Bright Book of Life : Novels to Read and Reread (9780525657279)

by Bloom, Harold

  Dead at fifty-two, Thackeray could be judged as not having fulfilled his indubitable gifts, except for Vanity Fair and Henry Esmond. Dickens loved Shakespeare; Thackeray considered King Lear to be a “bore” and regarded Hamlet as being trivial. I suppose you could defend Thackeray by saying he was averse to tragedy, but that does not give him very much. I now cease all dispraise by embracing Becky Sharp. I have no idea who would want to embrace William Makepeace Thackeray, yet I grant how greatly he was admired by George Eliot and Anthony Trollope as well as by Charlotte Brontë.

  Among recent scholar-critics, Thackeray enjoys the esteem of Wolfgang Iser, the heretofore mentioned Juliet McMaster, John Sutherland, Gordon Ray and also Maria DiBattista and J. Hillis Miller. A touch reluctantly, I would join that company by fantasizing that Thackeray loved Becky Sharp more than he would acknowledge. If Flaubert was Madame Bovary, is not Thackeray Becky Sharp?

  This is perhaps clearest in Chapter 64, entitled “A Vagabond Chapter.” It does begin with the unfortunate mermaid paragraph I have quoted already. It then goes on to Becky making a bohemian life for herself in the French port of Boulogne:

  She was, in fact, no better than a vagabond upon this earth. When she got her money, she gambled; when she had gambled it, she was put to shifts to live; who knows how or by what means she succeeded? It is said that she was once seen at St Petersburg, but was summarily dismissed from that capital by the police, so that there cannot be any possibility of truth in the report that she was a Russian spy at Töplitz and Vienna afterwards. I have even been informed, that at Paris she discovered a relation of her own, no less a person than her maternal grandmother, who was not by any means a Montmorenci, but a hideous old box-opener at a theatre on the Boulevards. The meeting between them of which other persons, as it is hinted elsewhere, seem to have been acquainted, must have been a very affecting interview. The present historian can give no certain details regarding the event.

  Thackeray is enjoying himself while keeping Becky at a judicious distance. That distance is always in danger of vanishing as Thackeray yields to her gusto:

  So Becky, who had arrived in the diligence from Florence, and was lodged at an inn in a very modest way, got a card for Prince Polonia’s entertainment, and her maid dressed her with unusual care, and she went to this fine ball leaning on the arm of Major Loder, with whom she happened to be travelling at the time—(the same man who shot Prince Ravoli at Naples the next year, and was caned by Sir John Buckskin for carrying four kings in his hat besides those which he used in playing at écarté)—and this pair went into the rooms together, and Becky saw a number of old faces which she remembered in happier days, when she was not innocent, but not found out. Major Loder knew a great number of foreigners, keen-looking whiskered men with dirty striped ribbons in their button-holes, and a very small display of linen; but his own countrymen, it might be remarked, eschewed the Major. Becky, too, knew some ladies here and there—French widows, dubious Italian countesses, whose husbands had treated them ill—faugh—what shall we say, we who have moved among some of the finest company of Vanity Fair, of this refuse and sediments of rascals? If we play, let it be with clean cards, and not with this dirty pack. But every man who has formed one of the innumerable army of travellers has seen these marauding irregulars hanging on, like Nym and Pistol, to the main force; wearing the king’s colours, and boasting of his commission, but pillaging for themselves, and occasionally gibbeted by the roadside.

  Well, she was hanging on the arm of Major Loder, and they went through the rooms together, and drank a great quantity of champagne at the buffet, where the people, and especially the Major’s irregular corps, struggled furiously for refreshments, of which when the pair had had enough, they pushed on until they reached the Duchess’s own pink velvet saloon, at the end of the suite of apartments (where the statue of Venus is, and the great Venice looking-glasses, framed in silver), and where the princely family were entertaining their most distinguished guests at a round table at supper. It was just such a little select banquet as that of which Becky recollected that she had partaken at Lord Steyne’s—and there he sat at Polonia’s table, and she saw him.

  Evidently, Thackeray liked King Henry V more than he cared for King Lear and Hamlet, and his employment of Nym and Pistol is adroit. Becky would like to get at Lord Steyne but she cannot, since the company she keeps is rock bottom. In time, she and the lustful Steyne will have their adulterous moment, and it will help end Becky’s marriage to Rawdon Crawley. Rawdon is a younger son, a cardsharp, a good soldier, and infatuated with Becky until, at last, he comes to understand how manipulative, immoral, cold, and dangerous she truly is.

  Thackeray distances himself from his story and characters by presenting himself as the showman of a booth at Vanity Fair. Crucial to the novel from the title onward is John Bunyan’s vision of the Pilgrims at Vanity Fair in his great work The Pilgrim’s Progress: From This World to That Which Is to Come (1678). Here is the crucial passage from Bunyan:

  Then I saw in my dream, that when they were got out of the wilderness, they presently saw a town before them, and the name of that town is Vanity, and at the town there is a fair kept, called Vanity Fair. It is kept all the year long; it beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where it is kept is lighter than vanity, and also because all that is there sold, or that cometh thither, is vanity. As is the saying of the wise, “all that cometh is vanity.”

  This fair is no new-erected business, but a thing of ancient standing; I will show you the original of it.

  Almost five thousand years agone there were pilgrims walking to the Celestial City, as these two honest persons are, and Beelzebub, Apollyon, and Legion, with their companions, perceiving by the path that the pilgrims made that their way to the city lay through this town of Vanity, they contrived here to set up a fair; a fair wherein should be sold all sorts of vanity, and that it should last all the year long. Therefore at this fair are all such merchandise sold, as houses, lands, trades, places, honours, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures, and delights of all sorts, as whores, bawds, wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls, precious stones, and what not.

  And, moreover, at this fair there is at all times to be seen jugglings, cheats, games, plays, fools, apes, knaves, and rogues, and that of every kind.

  Here are to be seen, too, and that for nothing, thefts, murders, adulteries, false swearers, and that of a blood-red colour.

  And as in other fairs of less moment there are the several rows and streets under their proper names, where such and such wares are vended; so here likewise you have the proper places, rows, streets, (viz. countries and kingdoms), where the wares of this fair are soonest to be found. Here is the Britain Row, the French Row, the Italian Row, the Spanish Row, the German Row, where several sorts of vanities are to be sold. But as in other fairs some one commodity is as the chief of all the fair, so the ware of Rome and her merchandise is greatly promoted in this fair; only our English nation, with some others, have taken a dislike thereat.

  Now, as I said, the way to the Celestial City lies just through this town where this lusty fair is kept; and he that will go to the City, and yet not go through this town, must needs ‘go out of the world.’ The Prince of princes himself, when here, went through this town to his own country, and that upon a fair day too; yea, and as I think, it was Beelzebub, the chief lord of this fair, that invited him to buy of his vanities, yea, would have made him lord of the fair, would he but have done him reverence as he went through the town. Yea, because he was such a person of honour, Beelzebub had him from street to street, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a little time, that he might, if possible, allure that Blessed One to cheapen and buy some of his vanities; but he had no mind to the merchandise, and therefore left the town without laying out so much as one farthing upon these vanities. This fa
ir therefore is an ancient thing, of long standing, and a very great fair.

  Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies, is replaced by Thackeray, who on the title page calls his story “A Novel without a Hero.” It has two heroes, Thackeray the Showman and his shadow self, Becky Sharp. Some readers suggest that William Dobbin is heroic, but he seems to me a dry stick, amiable enough yet easily forgettable. Thackeray as a personality and character defies my understanding. He is inconstant in tone and in stance, ambivalent in regard to all his characters, yet somehow his real presence pervades the novel. His tone is insinuating, condescending, knowingly snobbish, and edgy, as if he despises his own moralism. A wicked intelligence must be granted him.

