Vanity Fair - Thackeray

I told my doc I was reading Vanity Fair, and she asked if a new one had come out. Well... Not since 1848!

Anyway, this gossipy novel follows the beautiful schemer Becky Sharp as she climbs from her lowly beginnings as a poor opera dancer's daughter to the height of English aristocratic wealth and influence. A gorgeous portrait of English and continental life during the Napoleanic war, which sounds utterly blissful (although of course filled with ridiculous intrigue).

Thackeray is a master of the language, and this lighthearted but keen examination of vanity is a delight to read.

Recommended if you liked The Scarlet Pimpernel, reviewed here: http://blogenburyisreading.blogspot.com/2012/01/scarlet-pimpernel-by-baroness-emmuska.html?m=0

Dad's VF review: http://blogenburyisreading.blogspot.com/2009/06/vanity-fair.html

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy

The Scarlet Pimpernel is a swashbuckling adventure set in 1792 during the French Revolution. As hundreds of French aristocrats lose their heads to the guillotine, a band of intrepid English gentleman makes it their sport to boldly rescue these victims and hustle them to safety in England. The mysterious leader of this gang is the wily Scarlet Pimpernel, who signs his notes with a little drawing that same "humble wayside flower."

The main character is a beautiful Frenchwoman, Marguerite Blakeney, "the cleverest woman in Europe," who languishes in her marriage to a dandified fop, Sir Percy Blakeney. The story charts her disillusionment with her husband and involvement in the revolutionary and counterrevolutionary schemes that surround the Scarlet Pimpernel and his 19 loyal devotees.

The language is beautiful, the plot is exciting, and it has a satisfactorily happy ending, which apparently had not yet gone out of fashion in 1905 when the Baroness was writing. Highly, highly recommend.

*Note: I know Dad read this fairly recently but couldn't find the link - if you wrote about this, Dad, please include the link to your review here and I will comment on yours. Otherwise, feel free to add your thoughts here!*

Vanity Fair

There is a great quantity of eating and drinking, making love and jilting, laughing and the contrary, smoking, cheating, fighting, dancing, and fiddling: there are bullies pushing about, bucks ogling the women, knaves picking pockets, policemen on the look-out, quacks, (other quacks, plague take them!) bawling in front of their booths, and yokels looking up at the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while the light-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets behind. Yes, this is VANITY FAIR: not a moral place certainly; nor a merry one, though very noisy.

A lively and delicious read - rather like a practical and entertaining version of Machiavelli!