#i was like 'wow this is a super-odd meta opening for a period drama to choose'

[fictionadventurer]

Adding Vanity Fair to the list of classic literature that I have avoided for far too long, because everyone talked about the serious parts and neglected to mention that it was hilarious.

Why was everyone telling me about Becky Sharpe, the scandalous and shocking anti-heroine (yuck), and never once mentioning the narrator who goes off on wonderfully absurd meta-tangents about the novel's structure and characters? It would be like talking about Wodehouse as if it were all from the POV of one of the scheming antagonists and failing to mention the wide cast of absurd characters and the quirky narration. Why does this kind of thing always happen with British literature specifically? Please let me know when books are funny, I'm begging you.