  Thackeray intends Becky Sharp to be an anti-heroine. You can heap up all her demerits: she is not motherly toward her only son, she is incapable of loving anyone except herself, and she sells herself when she has nothing else to sell. It seems likely that she murders one unfortunate character in order to reap his insurance. She will not bail her husband out of a debtor’s confinement, even when Lord Steyne has showered her with banknotes and valuable jewelry. She lives defiantly for all the pleasure she can gain. One could extend the catalogue, but take her out of the novel and who would ever read it? It is her sexuality that sustains the book as much as Cleopatra’s triumphant ecstasies provide Shakespeare’s great play with fire and air.

  The joys of Vanity Fair can be encapsulated in a cunning paragraph playing point-counterpoint between Becky and her impresario:

  ‘It isn’t difficult to be a country gentleman’s wife,’ Rebecca thought. ‘I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand a year. I could dawdle about in the nursery, and count the apricots on the wall. I could water plants in a greenhouse and pick off dead leaves from the geraniums. I could ask old women about their rheumatisms, and order half-a-crown’s worth of soup for the poor. I shouldn’t miss it much out of five thousand a year. I could even drive out ten miles to dine at a neighbour’s, and dress in the fashions of the year before last. I could go to church and keep awake in the great family pew, or go to sleep behind the curtains, with my veil down, if I only had practice. I could pay everybody, if I had but the money. This is what the conjurors here pride themselves upon doing. They look down with pity upon us miserable sinners who have none. They think themselves generous if they give our children a five-pound note, and us contemptible if we are without one.’ And who knows but Rebecca was right in her speculations—and that it was only a question of money and fortune which made the difference between her and an honest woman? If you take temptations into account, who is to say that he is better than his neighbour? A comfortable career of prosperity, if it does not make people honest, at least keeps them so. An alderman coming from a turtle feast will not step out of his carriage to steal a leg of mutton; but put him to starve, and see if he will not purloin a loaf. Becky consoled herself by so balancing the chances and equalizing the distribution of good and evil in the world.

  “I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand a year.” Becky’s motto would do very well for a refrain in a poem by Kipling or Bert Brecht. It may as well be Thackeray’s motto. Is it not ours? Who would not be Jean Valjean if he or she were starving?

  The puzzle of Thackeray makes me wonder if my own excess of affect is at fault in my ambivalence toward him. Erotic disappointment was almost the law of his life. That could be an element in the sadomasochistic narcissism of George Osborne contemplating his bride-to-be Amelia:

  This prostration and sweet unrepining obedience exquisitely touched and flattered George Osborne. He saw a slave before him in that simple yielding faithful creature, and his soul within him thrilled secretly somehow at the knowledge of his power. He would be generous-minded, Sultan as he was, and raise up this kneeling Esther and make a queen of her: besides, her sadness and beauty touched him as much as her submission, and so he cheered her, and raised her up and forgave her, so to speak. All her hopes and feelings, which were dying and withering, this her sun having been removed from her, bloomed again and at once, its light being restored. You would scarcely have recognized the beaming little face upon Amelia’s pillow that night as the one that was laid there the night before, so wan, so lifeless, so careless of all round about. The honest Irish maid-servant, delighted with the change, asked leave to kiss her face that had grown all of a sudden so rosy. Amelia put her arms round the girl’s neck and kissed her with all her heart, like a child. She was little more. She had that night a sweet refreshing sleep, like one—and what a spring of inexpressible happiness as she woke in the morning sunshine!

  It is merely outrageous that the odious young Osborne forgave poor Amelia. We do not like Osborne any better after he dies heroically at Waterloo. Do I go on being delighted by Becky as she performs Clytemnestra in a charade?

