Vanity Fair
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4.3, 125 Ratings
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Publisher Description
Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero is a novel Thackeray that satirizes society in early 19th-century England. As the manager of the Performance sits before the curtain on the boards and looks into the Fair, a feeling of profound melancholy comes over him in his survey of the bustling place. 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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Vanity Fair shimmers with larger-than-life characters, devious plots and crossed wires. British novelist William Makepeace Thackeray paints his two leading ladies with exquisite sensitivity. We found ourselves cheering on the scheming, narcissistic Becky Sharp as she clambers up the rungs of London society, even as we commiserated with sweet, simple-minded Amelia Sedley, who descends just as quickly. From the bloody battlefields of Waterloo to bawdy London billiard halls, Thackeray conjures up a mind-blowing array of settings. With its entertaining glimpse into the theatrics of 19th-century society, it’s easy to see why Vanity Fair has inspired countless film and TV adaptations.
Customer Reviews
vanity Fair
engrossing book,i read like a novel,slowly,i did not want it to end.
i also belong to Punjab
KanwarJit
No justice ...
...through most of the book. I loved this book when I started it, for its lively style and witty characters waltzing in and out. But I hated the main character Becky Sharpe so much, and the hate grew as she was never punished for her relentless crimes, that it took me forever to finish it. She never got her come uppance, even at the end. I also hated the cowardly and stupid Amelia, another main character. In fact, I hated the vast majority of people in the book. One of the only admirable ones, Dobbin, has a long sad life for most of the book. I’m glad it’s finally finished, it took me ages since I hated everyone so much and none of these people got justice. All the bad people were rewarded, and the good suffered.
Modern Life has Little Changed
Some 200 years later, we humans have remained much the same as depicted here. We might all find examples of our selves or our neighbors in this classic novel and wince. Can't we ever rise above our petty Vanity Fair? Social climbing cannot possibly be depicted any better than it is showcased here, nastiness at its finest!!!
