People are so often intimidated by fiction which has been "canonized" over time that they can forget that there are reasons why a book is considered a classic. Vanity Fair is a delightful example of this reasoning.
The book, although set in the 18th century, is one of the most entertaining and insightful books a person could ever read. It might take a little patience for a modern reader to get into the swing of the way language was used during the Napoleonic/Wellington era, but the effort is well worth the trouble.
It is rare for a male author to be able to write a book centered around a woman and be able to portray her from a realistic feminine viewpoint, but Thackeray gives English literature one of the most delightfully tricky anti-heroines in Rebecca Sharp. Her foil, Amanda Sedley, is a sweet, sheltered submissive female.
The Eighteenth Century, unlike the Victorian Era of the following hundred years, fostered and enjoyed quite a number of highly intelligent, well-educated women who not only spoke their own minds and dabbled in politics but also took initiative when it came to their sex lives. There was a bit of a duality in English culture at that time - wonderfully wicked women were admired even if they themselves preferred more conventional, submissive daughters-in-law.
Thackaray illustrates this dichotomy in his masterful portraits of Rebecca, Amanda and the men in their lives. Both women illustrate their "type" so perfectly that the reader easily spots their glaring faults - if not at the beginning of the book, certainly by the end.
Their relationship, which I would define as the central theme of the book, is used to probe and analyze not only the societal but also the political mores of the time. Thackaray is able to distance himself from his own culture so as to lovingly satirize the choices available to people inhabiting the blurred social border between the wealthy bourgoisie and the lower upper classes.
Don't let the fact that Vanity Fair is taught in High School and University British Literature classes frighten you off. I assure you that you will most likely never regret having read this book - unless you love it so much that you forget your real life responsibilities while engrossed in the antics of Becky Sharp!