  The second part of the charade takes place. It is still an Eastern scene. Hassan, in another dress, is in an attitude by Zuleikah, who is perfectly reconciled to him. The Kislar Aga has become a peaceful black slave. It is sunrise on the desert, and the Turks turn their heads eastwards and bow to the sand. As there are no dromedaries at hand, the band facetiously plays “The Camels are coming.” An enormous Egyptian head figures in the scene. It is a musical one—and to the surprise of the oriental travellers, sings a comic song, composed by Mr Wagg. The Eastern voyagers go off dancing, like Papageno and the Moorish King in the “Magic Flute.” “Last two syllables,” roars the head.

  The last act opens. It is a Grecian tent this time. A tall and stalwart man reposes on a couch there. Above him hang his helmet and shield. There is no need for them now. Ilium is down. Iphigenia is slain. Cassandra is a prisoner in his outer halls. The king of men (it is Colonel Crawley, who, indeed, has no notion about the sack of Ilium or the conquest of Cassandra), the anax andrôn is asleep in his chamber at Argos. A lamp casts the broad shadow of the sleeping warrior flickering on the wall—the sword and shield of Troy glitter in its light. The band plays the awful music of ‘Don Juan’, before the statue enters.

  Ægisthus steals in pale and on tiptoe. What is that ghastly face looking out balefully after him from behind the arras? He raises his dagger to strike the sleeper, who turns in his bed, and opens his broad chest as if for the blow. He cannot strike the noble slumbering chieftain. Clytemnestra glides swiftly into the room like an apparition—her arms are bare and white—her tawny hair floats down her shoulder—her face is deadly pale—and her eyes are lighted up with a smile so ghastly, that people quake as they look at her.

  A tremor ran through the room. ‘Good God!’ somebody said, ‘it’s Mrs Rawdon Crawley.’

  Scornfully she snatches the dagger out of Ægisthus’s hand and advances to the bed. You see it shining over her head in the glimmer of the lamp, and—and the lamp goes out, with a groan, and all is dark.

  In one sense the role of Clytemnestra scarcely suits Becky, because she could not have cared less had she borne Iphigenia and had that splendid young lady been sacrificed so the Greek ships could sail. Otherwise it is a splendid part for Becky, as she has much to revenge against the male world of power, authority, wealth, and the denial of a grand woman’s sexuality. Becky Sharp lacks Clytemnestra’s grandeur but does very well as a Victorian reduction.

  One could say of Becky Sharp that of course she gets up each morning determined both to enjoy her existence and to fight off the male world of wealth, power, hypocrisy. She accepts the price of her own duplicity:

  She never was Lady Crawley, though she continued so to call herself. His Excellency Colonel Rawdon Crawley died of yellow fever at Coventry Island, most deeply beloved and deplored, and six weeks before the demise of his brother, Sir Pitt. The estate consequently devolved upon the present Sir Rawdon Crawley, Bart.

  He, too, has declined to see his mother, to whom he makes a liberal allowance, and who, besides, appears to be very wealthy. The Baronet lives entirely at Queen’s C
rawley, with Lady Jane and her daughter; whilst Rebecca, Lady Crawley, chiefly hangs about Bath and Cheltenham, where a very strong party of excellent people consider her to be a most injured woman. She has her enemies. Who has not? Her life is her answer to them. She busies herself in works of piety. She goes to church, and never without a footman. Her name is in all the Charity Lists. The Destitute Orange-girl, the Neglected Washerwoman, the Distressed Muffin-man find in her a fast and generous friend. She is always having stalls at Fancy Fairs for the benefit of these hapless beings.

  Again Thackeray’s tone is virtually indecipherable. I would soften it if I could, but that is not a legitimate reaction for a reader. I yield to Thackeray for his final comment, with its deep echoes of Qoheleth or Ecclesiastes, where vanitas in the Hebrew is hevel, “emptiness”:

  Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?—Come children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.

  CHAPTER 14

  Moby-Dick (1851)

  HERMAN MELVILLE

  EXCEPT FOR Don Quixote, Clarissa, and In Search of Lost Time, my personal favorite among all prose epics or vast novels is Moby-Dick. I have loved it since I was a child and have never given up my passionate conviction that Ahab is more a hero than a hero-villain.