I watched the DVD of the TV six
part mini-series Vanity Fair (1998), Andrew Davies’s splendid adaptation of William Thackeray’s
classic tome, mostly
while reading this version in the Penguin English Library (1983) edited by
J.I.M. Stewart. The series featured Natasha Little as Becky Sharp, Frances Grey
as Amelia (Emmy) Sedley, Philip Glenister as William Dobbin, Tom Ward as George
Osborne, Nathaniel Parker as Rawdon Crawley, and the ubiquitous Anton Lesser as
Mr Pitt-Crawley, among others.
For many a year I’d been
meaning to read this ‘landmark in the history of English fiction’ (says
Stewart). It seemed a daunting task, all 766 pages of it. As it happens, it
wasn’t onerous at all. Possibly my reading was helped by the dramatisation; it
was fascinating to detect swathes of speech used by Davies in his excellent screenplay.
Vanity Fair
appeared in monthly numbers of an episodic novel from January 1847 to July
1848; it was published in book form in 1848 (revised 1853). He was thirty-four
when he began the book.
Vanity Fair’s sub-title is ‘A
novel without a hero’. However, as Thackeray writes, ‘… at least let us lay
claim to a heroine. No man in the British army which has marched away, not the
great Duke himself, could be more cool or collected in the presence of doubts
and difficulties, than the indomitable little aide-de-camp’s wife.’ [i.e. Becky]
(p353)
The term “Vanity Fair” is
adopted from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress,
suggesting a never-ending fair along the pilgrim’s route, loosely a playground
of the idle and undeserving rich: a microcosm of several nineteenth century
lives. ‘Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of
humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions.’ (p116)
Rebecca (Becky) Sharp is
penniless, cunning and attractive: ‘Green eyes, fair skin, pretty figure,
famous frontal development…’ (p235) ‘She gave a sigh, a shrug with her
shoulders, which were already too much out of her gown…’ (p734) She is also ‘a
hardened little reprobate’ (p763) To begin with, she is determined to make her
way in society. On leaving school (under a cloud) Becky joins her friend Emmy
(Amelia) and stays with her family in London. Emmy is good-natured but naïve,
and ‘the consummate little tragedian’ (p765). Her brother Jos is visiting and
is attracted to Becky, but the potentially fruitful courtship is stymied by
George Osborne, the suitor of Emmy, after an outing at Vauxhall. George’s best
friend William is secretly in love with Emmy, but appreciates that she does not
consider him in any kind of romantic light; he seems doomed to sustain
unrequited love.
Throughout, Thackeray
intrudes as the author – or puppet-master. He can be forgiven, for usually his
asides are amusing or even insightful. ‘The novelist, who knows everything...’
(p389) And sometimes he has to pull himself up – ‘… But we are wandering out of
the domain of the story.’ (p453)
‘… my readers must hope for
no such romance, only a homely story, and must be content with a chapter about
Vauxhall, which is so short that it scarce deserves to be called a chapter at
all. And yet it is a chapter, and a very important one too. Are not there
little chapters in everybody’s life, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect
all the rest of the history?’ (p88)
Thackeray discloses his
intent more than once, sometimes blatantly, sometimes subtly: ‘Such people
there are living and flourishing in the world – Faithless, Hopeless,
Charityless; let us have at them, dear friends, with might and main. Some there
are, and very successful too, mere quacks and fools: and it was to combat and
expose such as those, no doubt, that Laughter was made.’ (p117)
Thackeray employs omniscient
third person point of view and author intrusion with good effect. (Though I was
surprised he used the phrase ‘thought to herself’ (p229): the ‘to herself’ is
superfluous, after all.)
Having failed to land a
husband in Jos, Becky takes her leave of Emmy and finds employment at the dilapidated
stately home Queen’s Crawley as a governess of the two daughters of Sir Pitt
Crawley, a rather crude fellow (played with gusto by David Bradley); this
character is the father of two sons, the cleric Pitt (to confuse matters!) and
Rawdon. ‘The elder and younger son of the house of Crawley were, like the
gentleman and lady in the weather-box, never at home together – they hated each
other cordially.’ (p129)
Their aunt, spinster Miss Matilda
Crawley, is rich and they all lust after her wealth so seek her favour… Her
favourite appears to be Rawdon, however. Unfortunately, when she discovers that
Rawdon has secretly married Becky, she turns against them both.
