Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

While the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of Miss Pinkerton's academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an hour.

-- Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray.

I am finally, really reading Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair is one of those books I always think I’ve read but I haven’t. I’ve seen adaptations and started reading it a few times, but I’ve never actually read it. It's on my Classics Club II list of 50 classics to read in five years.

This time, I’m going read it with my ears, even though I have this pretty Modern Library edition. I like to read big classic doorstops as audiobooks. A good narrator parses those long sentences for me, so I can appreciate the writing without tripping over all the commas, and makes the story come alive with the different voices and all. I just sit back and enjoy the story.

I’m almost three quarters of the way through and love it. I need the paper copy (and the wikipedia article) with me for when I get tangled up in the dozens of characters. But it’s such a treasure! 

Have you read Vanity Fair?

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Vanity Fair:

Old Miss Crawley was certainly one of the reprobate. She had a snug little house in Park Lane, and, as she ate and drank a great deal too much during the season in London, she went to Harrowgate or Cheltenham for the summer.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their way through the tawdry glamour of Regency society, battles--military and domestic--are fought, fortunes made and lost. The one steadfast and honourable figure in this corrupt world is Dobbin with his devotion to Amelia, bringing pathos and depth to Thackeray's gloriously satirical epic of love and social adventure.