Book: The crimson petal and the white
Oct. 22nd, 2010 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livAuthor: Michel Faber
Details: (c) Michel Faber 2002; Pub Canongate 2008; ISBN 978-1-84767-372-5
Verdict: The crimson petal and the white would be Dickensian, except that it's realistic.
Reasons for reading it:nanaya recommended it very strongly.
How it came into my hands: Waterstones ebook shop, which is so far proving reasonably good at selling me at least a proportion of the books I want. Having it as an ebook meant that I wasn't put off reading it by carrying around a really huge tome, and also I read it interspersed with physical books so didn't get overwhelmed by its length and density.
The crimson petal and the white is doing that slightly annoying thing of comparing wives to prostitutes, but doing it really well and subtly. It's sort of the story of a prostitute who schemes to become the permanent mistress of a rich businessman, but it's also a sweeping portrait of late Victorian society. The people are very well characterized, but so is the setting, I really felt drawn into the world. One thing that tCP&tW does really well is show how the different parts of society are interdependent, but how in a highly stratified society the individuals often aren't aware of it. Not surprisingly, there's a lot of illustration of Victorian sexual morality, but Faber avoids the obvious cliches and vividly shows the consequences of hypocrisy about sex. I don't always have a great deal of time for books which rely heavily on sex scenes for chracterization, but tCP&tW uses this technique exceptionally well. I think part of the reason it works so well is that the sex, which is nearly all unwilling if not outright rape, is described in great detail, but is never pornographic, and the risks of pregnancy, social disgrace, disease and injury are all portrayed unflinchingly.
This description probably makes the book sound depressing, but the vivid characters and the way that they snatch what joy and friendship they can out of a miserable and dangerous existence lifts it above that level. Just as the Faber avoids making unpleasant sex titillating, he also avoids making the unpleasantness thrillingly horrific. The writing is never preachy at all; I could see parallels with the problems of modern society, and be angry about the extreme unfairness of the gender and class systems, but it was up to me to infer this from the story, the narration was never beating me over the head with its morals. It's completely unsentimental, and this matter-of-factness about describing horrors makes it more moving.
I cared very much about all the characters (even though most of them are not particularly pleasant!), and as a result I found it a bit frustrating that the whole long book never really ties anything up, it's just a bunch of scences from various people's lives. I couldn't quite work out if the ending was supposed to be tragic, or at least somewhat hopeful, or just entirely open-ended. In particular I kept vacillating about whether Sugar's rescue plan was likely to succeed or to end in horrendous disaster for both her and Sophie; I'm inclined towards the latter interpretation, but I'm not sure.
There are really very few books like this, and I'm very glad thatnanaya brought it to my attention.
Details: (c) Michel Faber 2002; Pub Canongate 2008; ISBN 978-1-84767-372-5
Verdict: The crimson petal and the white would be Dickensian, except that it's realistic.
Reasons for reading it:
nanaya recommended it very strongly.How it came into my hands: Waterstones ebook shop, which is so far proving reasonably good at selling me at least a proportion of the books I want. Having it as an ebook meant that I wasn't put off reading it by carrying around a really huge tome, and also I read it interspersed with physical books so didn't get overwhelmed by its length and density.
The crimson petal and the white is doing that slightly annoying thing of comparing wives to prostitutes, but doing it really well and subtly. It's sort of the story of a prostitute who schemes to become the permanent mistress of a rich businessman, but it's also a sweeping portrait of late Victorian society. The people are very well characterized, but so is the setting, I really felt drawn into the world. One thing that tCP&tW does really well is show how the different parts of society are interdependent, but how in a highly stratified society the individuals often aren't aware of it. Not surprisingly, there's a lot of illustration of Victorian sexual morality, but Faber avoids the obvious cliches and vividly shows the consequences of hypocrisy about sex. I don't always have a great deal of time for books which rely heavily on sex scenes for chracterization, but tCP&tW uses this technique exceptionally well. I think part of the reason it works so well is that the sex, which is nearly all unwilling if not outright rape, is described in great detail, but is never pornographic, and the risks of pregnancy, social disgrace, disease and injury are all portrayed unflinchingly.
This description probably makes the book sound depressing, but the vivid characters and the way that they snatch what joy and friendship they can out of a miserable and dangerous existence lifts it above that level. Just as the Faber avoids making unpleasant sex titillating, he also avoids making the unpleasantness thrillingly horrific. The writing is never preachy at all; I could see parallels with the problems of modern society, and be angry about the extreme unfairness of the gender and class systems, but it was up to me to infer this from the story, the narration was never beating me over the head with its morals. It's completely unsentimental, and this matter-of-factness about describing horrors makes it more moving.
I cared very much about all the characters (even though most of them are not particularly pleasant!), and as a result I found it a bit frustrating that the whole long book never really ties anything up, it's just a bunch of scences from various people's lives. I couldn't quite work out if the ending was supposed to be tragic, or at least somewhat hopeful, or just entirely open-ended. In particular I kept vacillating about whether Sugar's rescue plan was likely to succeed or to end in horrendous disaster for both her and Sophie; I'm inclined towards the latter interpretation, but I'm not sure.
There are really very few books like this, and I'm very glad that
nanaya brought it to my attention.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-26 09:57 am (UTC)I think the Henry/Emma story is the one which moves me most, but I definitely agree that it's an integrated part of a complex whole. I choose to see the end as somewhat hopeful, but I'm a bit of a romantic there, so I'm biased.