Books: The Crimson Petal and the White
After several months, I've finally finished Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White, and I can't rec it enough.
I don't know how to summarise a book like this. It's 835 pages long, and me being a slow reader with little free time, I think it's taken me about nine or ten months to read it. But that's no reflection on the readability of the book -- once I picked it up I often found it hard to put down again, and for a book of this size, that's quite an achievement I think.
Basically, the plot revolves around the exploits of Sugar, a prostitute in 19th century London. She's young, clever and ambitious, and so when the wealthy but down-on-his-luck William Rackham enters her life, she uses it as an opportunity to dig herself out of the squalor of the baudy house she has grown up in.
The plot is gripping and the details, oh my god, are just amazing. I thought I was reasonably familiar with the Victorian era before I read this, but Faber provides a whole other level of historical information -- the social mores of the time, the differences and similarities in lifestyle between the haves and the have nots, just the way the world worked
back then. But more than that, what amazed me most about this book was the characterisations.
There are quite a few characters involved in telling the story, but I suppose the three main characters are Sugar, William Rackham and his wife, Agnes Rackham. Faber has the most amazing ability to make these characters come to life in all their ridiculous, compassionate, disgusting, annoying, endearing and very human glory. I don't think I've ever read a book by a male author with such wonderful characterisations of the female characters. The level of empathy and understanding for the trials these women face in a world that is almost 100% against them from the day of their birth is beyond wonderful, and so incredibly refreshing. Sugar and Agnes have, on the surface, nothing in common. Sugar was brought up in her mother's brothel, forced into prostitution by her mother at the age of 13, and has lived every day of her life in the dirt and disease of the poorest parts of Victorian London. Agnes on the other hand is a spoiled, upper class lady who has been given every advantage in life, lives comfortably in a big house in Notting Hill, and married the man she fell in love with. And yet... despite the fact that the number of conversations these two women have can be counted on one hand, there is a connection between them from the first day they see each other that is possibly the most compelling relationship in the whole book (it's a close call between this one and another one Sugar develops later in the book, but I don't want to spoil anyone for that one). Agnes, as much as William, is the driving force for the changes that unfold in Sugar, and in a much more positive way.
I've also never read a book with a narrative style quite like this. There is a narrator, but the narrator isn't one of the characters. Still, it's more than just an 'omniscient narrator' type thing, which I usually find intensely annoying -- it's more as though the book itself is talking to you, seducing you in and taking you on a journey to parallel Sugar's, and the levels of meta in that just make me squirm in happiness whenever I think about it.
I will give just one warning aside from the obvious ones when reading about sex work: there is some racist language later on in the book. It's period-appropriate, but it was still a bit of a shock.
I don't want to say any more because I don't want to spoil anyone. So in short: read it asap! And then come back and talk to me about it :D
I don't know how to summarise a book like this. It's 835 pages long, and me being a slow reader with little free time, I think it's taken me about nine or ten months to read it. But that's no reflection on the readability of the book -- once I picked it up I often found it hard to put down again, and for a book of this size, that's quite an achievement I think.
Basically, the plot revolves around the exploits of Sugar, a prostitute in 19th century London. She's young, clever and ambitious, and so when the wealthy but down-on-his-luck William Rackham enters her life, she uses it as an opportunity to dig herself out of the squalor of the baudy house she has grown up in.
The plot is gripping and the details, oh my god, are just amazing. I thought I was reasonably familiar with the Victorian era before I read this, but Faber provides a whole other level of historical information -- the social mores of the time, the differences and similarities in lifestyle between the haves and the have nots, just the way the world worked
back then. But more than that, what amazed me most about this book was the characterisations.
There are quite a few characters involved in telling the story, but I suppose the three main characters are Sugar, William Rackham and his wife, Agnes Rackham. Faber has the most amazing ability to make these characters come to life in all their ridiculous, compassionate, disgusting, annoying, endearing and very human glory. I don't think I've ever read a book by a male author with such wonderful characterisations of the female characters. The level of empathy and understanding for the trials these women face in a world that is almost 100% against them from the day of their birth is beyond wonderful, and so incredibly refreshing. Sugar and Agnes have, on the surface, nothing in common. Sugar was brought up in her mother's brothel, forced into prostitution by her mother at the age of 13, and has lived every day of her life in the dirt and disease of the poorest parts of Victorian London. Agnes on the other hand is a spoiled, upper class lady who has been given every advantage in life, lives comfortably in a big house in Notting Hill, and married the man she fell in love with. And yet... despite the fact that the number of conversations these two women have can be counted on one hand, there is a connection between them from the first day they see each other that is possibly the most compelling relationship in the whole book (it's a close call between this one and another one Sugar develops later in the book, but I don't want to spoil anyone for that one). Agnes, as much as William, is the driving force for the changes that unfold in Sugar, and in a much more positive way.
I've also never read a book with a narrative style quite like this. There is a narrator, but the narrator isn't one of the characters. Still, it's more than just an 'omniscient narrator' type thing, which I usually find intensely annoying -- it's more as though the book itself is talking to you, seducing you in and taking you on a journey to parallel Sugar's, and the levels of meta in that just make me squirm in happiness whenever I think about it.
I will give just one warning aside from the obvious ones when reading about sex work: there is some racist language later on in the book. It's period-appropriate, but it was still a bit of a shock.
I don't want to say any more because I don't want to spoil anyone. So in short: read it asap! And then come back and talk to me about it :D