|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
|
Product Description
Review
--Robert Louis Stevenson
"The lasting and universal popularity of The Three Musketeers shows that Dumas, by artlessly expressing his own nature in the persons of his heroes, was responding to that craving for action, strength and generosity which is a fact in all periods and all places."
--Andreé Maurois
From the Hardcover edition.
Book Description
"Re-reading Vanity Fair, one realises what a brilliant innovation this was in the English novel," remarked V. S. Pritchett. "Thackeray is like the modern novelists who derive from James and Proust, in his power of dissecting (and of desiccating!) character."
Generally considered to be his masterpiece, Vanity Fair is Thackeray's resplendent social satire that exposes the greed and corruption raging in England during the turmoil of the Napoleonic wars. Subtitled "A Novel Without a Hero," it traces the changing fortunes of two unforgettable women: the scheming opportunist Becky Sharp—one of literature's most resourceful, engaging, and amoral heroines—and her foil, the faithful, naive Amelia Sedley. Thackeray's subversive, comic attack on the hypocrisy and "dismal roguery" of an avaricious world resonates 150 years later with implications for our own times.
"Thackeray is an urbane nineteenth-century guide and commentator in a portrait gallery that is for all time," observed Louis Auchincloss. "He is the restless inhabitant of a prudish age, nostalgic, discursive, anecdotal, sentimental, worldly-wise, now warning us, now making fun of us, now reproving us .... Thackeray's harshest criticism of humanity is simply the point where ours commences. His perception of self-interest in every act is the ABC of modem psychology."
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Has not aged gracefully,
By A.J. (Maryland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Penguin Classics Vanity Fair (Paperback)
The reputation of Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" perseveres to this day, but I'm not sure it demands to be read in preference to many of its contemporaneous peers. In the twenty-first century it simply fails to entertain on the level it was intended when it was written in the 1840s, and even its literary value is dubious. The novel asks rhetorically why we are never satisfied with the things we achieve in life, and the question reverberates in a canyon of echoes as Thackeray repetitively beats the theme to death with a story that is too long and too dull. Of course it satirizes the hypocrisy, materialism, and frivolity in the higher strata of English society, but it hardly excels in this regard when compared to so many other novels, particularly Dickens's, of the same era that do likewise with more subtlety and intelligence. If "Vanity Fair" can be considered a socially valuable novel merely because it satirizes society, then nearly any novel can be considered socially valuable. Set in the 1810s and 1820s, "Vanity Fair" is basically the tale of two young women, Amelia Sedley and Becky Sharp, making their respective ways through English society after leaving school. Amelia, a virtuous girl from an affluent family, marries George Osborne, the son of a man with whom her father has a financial quarrel. Becky, a beautiful, vivacious girl from an artistic but broken family, takes a job as a governess for a repulsive old man named Sir Pitt Crawley and eventually marries his son Rawdon. Both husbands are British military officers who fight under the Duke of Wellington against Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo; only one comes home alive. The novel then becomes a study in reversal, followed by a sort of restoration, of fortune -- Becky uses her charm to climb the ladder of high society while Amelia struggles to support herself and her young son. My biggest problem with "Vanity Fair" is Thackeray's general style. His prose is serviceable but unrefined; he has a poor sense for the arrangement of detail, constructing lopsided paragraphs and dispensing useless information like complimentary mints at the door of a restaurant. His serious characters fail to invoke sympathy and his few comical characters fail to amuse. Perhaps it was his intention to avoid caricatures, but he can't fairly be called a realist either. Additionally he chooses to write with the voice of a narrator whose tone is gossipy bordering on the obnoxious. Occasionally he does offer a psychological or social insight that is interesting if not profound, but these moments seem more like digressive interjections than integral parts of the story. I know I'm being picky with this novel, but I expected better considering its permanent status in the English literary canon. As a Victorian novelist, Thackeray cannot compete with Eliot, Hardy, Dickens, the Brontes, or even Wilkie Collins or Samuel Butler; rather, he unfortunately seems to be on the same level as Anthony Trollope, whose voluminous chronicles of the straight-laced middle class are written well but leave a bland aftertaste. Despite its purport to be something more, "Vanity Fair" is merely a genteel, fluffy, uneventful soap opera penned by an author who attempts to be wry but instead compels his reader to wade through a Slough of Despond.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sharp and fair,
By E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME) (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Vanity Fair (Paperback)
Greed, gold-digging and deception sit at the heart of "Vanity Fair." It's no joke that it's subtitled "a novel without a hero" -- William Makepeace Thackeray mercilessly skewered the pretentions and flaws of the upper class all throughout it. The result is a gloriously witty social satire.It opens with two young women departing from a ladies' academy: dull, sweet Amelia (rich) and fiery sharp-witted Rebecca (poor). Becky Sharp is a relentless social climber, and her first effort to rise "above her station" is by trying to get Amelia's brother to marry her -- an effort thwarted by Amelia's fiancee. So instead she gets married to another family's second son, Rawdon Crawley. Unfortunately, both young couples quickly get disinherited and George is killed. But Becky is determined to live the good life she has worked and married for -- she obtains jewels and money from admiring gentlemen, disrupting her marriage. But a little thing like a tarnished reputation isn't enough to keep Becky down... "Vanity Fair" is actually a lot more complex than that, with dozens of little subplots and complicated character relationships. Reading it a few times is necessary to really absorb all of it, since it is not just a look at the two women in the middle of the book, but at the upper (and sometimes lower) social strata of the nineteenth century. The main flaw of the book is perhaps that it sprawls too much -- there's always a lot of stuff going on, not to mention a huge cast of characters, and Thackeray sometimes drops the ball when it comes to the supporting characters and their little plots. It takes a lot of patience to absorb all of this. However... it's worth it. Like most nineteenth-century writers, Thackeray had a very dense, formal writing style -- but once you get used to it, his writing becomes insanely funny. Witticisms and quips litter the pages, even if you don't pick them all up at once. At first Thackeray seems incredibly cynical (Becky's little schemes almost always pay off), but taken as a social satire, it's easier to understand why he was so cynical about the society of the time. Becky Sharp is the quintessential anti-heroine -- she's very greedy and cold, yet she's also so smart and determined that it's hard not to have a grudging liking for her, no matter what she does. Certainly life hasn't been fair for her. Next to Becky, a goody-goody character like Amelia is pretty boring, and even the unsubtle George can't measure up to Becky. To sum up "Vanity Fair": think a period soap opera with a heavy dose of social commentary. In other words, it doesn't get much better than this, Thackeray's masterpiece.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Please! Make it end.,
By
This review is from: Penguin Classics Vanity Fair (Paperback)
Another reviewer stated it best. This book has not aged well.The whole time I was reading this I was thinking "Make it stop! Make it die!"
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
|
