Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray and a 30 a day habit.

Nothing like challenging oneself in the New Year and rather than giving up alcohol and only eating steamed kale the Book Club decided on reading the 900 odd page doorstop that is Vanity Fair. I ordered it at once and (using something vaguely like maths) worked out I needed to read 30 pages a day to have it read in time for the meeting. I was surprisingly undeterred by this and thought if nothing else I could use the book as a dumbbell when working off the chocolate orange.  

I found I actually liked hitting my 30 a day target (much like all the other New Years' resolutioners like hitting their ten thousand steps) and it motivated me to just squeeze a few more pages in here and there so I was ahead of target. I haven’t really approached a book this way before but then it is longer than my copy of War and Peace and there are over 50 books on my bookshelf waiting to be read (now in 'to read' order due to much prating about over Christmas).    

I didn’t know anything about the story other than Reece Witherspoon was in the film version so had a vague idea of some sort of Dangerous Liaisions esque plot. It wasn’t, but I wasn’t disappointed.

The prose was very like Dickens which I immediately took to, as I did to Becky Sharp one of the book's central characters. At the beginning there were quite a few characters, and a few stops and starts whilst Thackeray set the scene so the book did take a bit of getting into. I can certainly understand why, in the midst of nearly a thousand pages this would put some off but my 30 a day habit meant I was soon past the character introduction and into the main story which I found enjoyable.

Whilst I liked feisty Becky I couldn’t get away with wishy washy Amelia. Although Becky was therefore the 'bad guy' I wanted her to come out on top. Note to current writers - here is a way to make a character cunning, nasty, only out for oneself yet still keep the audience rooting for them.

The males on the other hand were quite a sorry affair – wishy washy Dobbin (so suited to Amelia) Jos, who reminded me of an overdressed Augustus Gloop, George, who only wanted to marry Amelia when he was told he couldn’t have her and Sir Pitt, proposing before his wife had even been buried. Not a good one amongst them although I was intrigued by the 'elaborate toilette's' they all seemed to take.  

I also found there to be too much of Thackeray (or the unidentified 'narrator') who kept popping up in the story. I found the interruption broke the stride of the book and wasn't needed.

I found it strange that the book was written (mainly) from the perspective of two young women having been written by a man in the 1840s and based around the Napoleonic Wars. I am sure there are hundreds of similar examples but my mind fails me and I felt Thackeray's unnecessary narration pushed this point home even further.

When a story is so long and covers so much ground you can never truly predict the ending but it's safe to say there were no real surprises. If you can bring yourself to read a book that weighs almost as much as a small child do read it, it's certainly better than kale. Book Club gave it a 6.2.

Next book is Alice by Christina Henry.