endure the hundreth part of those daily pains which are meekly born by many women. Ceaseless slavery meeting with no reward; constant gentleness and kindness met by cruelty as constant; love, labour, patience, watchfullness, without even so much as the acknowledgement 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."Hear that? It's the sound of me bringing my Angry Feminist Hat out of storage.Also, if I had a nickel for every time Thackeray refers to either Becky or Amelia as "the little woman" I would have at least three dollars. I'm not even exagerrating. -The whole book is at least 200 pages too long, bogged down with pointless anecdotes and background information that has no effect on the plot. Several times I found myself reading a long description of the random Army captain's wife's sister's marriage arrangements, and would mutter at the pages, "Why does this matter?" Seriously, Thackeray needs a good editor more than anything else.-Almost all the characters irritated me beyond measure. Rawdon was an idiot, George was an asshole, Dobbin had "Hello, I'm a Tool" written on his forehead, and Amelia made Jane Eyre look like Gloria Steinem. Becky was the only exception to this - she was evil, conniving, smart, charming, and totally awesome. But she was only present for about a third of the book. Which leads me to my next point...-Why is Becky only present for one third of the story? I had to sit through pages and pages of pointless chatter about minor characters and The Trials of Amelia the Adorable Martyr, and all I wanted to know was what Becky was up to. Towards the end of the book, once I had stopped even remotely caring about the latest evidence for Amelia's sainthood, Becky finally makes a reappearance. This is several years after her husband discovered that she had been hoarding money and may have been cheating on him, and left her to go be a mayor in Wherever-The-Hell Island. What, the readers wonder, could Becky have gotten up to in that time? Whatever it is, it's probably a lot more interesting than anything Amelia the Spineless Wonder has been doing. Here's what Thackeray has to say about Becky while she wasn't in the story: "...when Becky is out of the way, be sure that she is not particularly well-employed, and that the less that is said about her doings is in fact the better." Yeah. God forbid you should write about your most interesting character. Let's find out how Amelia is doing instead. I'm sure it's something sweet and selfless. The worst part is that right after Thackeray tells us that he's not going to write about what Becky did after her husband left her, he spends the next eighteen pages telling us what Becky did after her husband left her. What. The hell. Remember what I said about this book needing an editor? Exactly.
—Madeline
There are more than 800 pages in this book. I attempted it many times, each time losing track somewhere in the middle. I finally read it out of pure spite -- no way was I going to let some snotty 800-page classic get the better of me! It was okay, and I certainly have the literary acumen to understand why it is a remarkable piece of literature. Regardless, I think Thackery could have done the story justice in half the pages. But really, I did enjoy parts of it. If you are out for great, thick classics. . .well this one is certainly worth a read. But if verbose classic literature is something you are only occasionally into, stick with Dickens.
—Taylor
«Il mio benevolo proposito è questo, amici e compagni: guidarvi attraverso i vari spazi della Fiera di Vanità, tra negozi e spettacoli, nel più sfolgorante insieme di rumori e di spensieratezza, per poi tornare tutti a casa alla propria triste solitudine».Avevo in parte dimenticato quanto di salutare e dolce ci sia nella lettura di un classico. Dopo averlo scritto, mi rendo conto che "dimenticato" non è per niente la parola più adatta: mi riferisco a un sentimento che, una volta provato, non si può affatto dimenticare, viscerale com'è; mi riferisco a un sentimento che, provato una volta, diventa un tenero assillo, un canto di sirena che ammalia sempre, una madrepatria il cui richiamo echeggerà sempre. Questo, signori, è l'angolo di me stessa che Thackeray ha rispolverato.E' facile capire perché La Fiera delle Vanità venga spesso ricordata con il suo sottotitolo, Romanzo senza eroe. L'Inghilterra che l'autore dipinge è un luogo in cui un eroe sarebbe un pesce fuor d'acqua, i salotti in cui si intrufola templi dedicati agli dei più svariati, nessuno dei quali si potrebbe venerare in una chiesa. Questo romanzo non ha un eroe perché gli eroi sono mediocri. Questo romanzo non ha un eroe perché gli eroi classici sono perfetti, integri, omogenei, saturi di bontà così come i loro oppositori lo sono di perfidia. La mondanità, dell'eroismo, non ha che farsene: non c'è niente che un uomo soltanto onesto o una donna soltanto virtuosa possa voler acquistare tra tutte le meraviglie esposte sulle bancarelle della Fiera delle vanità.Tale, almeno, è il pensiero Thackeray. E il lettore, perlomeno in questo frangente, non può far altro che annuire convinto e dirsi d'accordo. Destreggiarsi con Becky tra le sue mille macchinazioni è così divertente da rendere i lamenti di Amelia persino commoventi, ridere della pomposità di Jos così facile da convincerci a mostrare al timido Dobbin dei primi tempi la benevolente simpatia che non ha -ancora- fatto nulla per meritarsi. Ed ecco dunque che in mezzo ai difetti dei personaggi fittizi fanno capolino quelli del lettore che ama trastullarsi con le loro avventure: se pensate che la boriosità del tuttavia insicuro esattore di Boggley Wollah non vi abbia resi compiacenti verso voi stessi e verso l'assennatezza di cui avete dato prova nel riconoscerne la comicità, allora fareste meglio a riprendere il romanzo e rileggerlo daccapo, perché vi assicuro che vi siete persi gran parte dello spettacolo. Se non vi siete accorti di quanto ridere delle umane pecche di questi personaggi abbia accresciuto in voi la sensazione di deprecarli a buon diritto, mentre passavate dall'orrore per i misfatti di Rebecca all'indignato biasimo per i vizi di Gorge, e questo semplicemente perché l'assistere a tante bassezze vi faceva sentire al di sopra di ognuna di loro, allora non avrete di certo avuto il piacere di arrossire mentalmente fermandovi a metà del fatidico "Io non l'avrei mai fatto" che il vostro cervello stava giusto tentando di formulare, e non avrete gustato la soddisfazione di esservi colti in un fallo così flagrante.Thackeray è un maestro già solo per la sottigliezza con cui sa innescare questo meccanismo; c'è però un'altro piccolo prodigio che la sua abilità di ritrattista gli permette di compiere, un prodigio ben familiare per tutti i lettori, visto che ogni buon narratore dovrebbe essere in grado di realizzarlo.Quando diciamo che Miss Rebecca Sharp non ha fatto altro che comportarsi come la vipera che è, da queste parole traspare una certa inevitabile ammirazione per l'abilità e la scaltrezza della suddetta signorina. Quando mettiamo mani ai capelli chiedendoci con frustrazione perché quello sciocco di Dobbin non si decida a capire che è inutile sperare ancora che Amelia possa amarlo dopo quindici anni di corteggiamento a vuoto, in realtà noi ragazze ci stiamo chiedendo se mai troveremo un affezionato, fedele, caro maggiore tutto per noi, e voi ragazzi se incontrerete mai una donna da amare con tanta forza. Se anche siamo convinti che Rawdon sia solo un signorotto con troppi soldi, troppi vizi e troppa abilità nei giochi di carte, ci si spezzerà ugualmente il cuore di fronte alla tenerezza che dimostra verso suo figlio.Il punto è che niente è bianco o nero. C'è tutta una serie di gradazioni nel mezzo, e anche messa così sembra una semplificazione, se si applica il sistema all'infinita gamma delle personalità umane. Thackeray lo sapeva, ed è per questo che ci ha lasciato la sua visione della terribile Fiera delle vanità, nelle cui fauci (scusate il gioco di parole) si farebbe meglio a non finire, per quanto ci si possa stare comodi.
—Simona Bartolotta
