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30. Vanity Fair.
“I am alone in the world,” said the friendless girl. “I have nothing to look
for but what my own labour can bring me; and while that little pink-faced chit
Amelia, with not half my sense, has ten thousand pounds and an establishment
secure, poor Rebecca (and my figure is far better than hers) has only herself
and her own wits to trust to. Well, let us see if my wits cannot provide me
with an honourable maintenance, and if some day or the other I cannot show
Miss Amelia my real superiority over her. Not that I dislike poor Amelia: who
can dislike such a harmless, good-natured creature?—only it will be a fine day
when I can take my place above her in the world, as why, indeed, should I
not?”
William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair is a massive novel that follows
the lives of two women: Amelia Sedley, who is naive and sweet and devoted, and
Becky Sharp, who is cunning and manipulative and beautiful. But novel’s
subtitle is “A Novel without a Hero”, and Thackeray doesn’t paint either woman
as entirely good or entirely evil. And as their fortunes rise and fall, they
offer a glimpse into the mercurial, ambitious, and often cruel world of Vanity
Fair, in which everyone scrambles for money, power, and status, and for what?
It’s a world that the narrator lampoons mercilessly while also participating
in fully, and Chris and Suzanne start to unpack it—and talk about whether
they’re #TeamBecky or #TeamAmelia. (Oh, come on, you know the answer to that
one.)
Show Notes.
William Makepeace Thackeray: Vanity Fair.
[Gutenberg.
Librivox.
Bookshop.]
Our episode on C.L.R. James’s The Black
Jacobins.
John Bunyan: Pilgrim’s Progress.
Our episode on Little Women.
Boethius: The Consolation of Philosophy.
Also by Thackeray: The Memoirs of Barry
Lyndon [and its film
adaptation] and The History of
Henry Esmond.
Becky Sharp (1935).
Speaking of that spicy meal that Becky can’t
handle…
How a recent ITV adaptation of Vanity Fair dealt with the book’s
racism.
On Mira Nair’s recent adaptation of the book into a
movie.
Next episode: C.L.R. James: Beyond a Boundary.
[Bookshop.]
Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon, if you
can.
View all episodes
By Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Chris Piuma
4.8
3030 ratings
“I am alone in the world,” said the friendless girl. “I have nothing to look
for but what my own labour can bring me; and while that little pink-faced chit
Amelia, with not half my sense, has ten thousand pounds and an establishment
secure, poor Rebecca (and my figure is far better than hers) has only herself
and her own wits to trust to. Well, let us see if my wits cannot provide me
with an honourable maintenance, and if some day or the other I cannot show
Miss Amelia my real superiority over her. Not that I dislike poor Amelia: who
can dislike such a harmless, good-natured creature?—only it will be a fine day
when I can take my place above her in the world, as why, indeed, should I
not?”
William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair is a massive novel that follows
the lives of two women: Amelia Sedley, who is naive and sweet and devoted, and
Becky Sharp, who is cunning and manipulative and beautiful. But novel’s
subtitle is “A Novel without a Hero”, and Thackeray doesn’t paint either woman
as entirely good or entirely evil. And as their fortunes rise and fall, they
offer a glimpse into the mercurial, ambitious, and often cruel world of Vanity
Fair, in which everyone scrambles for money, power, and status, and for what?
It’s a world that the narrator lampoons mercilessly while also participating
in fully, and Chris and Suzanne start to unpack it—and talk about whether
they’re #TeamBecky or #TeamAmelia. (Oh, come on, you know the answer to that
one.)
Show Notes.
William Makepeace Thackeray: Vanity Fair.
[Gutenberg.
Librivox.
Bookshop.]
Our episode on C.L.R. James’s The Black
Jacobins.
John Bunyan: Pilgrim’s Progress.
Our episode on Little Women.
Boethius: The Consolation of Philosophy.
Also by Thackeray: The Memoirs of Barry
Lyndon [and its film
adaptation] and The History of
Henry Esmond.
Becky Sharp (1935).
Speaking of that spicy meal that Becky can’t
handle…
How a recent ITV adaptation of Vanity Fair dealt with the book’s
racism.
On Mira Nair’s recent adaptation of the book into a
movie.
Next episode: C.L.R. James: Beyond a Boundary.
[Bookshop.]
Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon, if you
can.
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