Vanity Fair is one of my favorite books.in spite of the eyewateringly small type that strains my myopic eyes,i've read and reread it.another book that i club with this,written by Thackeray's rival Dickens,is Martin Chuzzlewit.both are dark,very dark novels.Thackeray's canvas is more panoramic,historical.Dickens has a more varied cast,more memorably distinct 'minor ' characters.however,thereby hinges my affection and favoritism for Thackeray-his acute social observation,a realism and sympathy which is often missing from Dickens' work.
witness the treatment given by both to a similar incident-Amelia Sedley and Ruth,Thomas Pinch's sister, each set out to sell some screens that they've painted,in order to bolster the family income and help at home.amelia sedley is rebuffed gruffly-we realize that ,in contrast to her genteel poverty,there are women working for a pauper's wages,better and harder than she can .we feel sorry for Amelia,but some commiseration goes towards those with whom the main action of the novel isn't primarily concerned.in contrast,in Dickens,Ruth immediately and implausibly sells them at a high price and is asked to bring more.just a turn , a minor detail,that propels our characters,well established in our sympathies,towards their much-deserved award.
Dickens could write better stories,his plots are more immediately memorable and the sentimentality of his approach was the fashion of the time.he was in accordance with Victorian taste.Thackeray,acerbic,an observer who could write certain uncomfortable home truths,was celebrated,but less popular.he can be called the maiden aunt whose heart was in the right place but whose eyes were too uncomfortably keen.he deserves more modern appreciation for just one character-the absolutely brilliant Becky Sharp. Rebecca,her eye firmly fixed on the main chance,superbly egoistic and selfish,murderer and eventually rich,unexceptionable widow,how very well drawn she is.she is not someone whom anyone can sympathise with much, probably a reason why even her startlingly unusual personality(in comparison to the usual female heroines of the day)isn't commented upon much now.but imagine, in the Victorian era,writing about a woman who is independent, unscrupulous, never a victim destined for the moralizing end of 'death,destitution ,contrition',who suffers reverses but is,in the end,unmoved.utterly destitute of wifely or motherly values,rebecca is drawn as a scruffy caricature of napoleon in one of the illustrations by Thackeray-and that's who she is-the eternal campaigner,never giving up on tactics for eventual victory.so basically,wow.It's very unusual for a man, a novelist, to create a woman so utterly heartless.
