Jane and William Makepeace Thackeray
People don't really read Thackeray any more. At least no-one I know has ever read anything other than Vanity Fair. I've recently ploughed through The Newcomes and read The Virginians not so long ago.
This is a shame because he was a lion in his day(!), lionised by all, a tremendous literary lion whose roar terrified poor little Charlotte Bronte when she went to the big city after Jane Eyre was published. Mrs Gaskell tells the story of the tiny shy authoress being unable to even make herself heard by the great man.
And he is tremendous fun even if, because his books were mostly serialised, you suddenly find really abrupt changes in plot direction and characters. Formerly beautiful virtuous characters are suddenly insipid when he tires of them. Complicated characters with a complete family trees don't re-appear - was this padding to get to the end of the chapter? At the end of The Newcomes he even confesses to reanimating a character inadvertently who'd died several chapters earliers (I must admit to not noticing this because of the great number of chapters between the two events and my great hurry to get to the end of the 800 pages to see if there was a happy ending.)
I'm always surprised that booksellers and movie makers think people will like both Jane Austen and Thackeray (or Vanity Fair). Probably only because Becky Sharp is almost as much fun as Eliza Bennet. But that's about the only reason. Austen was concerned with young women finding husbands. These men might be soldiers or sailors or curates but you'd never know that England was fighting France or invading India. Thackery had more complicated plots about human virtue and folly but he does tell you all about going fight in the American war of Independence or where young men could make fortunes in order to find wives. And he can be laugh out loud funny at times.
This is a shame because he was a lion in his day(!), lionised by all, a tremendous literary lion whose roar terrified poor little Charlotte Bronte when she went to the big city after Jane Eyre was published. Mrs Gaskell tells the story of the tiny shy authoress being unable to even make herself heard by the great man.
And he is tremendous fun even if, because his books were mostly serialised, you suddenly find really abrupt changes in plot direction and characters. Formerly beautiful virtuous characters are suddenly insipid when he tires of them. Complicated characters with a complete family trees don't re-appear - was this padding to get to the end of the chapter? At the end of The Newcomes he even confesses to reanimating a character inadvertently who'd died several chapters earliers (I must admit to not noticing this because of the great number of chapters between the two events and my great hurry to get to the end of the 800 pages to see if there was a happy ending.)
I'm always surprised that booksellers and movie makers think people will like both Jane Austen and Thackeray (or Vanity Fair). Probably only because Becky Sharp is almost as much fun as Eliza Bennet. But that's about the only reason. Austen was concerned with young women finding husbands. These men might be soldiers or sailors or curates but you'd never know that England was fighting France or invading India. Thackery had more complicated plots about human virtue and folly but he does tell you all about going fight in the American war of Independence or where young men could make fortunes in order to find wives. And he can be laugh out loud funny at times.
posted by Mary Bennet | 10:52 am
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