Rating: 
Summary: Masterful and modern
Review: Being decently versed in the literature of this era with approximately 40 books from the era under my belt, I agree with most of what the previous positive reviewers have written. It is a masterpiece, and with a little change in the scenery the book could have been written yesterday. I can not fully agree with remarks made on Vanity Fair's wryness, or that the humor drips from every page. Thackeray is different from Dickens. He is more like a predecessor to Theodore Dreiser, using better English of course. I think the strength of the novel stems from the writer's restraint and modern sense to leave any judgement up to the reader. Laughing is appropriate at places, but I just get the sense that the author wasn't out for caricature or satire. That may be an important reason for the books staying power.
Rating:
Summary: Sharp as a Nail...
Review: If only for the prodigious use of symbolism and the author's unerring sense of verbal wit, Thackery's hefty masterpiece "Vanity Fair" should be taught by all primary school teachers. Where else can a budding George Osborne or Rebecca Sharp gain the insight and rules they'll need for their societal climbs? Fairs of vanity are all around us, and where better to equip one's self with the requisite social mores, the perfect dandified behavior, and the suggested utter lack of shame, than in Thackery's fun and brilliant tome?No other novel so effectively presents one character after another, with whom we fail to rally behind. Throughout the novel the much-catered-to reader finds himself on the verge of throwing his support behind one player after the next. But, alas, there are no heroes to be found. In fact, all of the fair's members, save perhaps the quixotic Captain cum Colonel Dobbin, and maybe the saintly though financially hapless Mr. Sedley senior, continuously thwart any attempt on the reader's part at finding one shred of pure decency-anywhere, or with anyone-in this Vanity Fair. Instead, what Thackery presents his readers is page after page of dubious morals played out in tedious drawing rooms filled with corpulent Nobs, impecunious dandies, and rarefied, although highly mannered, well-born dimwits. Pathos is in no small evidence in "Vanity Fair." Whether it's Amelia Sedley's blind and masochistic love for the rakish George(s) in her life (the son by George senior very much resembles his pathetic father even by the age of 8), or the zenith Mrs. Crawley (a.k.a. Becky Sharp) reaches when at last she is allowed to become "a virtuous lady" (through an interview at Court), the Fair is full of lead-tipped struggles and victories. We're not meant to shed a tear for anyone in this book. Instead, we're allowed an unabridged glance at the players and the stages that made up the Vanity Fair of Thackery's day. The point is--the fair is always open (and always has been, since time immemorial); only the characters and the costumes change.
Rating:
Summary: a real pleasure
Review: This was a real pleasure to read. It is beautifully written, extremely amusing and very accurate concerning the streak of vanity that flows through human nature. Like most authors of his day, Thackeray wrote this in serial form for a newspaper and the introduction of the book reveals that he was in it only for the $, hadn't properly thought about the structure of the book and just figured out what was to happen as he went along. This keeps the reader guessing as to the direction of the novel and each chapter becomes a novella revolving around one set of characters. The plot keeps twisting and turning at a delicious rate and Thackeray's occasional interventions to give his opinion about his characters made me laugh out loud. However, fact that the book was a series does become frustrating at times, when there are some inconsistencies in the characters. For example, one character (not giving anything away)emerged at the beginning of the novel as quite a headstrong, sympathetic and innocent character, yet during the novel she turned a little too quickly into a calculating, Machiavellic and frankly evil one. Another similarly went from lovable rogue a la Heathcliffe to dull and stupid in a matter of chapters. Nonetheless, I strongly recommend this book. It definitely rings true on many levels and all of us humans have vanity and greed dormant somewhere inside us.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best of all English novels
Review: This is the novel I always go back to when I want to recapture that great "Primal Read." It's almsot impossible to put Thackeray's masterpiece down: its depiction of the corrupt world of the Prince Regent seems to leap off the page and acquire its own reality, so that for days after I first read this I seemed to be living in Thackeray's universe rather than late twentieth-century America. Its genius is not only in its humor (which is considerable--episodes like Becky Sharp's impression of the Countess of Southdown are almost unforgettably funny) but in its rounded depiction of characters who seem to have lives of their own outside of the book itself. No character, no matter how trivial, does not get his or her own moment, and just when you've written off one of them as two-dimensional Thackeray suddenly makes you aware of that character's ability to suffer in an acutely human way. Thackeray never wrote anything better, but nor did perhaps any other Victorian novelist.
