Authorial voice …

… A Novel Whose Narrator Is Never Seen but Wholly Present - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Dickens’s novels have proved endlessly adaptable to both the big screen and television. At this point in your life you’ve probably spent more hours watching him than reading him. In the hands of capable actors and directors his material never fails, whereas “Vanity Fair” has always failed on film—from “Becky Sharp” (1935), starring Miriam Hopkins, to the nicely decorated but tame version, with Reese Witherspoon, from 2004. Every attempt at the book’s adaptation has to fail, because there is no satisfying way to include the actual main character, which is Thackeray’s narrative voice. Once one realizes this, watching an onscreen “Vanity Fair” becomes like watching “The Last Days of Pompeii” without the volcano.