I've nearly finished reading this, but not quite. I've come across a problem and I don't know if it's just me, or if other people who have read it would agree.
The first three quarters of the book were really good, it was witty, entertaining and dramatic-I especially loved the chapters set around the Battle of Waterloo-and I quite liked the way sometimes it would go off on a bit of a tangent.
I haven't read any classics for a while and strangely it was a dream that made me pick it up, and to begin with I was really glad I started reading it. I'd recommend it to people just for the first half of it.
But apart from being a bit all over the place with the plot line, William Thackeray is quite clearly very inconsistent throughout the whole novel. It even remarks in the notes in the back of the copy I'm reading that his work is littered with inconsistencies-he mixes things up, gets names wrong, and in some cases even makes mistakes with tenses. He also makes vague references to contemporary people and places that even the notes have to make a guess at.
It just added to the charm of the novel to begin with, but then as soon as I'd got to the last third of it, the tone and style of the writing changed rather abruptly. It seemed to suddenly become very long winded and kind of dull. It went more all over the place than ever and the dialogue dwindled down to nothing. I've got to the point where I don't know if I can be bothered to finish it, which is a shame because I was enjoying it before.
Is this just me, or has anyone else who's read Vanity Fair been a bit disappointed towards the end?
Edit: Oh, no, wait, I've persisted and it's vastly improved, but there was a chunk of about 100 pages that really took a lot of struggle to read through...
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Reviews: 53