Polka Dot Rock
15th June 2007, 15:00
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
Paperback: 894 pages
Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd; New Ed edition (30 Sep 2003)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1841954314
ISBN-13: 978-1841954318
From Amazon.co.uk
Although it's billed as "the first great 19th-century novel of the 21st century," The Crimson Petal and the White is anything but Victorian. It's the story of a well-read London prostitute named Sugar, who spends her free hours composing a violent, pornographic screed against men. Michel Faber's dazzling second novel dares to go where George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss and the works of Charles Dickens could not. We learn about the positions and orifices that Sugar and her clients favour, about her lingering skin condition, and about the suspect ingredients of her prophylactic douches. Still, Sugar believes she can make a better life for herself.
When she is taken up by a wealthy man, the perfumer William Rackham, her wings are clipped and she must balance financial security against the obvious servitude of her position. The physical risks and hardships of Sugar's life (and the even harder "honest" life she would have led as a factory worker) contrast--yet not entirely--with the medical mistreatment of her benefactor's wife, Agnes, and beautifully underscore Faber's emphasis on class and sexual politics. In theme and treatment, this is a novel that Virginia Woolf might have written, had she been born 70 years later. The language, however, is Faber's own--brisk and elastic--and, after an awkward opening, the plethora of detail he offers (costume, food, manners, cheap stage performances, the London streets) slides effortlessly into his forward-moving sentences.
Despite its 800-plus pages, The Crimson Petal and the White turns out to be a quick read, since it is truly impossible to put down.
* * *
From the back of the book:
Gripping from the first page, this immense novel is an intoxicating and deeply satisfying read. Faber's most ambitious fictional creation yet, it is sure to affirm his position as one of the most talented and brilliant writers working in the UK. Sugar, an alluring, nineteen-year-old whore in the brothel of the terrifying Mrs Castaway, yearns for a better life. Her ascent through the strata of 1870's London society offers us intimacy with a host of loveable, maddening and superbly realised characters. At the heart of this panoramic, multi-layered narrative is the compelling struggle of a young woman to lift her body and soul out of the gutter. The Crimson Petal and the White is a big, juicy, must-read of a novel that will delight, enthral, provoke and entertain young and old, male and female.
I've been meaning to do a review of this for ages...
If I had one word to review this whole novel: WOW.
Where to begin? For starters I can't remember reading an opening quite as striking as Crimson Petal's is, and this high performing beginning has, thus far, been maintained throughout.
It's like all the Victorian-era literature we love but with all the manky/scandalous/sweary bits left in :lol: Plus all beautifully written! Seriously, Faber is an extraordinary writer - the details he includes to really heighten the sense of 'being in the story' are exquisite!
Yet, it's also an incredibly readable novel and very, very funny and bawdy. Actually, it's incredibly graphic in parts (as part of it is set in a brothel) - my eyes nearly popped out a couple of times towards the end of the first part! (Like this: :icon_eek:, lol!) But it's all part of the narrative and the sense of the novel being what Victorian writers couldn't actually write, yet must have known went on, at the time. Faber takes on a bit of a Thackeray narrative persona too, which I just love.
I couldn't wait to get back to reading it, and it really is true what some of the reviews said: at 835 pages long, it does feel too short!
I was utterly bereft when I finished it - the characters were so sharply drawn that I really miss them now they are out of my life
Definitely 10/10 :mrgreen: - and I would give it more if I could!!
Paperback: 894 pages
Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd; New Ed edition (30 Sep 2003)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1841954314
ISBN-13: 978-1841954318
From Amazon.co.uk
Although it's billed as "the first great 19th-century novel of the 21st century," The Crimson Petal and the White is anything but Victorian. It's the story of a well-read London prostitute named Sugar, who spends her free hours composing a violent, pornographic screed against men. Michel Faber's dazzling second novel dares to go where George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss and the works of Charles Dickens could not. We learn about the positions and orifices that Sugar and her clients favour, about her lingering skin condition, and about the suspect ingredients of her prophylactic douches. Still, Sugar believes she can make a better life for herself.
When she is taken up by a wealthy man, the perfumer William Rackham, her wings are clipped and she must balance financial security against the obvious servitude of her position. The physical risks and hardships of Sugar's life (and the even harder "honest" life she would have led as a factory worker) contrast--yet not entirely--with the medical mistreatment of her benefactor's wife, Agnes, and beautifully underscore Faber's emphasis on class and sexual politics. In theme and treatment, this is a novel that Virginia Woolf might have written, had she been born 70 years later. The language, however, is Faber's own--brisk and elastic--and, after an awkward opening, the plethora of detail he offers (costume, food, manners, cheap stage performances, the London streets) slides effortlessly into his forward-moving sentences.
Despite its 800-plus pages, The Crimson Petal and the White turns out to be a quick read, since it is truly impossible to put down.
* * *
From the back of the book:
Gripping from the first page, this immense novel is an intoxicating and deeply satisfying read. Faber's most ambitious fictional creation yet, it is sure to affirm his position as one of the most talented and brilliant writers working in the UK. Sugar, an alluring, nineteen-year-old whore in the brothel of the terrifying Mrs Castaway, yearns for a better life. Her ascent through the strata of 1870's London society offers us intimacy with a host of loveable, maddening and superbly realised characters. At the heart of this panoramic, multi-layered narrative is the compelling struggle of a young woman to lift her body and soul out of the gutter. The Crimson Petal and the White is a big, juicy, must-read of a novel that will delight, enthral, provoke and entertain young and old, male and female.
I've been meaning to do a review of this for ages...
If I had one word to review this whole novel: WOW.
Where to begin? For starters I can't remember reading an opening quite as striking as Crimson Petal's is, and this high performing beginning has, thus far, been maintained throughout.
It's like all the Victorian-era literature we love but with all the manky/scandalous/sweary bits left in :lol: Plus all beautifully written! Seriously, Faber is an extraordinary writer - the details he includes to really heighten the sense of 'being in the story' are exquisite!
Yet, it's also an incredibly readable novel and very, very funny and bawdy. Actually, it's incredibly graphic in parts (as part of it is set in a brothel) - my eyes nearly popped out a couple of times towards the end of the first part! (Like this: :icon_eek:, lol!) But it's all part of the narrative and the sense of the novel being what Victorian writers couldn't actually write, yet must have known went on, at the time. Faber takes on a bit of a Thackeray narrative persona too, which I just love.
I couldn't wait to get back to reading it, and it really is true what some of the reviews said: at 835 pages long, it does feel too short!
I was utterly bereft when I finished it - the characters were so sharply drawn that I really miss them now they are out of my life
Definitely 10/10 :mrgreen: - and I would give it more if I could!!