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The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.

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Having seen the movie "Barry Lyndon" by Stanley Kubrick years ago, I was taken aback by this book which is so markedly different than the 1975 film. In the book, Lord Bullingdon is actually the hero, where Kubrick presented him merely as a cowardly cad. Redmond Barry (later as Barry Lyndon)deserves all the evils that befall him and his first person narrative is quite humorous especially when blaming everyone for his own shortcomings. Unfortunately, the ending leaves one a bit unsatisfied, quite like the dismal end of Mr. Lyndon himself. This novel is not on the level of Thackeray's "Vanity Fair", but fun to read nonetheless.

Here, in this relatively obscure work, Thackeray is at his ironic and satiric best. Modern critics lightly dismiss the book as a piece of journalistic hack work, but it is much more than that. Redmond Barry, later Barry Lyndon, chronicles in a fairly sophistocated and always lighthearted manner his rise from a poor Irish country boy to the astral heights of polite English society from 1750-1820. Mr. Barry is always Machievellian in his way, and is quick and efficient with his sword. He is Odysseus, Holden Caulfield, Don Juan, and Nabokov's Humbert Humbert merged. In a word, he is very, very entertaining and very, very good. The book's only glaring flaw is it's belabored and uninspired ending. But it is much worth reading to watch Redmond Barry when young

This story, like many others published in the 19th century, has many parallels today. The environment in which its characters were embedded in was certainly different, but their aspirations and pettiness has its analog in contemporary society. The moment when one decides to cloak oneself in the doctrine of respectability is when one has morphed into a Barry Lyndon. Thackeray's novel is in this sense a testament to conservatism: how traditions and beliefs, no matter how sterile they are, are dragged from one generation to the next. Young generations, of which Redmond Barry is an example, are fitted with the shackles of these beliefs, with only some managing to release themselves. The others are content to proceed along the path of a Barry Lyndon: to find some kind of contentment or belonging in societal norms, the latter of course never to be questioned.

Some readers may consider Barry the epitome of wisdom and cleverness. After all, he attained enormous wealth and respectability, and this is sometimes taken to be an acid test for intelligence and courage. And in this regard it must be remembered that Barry was at first no deadbeat: he was always good on his gambling debts. But apparently this was not "respectable" enough to buy his election to the House near the end of the story. Others plotted his defeat here, either motivated by envy or some other equally decadent emotion. Barry condemns the people (the Tiptoffs) that did this to him, as if he alone should be granted a divine right to swindle.

The historical tidbits in the novel are not to be missed: references to the American Revolution and its support by Edmund Burke, the hero of modern conservative thought; the mentioning of the "old scamp and swindler" Gustavus Adolphus; the Thirty Years War with its deplorable confrontation between Catholics and Protestants; and of course the Seven Year's War in which the story has as its backdrop.

But less Barry be condemned as being the most reprehensible of characters, one need only be reminded of Lord Bullingdon and his insistence on lineage as being the origin of true virtue. Or maybe Captain John Quin who demanded respect for his being an Englishman, and a "man of property." And then there is Barry's family, who scolded him for "robbing them of 1500l a year." These characters may induce a strong perturbation in some readers, enough perhaps to wish these characters' faces be decorated with a thick coat of saliva.

What could a reader say about the supposed "moral of the story", namely that worldly success is not always the consequence of virtue? There is a plethora of contemporary evidence for this: one need only step into a university to observe an abundance of milksops. But when one asks what the nature of good fortune really is, the issue becomes complex. One must then be able to differentiate luck from the results of carefully made plans, or even to dispense completely with the concept of luck. The Irish leprechaun is not to be depended upon in the story and "accomplishments" of Barry Lyndon, the untimely death of Sir Charles Lyndon not withstanding. Barry's misfortunes and eventual demise were mainly the result of his comfort at being an ornament of English society, with his self-painting using the varnishes of unearned wealth, with his dogmatic belief that only rogues succeed in life, with his selling of his personal liberty to the Establishment, the latter of which he pledged steadfast obedience and homage. In the latter Barry shows kinship to the contemporary conservative, who asks us to respect institutions and hierarchies, but this going hand in hand with the perhaps unintended consequence of showing "hearty scorn and abhorrence of all other forms of belief".