In the meantime, Amelia’s
father has hit hard times and becomes bankrupt. When Dobbin encounters him, it
is a sorry sight: ‘His face had fallen in, and was unshorn; his frill and
neckcloth hung limp under his bagging waistcoat.’ (p240) There are many
instances where the writing evokes sympathy and empathy: ‘He covered his face
with his black hands: over which the tears rolled and made furrows of white.’
(p631)
I was amused to see that
there was a Mrs Captain Kirk in the story… (p320) Long before Star Trek, of course! And later, we have
none other than Reverend Silas Hornblower, ‘who was tattooed in the South Sea
Islands.’ [A painful area of the anatomy, I imagine!] (p392)
With the help of William
Dobbin, George marries Amelia but is disinherited as a result. When called to
battle, he is grateful to be gone from her side [the cad!] (p355)
With the conniving help of
Becky, George lived well (from his gambling prowess and by not paying his
debts). Thackeray castigates his kind, who take advantage of honest traders,
always promising payment, never paying it. ‘I wonder how many families are
driven to roguery and to ruin by great practitioners in Crawley’s way? How many
great noblemen rob their petty tradesmen, condescend to swindle their poor
retainers out of wretched little sums, and cheat for a few shillings? … When
the great house tumbles down, these miserable wretches fall under it
unnoticed.’ (p438)
There are many memorable
turns of phrase used: ‘Time has dealt kindly with that stout officer, [Colonel
Sir Michael O’Dowd] as it does ordinarily with men who have good stomachs and
good tempers, and are not perplexed over much by fatigue of the brain.’ (p506) Another
– ‘If sarcasm could have killed, Lady Stunnington would have slain her on the
spot.’ (p601)
And he has fun with names,
too: Mr Wagg, Duchess of Stilton, Duc de la Gruyere, Marchioness of Cheshire,
Comte de Brie and so on… (p589) and Rev. Felix Rabbits (whose wife birthed
thirteen sisters! (p697)
The relationship between
Amelia and Dobbin is laid bare, finally. ‘She wished to give him nothing, but
that he should give her all. It is a bargain not unfrequently levied in love.’
(p776)
Despite her ‘wild and roving
nature’ (p755), Becky gave Rawdon a son (though she could not bear to be with
the poor boy). Amelia too had a son, named George, whose teacher was a Mr Veal:
‘And whenever he spoke (which he did almost always), he took care to produce
the very finest and longest words of which the vocabulary gave him the use; rightly
judging that it was as cheap to employ a handsome, large, and sonorous epithet,
as to use a little stingy one.’ (p655)
Thackeray was aware of
women’s plight in the man’s world he inhabited. ‘What do men know about women’s
martyrdom? We should go mad had we to endure the hundredth part of those daily
pains which are meekly borne by many women. Ceaseless slavery meeting with no
reward; constant gentleness and kindness met by cruelty as constant; love,
labour, patience, watchfulness, 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…’ (p659) Later (p663) he
alludes to the ‘women for the most part who are … hospital nurses without wages…’
– in short, family carers. Still topical today, even…
Political leaks are nothing
new, either. ‘When one side or the other had written any particularly spicy
despatch, news of it was sure to slip out.’ (p732)
And perhaps Thackeray was
cognizant of those who are easily offended (the nineteenth century sort, not
the twenty-first century snowflakes): ‘… it has been the wish of the present
writer, all through this story, deferentially to submit to the fashion at present prevailing, and only to hint at the existence
of wickedness in a light, easy, and agreeable manner, so that nobody’s fine
feelings may be offended.’ (p738) [My italics.]
The book has endured as a
true classic, for many reasons, but not least because Thackeray made his
characters seem real, complete with their faults. Nobody is wholly likeable,
none are actually evil, but several are driven by greed, lust, or prejudice. In
effect, he has shone a light on the human condition.
