Vanity Fair

AUDIOFILE's Golden Voice Wanda McCaddon ignites Thackeray's classic with her apt rendition of the characters' wit, gentle sarcasm, irony, and na•veté. VANITY FAIR features two early-nineteenth-century heroines and their dizzying attempts to create their destinies. McCaddon's pitch and accents capture the subtle nuances of British culture, class, education, sex, age, and social status in the satirical panorama of upper-middle-class life and manners. While never approaching the biting edge of ridicule, McCaddon lends just the right modulation to alert the listener to Thackeray's sardonic intent. As Becky Sharp's station in society evolves, McCaddon clearly articulates the upper class's shallow values, duplicity, and hypocritical morals. Even the practical and mundane are cloaked in truths of human nature. An endearing classic. A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine


Timothy West is the voice of Thackeray himself--author, storyteller, social critic. Crusty, witty and observant, he talks directly to the listener as he follows the lives of that ultimate social climber, Becky Sharp, and her contemporaries in early nineteenth-century England. We see the characters as caricatures through his eyes; we aren't allowed to get too close, so it's appropriate that they aren't individually portrayed in a vocal sense. The abridgment makes it difficult to keep track of minor players and some plot lines, but the essential flavor of Thackeray's satiric masterpiece is retained. This is another of the excellent Highbridge Classics series. J.B.G. (c) AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine