Barry Lyndon

I enjoyed reading Vanity Fair and looked forward to reading Barry Lyndon. I was disappointed. While Thackery's writing in Barry Lyndon is probably as good as in Vanity Fair and the send up of aristocrats is in the same vain, the prejudices in Barry Lyndon got in the way for me. To like a book I have to like or at least appreciate the main characters. That was not possible here. The book's full title is actually The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. Thackery, or his publisher, was clearly signaling appearances is what this book is all about. The truth be damned. Yes Barry Lyndon is a fictional character and yes there is no truth here, but it was clear that this character's main concern was hiding the truth or changing people's perception of show more him. His real name was Redmond Barry but he worked hard to leave that behind. He was an Irishman but for him an English aristocrat was what he wanted to be considered.

The story starts off in a way that makes Redmond Barry into a sympathetic character. He is a young man who brashly falls love with an older cousin who is flirting with him. He is determined to marry her and challenges the man, a soldier, who she consents to marry, to a duel. He believes he kills the soldier in a duel and needs to flee the country to avoid being hanged for murder. But the soldier's compatriots have actually staged the event to get rid of Redmond. No one has been murdered. They've faked his death. Redmond enlists in the army to fight in the Seven Years War. He's been duped. Initially he enjoys the life of a soldier and excels, if we can believe him. But his performance is actually less than he describes it and he tires of being just an infantryman and after a few years, deserts. So far his main negative is his tendency to see himself much more positively than others do. Not so bad so far. Where it takes a much more negative turn is when he meets his long lost uncle who had been run out of his Protestant family when he became, in their eyes, a papist.

His uncle enlists his services as an accomplice whose main role is to spy on the cards of his uncle's opponents in card games. By cheating they win lots of money. They supplement their ill-got gains, by creating titles for themselves, also of questionable origin. By now we see his true character. While he wants to endear himself to all around him, tipping excessively, forgiving others losses, his basic nature is to see everyone as manipulable. No one is principled in his mind so any tactic is fair game. He's now a scoundrel. But it gets worse. He sets his sights on a very rich dying man with a much younger wife. He ingratiates himself with the older man with the goal of marrying his widow with both a fortune and title.

There rest of the story his predictable. The old man dies, Redmond marries his widow, the Countess Lyndon, and now becomes Barry Lyndon. And of course he squanders the fortune. By now he's thoroughly unlikable. The darker side of this story has become dominant. The prejudices I alluded to earlier are prominent. Woman for him are mere objects with more vices than virtues. Children are just pawns. Catholics are evil. Caste is everything. He just wants to convince everyone he's not low-born. And Jew are cheating bankers who take advantage of his losses. Talk about stereotypes. The only redeeming value here is this was written in a different age. Sorry, I'm reading it in this age.

Immediately after finishing the book and writing the review of the book I watched the 1975 movie directed by the legendary Stanley Kubrick, staring Ryan O'Neal and Marisa Berenson. It won four Oscars, Art Direction/Set Decoration, Cinematography, Costume Design, and Scoring. Noticeably not for acting or even directing. It's a beautiful film but slow moving. I don't think anyone ever broke in to a run. And many scenes were seated at gambling tables, or just passed out drunk. The most surprising part was the use of narration to keep the story moving. Interestingly most of the most objectional parts were eliminated, no references to Jews or Catholics, and mistreatment of women was lessened. While the book using canning of adults and children it was more prominent in the film because of the visual element, seeing it makes it hurt more. The English vs Irish element is there but much less than in the book. The most surprising part was a totally changed ending. I'm not sure what Kubrick was trying to achieve by altering the ending. It felt like the story just needed to end. show less

This satire of manners is narrated by the eponymous 'hero', though only he gives himself that epithet. Barry Lyndon is possibly the most unreliable narrator in English literature, and there is a great deal of entertainment to be had in contrasting his version of characters and events with the truth that peeps out through the pages. It is good fun to be shown aspects of eighteenth century high society with all its hypocrisy and foibles in the company of a (largely) lovable scoundrel, though his relentless boasting does occasionally become tedious. I learned a lot about fashionable society and its dirty linen, laughed a lot at Lyndon's cock-eyed self-image (as delusive as Don Quixote's), and even felt a tinge of sadness at his demise, show more however deserved. show less

3.5*

Perhaps I had too high expectations of this novel... I loved Vanity Fair & so expected to love this too so maybe my rating should be 4 rather than 3.5; I'll see how I feel once some time has passed.

