Fair vanity?

[keme]

There was a comment in a local newspaper about the movie "Vanity Fair". The journalist wrote that the title is an expression deeming british vanity of the 18th-19th century as justifiable (i.e. "fair").

I always believed "fair" was used in the "market"/"gathering" sense here, and the Norwegian translation of Thackeray's book is called "Forfengelighetens marked", which indicates the same interpretation. I haven't read Thackeray, and the journalist implies that he has intimate knowledge of the author's work without explicitly stating so.

I just wondered if the journalist is way off his turf, or if I should learn something from this.

[Geist]

I haven't read the book either, but I always interpreted the word as you did. Anyway, to place the adjective after the noun, as that journalist implied, would not be standard English at all.

[MikeL]

I haven't read the book either (although I did see a television adaptation). I had never really thought about the title, but it never occurred to me that "fair" might be used as in "fairground". The postposition of the adjective, as it would be in the alternative interpretation, is not unusual in poetry and book titles (e.g. "Captains Courageous"). Perhaps Thackeray made it intentionally ambiguous.

[Elanor]

Never read it either, but in my literature class we were told that the name comes in fact from Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress", where it is an allegory of some sort. Maybe that'll give you som clue. And the Polish translation also suggests 'fair' as some kind of marketplace or whatever.

[Caramelicious]

When I first read it, it sounded a little funny. But then I thought about it and it sounds ok. "A Vanity Fair"
I am not good at grammar at all but maybe...
Fair = Noun
Vantiy = Adjective
In a sense, me when I hear "Vanity Fair", it might be kind of an expression.
I don't really know how to explain it, but I understand it lol. I will think about it then come and post later.

[Geist]

But "vanity" could also be a noun.

[Psi-Lord]

Then I saw in my dream, that when they were got out of the wilderness, they presently saw a town before them, and the name of that town is Vanity; and at the town there is a fair kept, called Vanity Fair: it is kept all the year long. It beareth the name of Vanity Fair because the town where it is kept is lighter than vanity; and, also because all that is there sold, or that cometh thither, is vanity. As is the saying of the wise, "all that cometh is vanity."

Source: John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Chapter 6.

Incidentally, the Portuguese translation (as I know it) is Feira das Vaidades, though I've also heard it used in the singular, too (Feira da Vaidade).