But Barry's sojourn in the logosphere of pretentious English society did not last throughout his life, he eventually passing on in debtors prison. This is a fitting tribute to one who thought mammon to be the most stable and controlling entity in his existence. Barry was thrown in prison for not paying his debts, and like these he never paid the debt to himself: the self that he extinguished as soon as he made the decision to embed himself in the established practices of his day, however sterile, unproductive, and supercilious they were.

Having seen the movie "Barry Lyndon" by Stanley Kubrick years ago, I was taken aback by this book which is so markedly different than the 1975 film. In the book, Lord Bullingdon is actually the hero, where Kubrick presented him merely as a cowardly cad. Redmond Barry (later as Barry Lyndon)deserves all the evils that befall him and his first person narrative is quite humorous especially when blaming everyone for his own shortcomings. Unfortunately, the ending leaves one a bit unsatisfied, quite like the dismal end of Mr. Lyndon himself. This novel is not on the level of Thackeray's "Vanity Fair", but fun to read nonetheless.

Reading other reviews here I am amazed at the different (from mine) reactions. It is many years since I read the book; nevertheless it made an indelible impression. Having at the time only read and enjoyed the author's famous "Vanity Fair" and, long ago, "Pendennis," I was blown away by the totally unsentimental depiction of a entirely amoral anti-hero, scarcely to be expected in the work of any Victorian novelist. (The character of Becky Sharp in "Vanity Fair" is comparable, though her impact is considerably softened by the other, more conventional characters, as well as the third person story-telling.)

What most remains in my memory is the story of his pursuit of the wealthiest heiress in Britain. He wins her by the simple means of pursuing her relentlessly until she agrees to marry him just out of fatigue. (I've often thought that many a man could learn something about how to win a woman by reading this reprehensible account.) He then persecutes her young son cruelly, so viciously in fact that even he feels some regret for the suffering he causes the boy and his mother.

Told in the first person, the tale is so unvarnished and "in-your-face" that it seemed to me impossible to mistake the nature of the character Thackeray portrays. Though he constantly refers to his supposed aristocratic background, it is quite clear that like many another Irish opportunist, his lineage is nothing that a thousand others couldn't claim equally.

Essentially, this is a Victorian novel totally unlike any other Victorian novel I have ever read, and as such deserves many more readers than it has had, even allowing for those who picked it up after seeing the Kubrick movie (in my opinion a waste of film.)

Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

Read the actual text! Barry Lyndon is one the most beautifully crafted films, but Kubrick's screenplay is not the Thackeray novel.

this book was made into a movie by stanley kubrick that won 4 academy awards. it relates the amazing adventures of the most dishonest man in history, redmond barry. it chronicles his unlikely rise to the top and subsequent comeuppance. he is fond of fighting, lying and ripping people off. despite his love of dishonesty and treachery, and his total lack of compassion for other people, he sees himself as a good person because he only hit his wife when he was drunk, at least for the first three years of their marriage.

When one is about to take the big plunge and give oneself the trouble of making what is always -in our age of lighter reading, of course - the strenuous effort of reading a XIXth. Century novelist, one - at least me - must make the following question: What was this author's particular attitude, as a man (or woman) of the most bourgeois of all centuries, towards his/her preceding century, the most aristocratic and un-bourgeois XVIIIth. Century? If s/he scorns the XVIIIth. Century, or is indifferent to it, it's quite likely that the author in question is a bourgeois philistine regarding Victorian times as the undisputed acme of human civilization. If s/he is an admirer, than s/he is obviously starting out of a clear sense of alienation from his/her own society, and one should expect at least for this XIXth. Century _avis rara_, genuine sense of humor. Thackeray was one of such Victorians who realized the philisteism of his own society;Eça de Queiroz, his Portuguese disciple (who seems to have learned a lot from reading him) was another. Therefore: Read this book, QED.