Monday, September 13, 2010

Vanity Fair + Vanity Fair

I love reading the magazine "Vanity Fair." It is a sort of semi-guilty pleasure, as it has both articles on serious political and social issues, on the one hand, and articles on fashion, the social elite, the world of entertainment, and gossip, on the other hand. Recently I was thinking about connections between the magazine and Thackeray's wonderful 19th century novel, also titled "Vanity Fair." Both are bursting with fascinating content, and both are full of contrasts. Each of the two is both intellectual and worldly, both informational and entertaining. Each has a sort of wry, worldly tone. Each is about chic celebrities as well as the difficulties of war and poverty and sudden changes in people's lives. I think Thackeray, that supremely witty and worldly author, would have been very much at home in the editorial offices of the magazine "Vanity Fair."
 
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