Reviews

Vanity Fair by William Thackeray is a rather overlooked classic in my opinion that doesn’t get the recognition that others do. In fact, this is the only retelling/modernisation of the story that I know! This time, Becky is a young woman with ambitions to be a journalist and hide her lower class background. It’s more brutal and vicious that the original, possibly because the stakes are so such higher. This worked for me sometimes; other times I felt that Becky was too callous which made her difficult to like.

Becky is determined to get out of her small town and paints a resume of her (non-existent) experiences as a nanny. She gets a job with the Crawley family, owners and editors of multiple UK newspapers including tabloids. It’s here that she first meets Amelia, much more skilled with children and also desperately in love with George, who Becky knows from her youth. The story jumps with Becky’s promotions, from journalist to editor to CEO of the Mercury, a tabloid with a rumoured secret room with dirt on everyone in the UK. Becky’s quest to spill the secrets and attempt to write the wrongs of society is unrelenting, even at the cost of her marriage and family. Where will her ambition stop?

Given the timing of the novel, it’s easy to make links with the tabloid phone hacking scandals in the UK (although I don’t know all the details being Australian). Becky’s thirst for a scoop starts with the love letters from a princess to an ex-serviceman (nobody is ever named but it’s easy to make your own assumptions). When her plan to share (and get a promotion) goes awry, she becomes ever more determined to be in the know earlier, even if this means phone tapping. This is the point where I started to like Becky’s character less, as she railroads over anyone in her way. If you’re not familiar with the characters from the original novel, it can be difficult to get a good idea of who they are and their roles in Becky’s rise (and downfall). It was great to see Pitt, George and Rawdon reimagined but their characters weren’t deeply fleshed out and are there for Becky to toy with.

The story also goes back into Becky’s childhood periodically, to show the various events that shaped her. Sometimes they were directly related to what was happening in the present day, sometimes not which disrupted the pacing for me. The first part of the book is quite slow as Becky makes it to and then upwards at the newspaper. Some parts are quite confronting as to Becky’s absolute disregard for others (but without a clear motivation, except ‘the quest for the truth’). At other times, the novel seems to skip over parts that could have been quite juicy. For example, the newspaper is very clearly a boys’ club, but apart from Becky noting no female toilets on the executive floor and some disregarding her for her gender, it’s not explored. I felt sometimes the book was too loyal to the original plot points (George and Becky’s relationship for instance), instead of going into themes for the modern day. It’s well written, but the story didn’t really gel for me.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com

katieellenf's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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