Rating: 
Summary: Vanity Fair
Review: I think that Vanity is the most boring book I have ever read It has absolutly no meaning.
Rating: 
Summary: Vanity Fair
Review: I think that Vanity Fair is one of Mr. Makepiece's masterpieces and that it is the best book I have ever read of his. In fact, it is the only book from him that I have ever read of him. Kinda funny don't ya think? Vanity Fair is just a good book. Just a Fan, Anonymous!
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating masterpiece
Review: Vanity Fair is an extraordinary intelligent, beautiful and touching masterpiece. Thackery's point of view is incredible modern, cynical and - in certain chapters- even bizarre. I've enjoyed it word by word and I recommend it to every reader that truly loves 19th. Century literature. Although its greatness, I recognize that it's not an easy-reading novel.
Rating:
Summary: Not a cultural duty
Review: Vanity Fair I began to read Vanity Fair after seeing the BBC series. The series is superb but the book just surpasses it. Thackery was one of the great cynics of the 19 th Century and this work is his masterpiece. Like all great works it is rooted in its time, yet says things for our time. The human heart has changed little and Thackery would not have been surprised by the 21st Century. Do not consider this to be cultural duty, this is a great book with ideas that can change your life and make you reflect on your own vanities.
Rating:
Summary: Biting satire on life in early 19th Century England
Review: "Vanity Fair" is Thackeray's masterpiece and on a par with the best of Dickens' work. Alternating deftly between tragedy and comedy, it is a story rich in character development and historical accuracy. The famous pre-Waterloo ball given by the Duchess of Richmond is described in detail and is one of the highlights of the book. Becky Sharp is certainly a model for all the other treacherous femme fatales that follow her in literature, particularly Scarlett O'Hara. "Vanity Fair" is undoubtedly one of the great works of the 1900's and it has surely stood the test of time. It may be "A Novel Without a Hero" but its characters are real flesh and blood human beings.
Rating:
Summary: This Is My Favorite Book (but that was not always the case)
Review: This book is not for everyone (as the next two reviews clearly demonstrate). I first read Vanity Fair in junior high, and at the time I probably would have agreed with the comments of the next two reviews: Vanity Fair seemed slow and plodding, confusing and contradictory. When I recently reread Vanity Fair, I could scarcely believe that this brilliant, ironic, hilarious, and incisive romp was the same book as the dull tome I had remembered. In retrospect I realized why my perspective had changed: in junior high I had read the book superficially and found the plot and characters lacking enough excitement to hold my interest; now I realized that the most captivating action was taking place outside the plot in the interaction between the reader and the most important person in the novel: the narrator. I, like many readers, completely missed this deeper level of meaning the first time around. Thus, to recommend this novel to the unsophiscated, inexperienced reader (such as I had been) would be futile. It takes a keen sense of irony and certain degree of insight into the workings of life and literature to recognize the narrator's vital role and to appreciate this novel in its fullest sense. This book is not an easy read: it forces the reader to confront many difficult moral questions and provides no easy answers. But for those who can handle ambiguity and can detect subtle, yet "laugh out loud" funny humor Vanity Fair is not only a necessary read, but an enjoyable one. (Note: Buy this edition of Vanity Fair. The illustrations which Thackery drew for this novel greatly enhance the text, and the Norton edition reproduces all of them. In addition, the criticisms which are included make for a thought-provoking read and may help clarify your opinion of the novel).
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