Barry Lyndon (nee Redmond Barry) is an Irish scamp (similar to Flashman) but unlike with Becky Sharpe, I didn't feel the charm of the character. I also didn't find the same humor in this novel that had me laughing in Vanity Fair. It was an enjoyable book that I am glad that I read but it seems unlikely to be one I will revisit.

I listened to the audio version of the book. I loved Vanity Fair, and I heard that this was just as good, if not better.

Barry Lyndon is very good, and still very funny. One of the things I enjoy most about Thackeray is that his sense of humor has held up well over the years. Barry Lyndon tells his life story and a lot of things about his adventures, but it's obvious that he's an inveterate liar, and you need to read between the lines and, basically, disbelieve everything good he says about himself. His life is an adventure, as he goes from a teenage Irish dueler to a deserting member of both the English and Prussian army. He eventually becomes a professional gambler that tours Europe and finds himself among high society, and becomes one show more with them by lying, cheating, stealing, and threatening violence in order to marry one of the richest women in Europe.

Easy to root for at first, his crimes against other people get progressively worse the more the book goes on. He duels heavily throughout, though it's unclear most of the time if these duels are real. Tricking his way out of the armies is funny enough, and cheating people out of money gambling falls within moral tolerance. But his courtship and marriage to Lady Lyndon is pretty awful, and the narrative becomes harder to read towards the end when not even his lies are hiding what a terrible person he is.

This one is a little harder to read than Vanity Fair, which took place within a small group of people. Barry Lyndon name-drops and moves from setting to setting, and it can be hard to keep track of the complicated title and relationship information. I assume this was satirizing a lot of current events, but without any sort of historical annotation, a lot of this was lost on me.

Also making it hard to read was that SO MUCH of the text was about JUST HOW GREAT Barry Lyndon was. It's very funny at first, but doesn't abate throughout the novel. It wouldn't be the same without all that flavor text, but I found it tedious after awhile. I had the same problem with the insane catalogues in American Psycho.

Overall a very worthwhile read though, and I'm glad I finally got to it. show less

Thackeray's first, written at a time when he was greatly embittered (more than usual), and it shows. He's far too blunt and shows very little cleverness in his attempts at social humour. He's like a less refined Austen. Though he looks at subjects she would never go near so directly, the social observations are just the same only not as well written, making it more than a little disappointing. There's never a "did you catch that? I missed it the first time around" in any character's hypocrisy. No, we're hit over the head with it. Every joke is shoved in your face, every flaw fully exposed, and it spoils everything. That said, I'm a little fond of stupid, awful, vile Redmond Barry. Lord knows why.

In 1844, WMT was tired of the picaresque adventure story, and so he wrote one up, with a satiric twist. IT's a good book, and if one is new to the "Flashman" genre, one might not catch on that this is a satire. So it's enjoyable on both levels, and the subject of an interesting, if not always entertaining film.

Perhaps I had too high expectations of this novel... I loved Vanity Fair & so expected to love this too so maybe my rating should be 4 rather than 3.5; I'll see how I feel once some time has passed.

Barry Lyndon (nee Redmond Barry) is an Irish scamp (similar to Flashman) but unlike with Becky Sharpe, I didn't feel the charm of the character. I also didn't find the same humor in this novel that had me laughing in Vanity Fair. It was an enjoyable book that I am glad that I read but it seems unlikely to be one I will revisit.