Book of the film - Vanity Fair

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.