Vanity of Vanities

 Regular readers are quite well aware of the fact that as a general proposition I don’t much care for screen dramatizations of liddashur.  So you may be mildy surprised to know that I ran off the Beeb’s 1998 mini-series version of Thackery’s Vanity Fair and all in all believe it wasn’t too bad.

In fact, the cast was, in my opinion, really quite good. That’s Natasha Little as the wily Becky Sharp, a character I’ve long had trouble pidgeon-holing:  Just when you’re all set to thoroughly revile her, some little burst of sympathy pulls you back.  But just when you’re ready to start sympathizing with her, she goes and commits some thoroughly debased act that has you right back in the reviling camp.   On the other hand, there’s Amelia Osborne (played meekly by Frances Grey):  While she is as pure as the driven snow, by the end of the story had I been in the hero William Dobbin’s shoes, I’d have unhesitatingly chucked her in the Thames.  The men-folk are equally good, particularly Jeremy Swift who is screamingly funny as Jos Sedley.  As for the more peripheral characters such as the Crawleys and Lord Steyne, they look as if they were lifted wholesale out of a print by James Gilray or Thomas Rowlandson.

The series does a fairly good job with the plot, too, although it probably could have punched up Becky’s shady dealings a bit more.  (For example, the story ends just after she snaps Amelia out of her blindness to what a swine her late husband George actually had been and totally skips both Becky’s final usage of the hapless Jos and her ultimate entre hawking trinkets.)  Also, a few smaller characters and plot lines seem to have been elminated.  All in all, though, I think it stuck to the spirit of the book pretty well.

However, I do have a beef. (You just knew I would, didn’t you?)  And what is it, you may be asking? Well, I’ll tell you: The musick was atrocious.  Although the story is set around the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and most of the Regency detail was quite good, the background musick was  Edwardian.  And campy Edwardian at that, as if the composer wanted to keep prodding one in the ribs and whispering, “See, it’s a satire! Get it? Get it?”  Proved to be quite a distraction from the get-go and only got worse.   (Becky also sang a number of ballads in her various vamping adventures, the historickal validity of which I find deeply suspicious.)  

Too bad, too, because if it were not for the musick, I’d probably watch the series again.  As it is, however, I think one airing was enough.

Oh, Hep Me! Hep Me!

The two elder gels started cotillion last evening.

The eldest, while not exactly a tomboy, has never really been very “girly” either and had spent the past couple days loudly balking at the concept of having to wear a nice dress and white gloves.  Her sister, on the other hand, has always enjoyed dressing up and was looking forward to teh dance with keen enthusiasm.

So much for leading indicators.

When they got home, I asked the younger girl how she liked it. “Well,” she said, “It was okay, but dancing with boys was a little…creepy.”

On the other hand, her elder sister burst into the room, eyes ablaze, and said, “Dad!  Guess what I found out – Boys like girls!  They kept cutting in on each other to dance with me all evening!”

Looks like I picked the wrong weekend to stop sniffing glue.