Customer Reviews:
 A classic, and rightly so! June 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Although I have 'known of' this book for over 20 years it wasn't until the age of 43 (i.e. now) that I finally got around to reading it. On the one hand, now that I have read it, I am sorry I didn't do so earlier. On the other hand, perhaps at a younger age I wouldn't have derived the same amount of pleasure? Whatever the case, I cannot say other than that this is a stunningly good book.
The most striking point to me was how little (if anything) has changed beyond the way we dress, eat, communicate etc. (in a word: outer appearances) since the 1840s when 'Vanity Fair' was written. Most of us (and I readily include myself) are still as anxious as then to be upwardly mobile in society, to be 'noticed', to belong to that select group of people enjoying high status (by the way, 'Status anxiety' by Alain De Botton is a sort of 'perfect companion' to Vanity Fair).
In itself, though there are dozens of secondary characters, the plot is simple, using two contrasting pairs: George Osborne, the archetypical cad, marries Amelia Sedley while, unbeknownst to him and her, his good friend William Dobbin is infatuated with Amelia. Meanwhile, the 'upstart' Becky Sharp marries Rawdon Crawley (dissolute son of a stingy Baronet) and starts clawing her way up to the best circles of London society. Whereas Amelia's fortune is definitely on the decline, Becky at first seems to succeed in her objective.
To me, the real 'hero' however of the book society at large such as Thackeray describes it ('dissects' would perhaps be a more apt term). At times with subtle irony, at times with scathing sarcasm he describes how crooked the accepted moral codes of the day were, how ruthless and ultimately futile this frantic struggle to get ever more money, fame, respect, ...
All in all a very illuminating book, as relevant today if not more than in the 1840s.
 The forgotten classic May 18, 2003
6 out of 15 found this review helpful
Vanity Fair is a novel which suffered greatly for the period in which it was released, though it is probably the only the novel that can challenge War and Peace. Thackery is by far one of the most under-rated authors not only of the time but also of all time: A Post-modernist before Modernism. It is a novel which takes a radical and lengthy habit which never seems to arrive at it's end point but leaves you exhausted from the journey.There is an essence of Greek tragedy in the work and like all great tragedies leaves you wishing for a different ending. It has often been described as a "novel with an anonyms" protagonist but one whom you fall in love with: A book that defined an era of literature, which had not yet been conceived.
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