A letter to William Makepeace Thackeray:
Dear Sir,
I just finished what is considered your masterpiece, Vanity Fair, and I have a few comments. First: it’s a great story. Really. I enjoyed your portrayal of Becky Sharp (though perhaps I wasn’t supposed to like her?); she was a very intriguing character throughout most of the book. I loved Major Dobbin, but then who wouldn’t love his devotion to Amelia. And I even liked Amelia, though there were times when she came off as a sniveling and annoying wimp. I enjoyed the statire on high society and those who aim for it. there were even parts that made me laugh out loud.
However, there was just too much of it. I know, it’s a product of the times you wrote in: the book was serialized in the papers, you were a contemporary of Dickens. Whatever. There is still way too much book here. Especially for the story. But then, I do have to admit, I feel the same way about many of your contemporary authors. Many of them, like Dickens, have great stories to tell that get bogged down in the sheer amount of words they take to tell them. And, sir, you fall vicitm to that flaw. Perhaps it was because there was a significant lack of decent editors around to tell you that if you tighten your story, it will have greater impact in the end. I skipped whole chapters whithout ever losing the main gist of the story.
Oh, one other thing: you really needed to work on the ending more. Yay for Dobbin and Amelia. But to just drop Becky like that? She deserved something grander, something more, well, scandalous to end the book. To just have her fade is really quite pathetic. But then, maybe that was your point.
Sincerely,
Melissa
The Book Nut 
Wow, you’re the second person this week to post about Vanity Fair. The other was Laura from Bluestocking:http://bluestocking.typepad.com/bluestocking/2005/09/finalmente_fini.html#commentsAs for me, I’m just going to rent the movie. 🙂
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Hmm, I like what you said. I sort of enjoyed the wordiness, or thought that I would enjoy it, if I had as much time on my hands as the Victorians. What was hard for me was my inability to really like anyone. It was too much point and not enough heart. Good point, lousy heart. I don’t believe EVERYONE is disappointed in life, or deluded. Give me George Eliot any day. But I was still glad to tuck it under my book belt, so to speak (huh?)BTW, are you LDS?
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Julie — thanks for the link. I need to branch out and read more blogs… 🙂Laura — Perhaps part of my problem with Victorian novels is that I’m an impatient, modern woman. Perhaps I would have liked them more if I’d lived back then. I remember saying to myself as I was slogging through Nicholas Nickelby, “It was orignally serialized. I don’t have to read several chapters tonight…”And yes, I am LDS.
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Oh, and Julie — tell me how the movie is. I’m curious to know.
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You need to read Possession by Byatt (what I’m reading right now). It superimposes Victorian writing on modern life–that sounds boring, it’s fascinating. Wild. The Victorians were so . . . adolescently idealistic.I am too–you’re the first blogger I’ve run into who is who doesn’t have that posted in a major way on her blog.
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Laura — I couldn’t tell from your blog that you were LDS either. 🙂 I choose not to advertise my religion because I want this blog to be about what I think about books, and not about me in general. Though it does come through when I read LDS books, though that’s not a usual occurence.It’s a personal choice, and one that I think costs me readers. That, and the fact that I read a lot of youth fiction… Sigh.
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So, Rebecca’s family rented this movie. I was in the same room when they watched it. I don’t think I watched more than 5 minutes of it. Does that count?
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