《浮華世界》(Vanity Fair)是薩克萊的代表作,生動刻劃一個折衝當時社交界名花,揭露滑鐵盧戰役前後英國中上階層社會腐敗、偽善、敗德的現狀,表現出犀利的嘲諷與深厚的厭世觀。
薩克萊用一種揶揄的態度揭露社會的現實,故事中心圍繞著貝琪和艾蜜莉亞兩個好朋友,這兩位女子離開學校後,進入社會,此後在人生路上的浮浮沉沉。艾蜜莉 亞是心地善良的富家女,從小在呵護中成長,對世事的險惡全然不知,她將芳心默許給了英俊的軍人奧斯朋,卻不知道意中人其實是個浪蕩子。貝琪的出身不佳,但 她是意志堅強的女人,既然沒有人能替她鋪路,她決心用自己的方式晉升上流社會……貝琪是十九世紀英國文學中絕無僅有的角色,她為了達到目的有時不擇手段, 時值英國發生戰爭,國內外陷入混亂,貝琪靠著自己的力量一步步往上爬,雖然她的某些行為讓人不齒,但她強烈的生存意志和充沛的精力,卻讓讀者不由得原諒 她。
薩克萊曾說:「小說藝術的目的是在反映現實,也就是盡可能將人生的真相表現出來。」浮華世界不啻是這個宣言下最真實的一面鏡子。
本書中譯本<<浮華世界>>由商周出版
Brilliant anti-heroine Becky Sharp will do anything to climb to society’s loftiest heights and couldn’t be more different from her rich, sweet-natured schoolmate, Amelia Sedley. Their parallel lives are marked by love, lust, marriage, fortune and loss, in all their different guises, as they navigate the corrupt circus of upper-class Regency England.
Hailed as a literary masterpiece upon first publication, William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair has never waned in popularity and remains a highly entertaining satire of early nineteenth-century high society. This gorgeous edition includes an afterword by the prizewinning author and critic, Henry Hitchings.
Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector’s Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector’s Library are books to love and treasure.