The Crimson Petal and the White

Rating:
Summary: A spectacularly entertaining and profound work.
Review: Like any book, this isn't for everybody. The narrative style is unusual, it is very long, the subject matter can be disturbing (although, as one reviewer said, there are more sex scenes in the average Harold Robbins potboiler) and Mr. Faber doesn't attempt to tie up every loose end. If you don't have any problem with any of that, then you owe it to yourself to read this masterful novel. I haven't read a more entertaining book in years. It had moments of hilarious humor and profound sadness, sometimes on the same page. The three main characters (William Rachham, his wife Agnes and Sugar) were brilliantly portrayed and the secondary figures were also well thought out. The plot kept me guessing and the ending had a perfect symmetry to it. The Crimson Petal and the White will keep you thinking long after you finish the final page, which is what a great book should do.

Rating:
Summary: Challenging, intriguing and highly entertaining
Review: Although a long book, I couldn't put it down. I was immediately involved with all the characters and couldn't wait to find out what happened to them. And there's the rub. Obviously, the author is trying to avoid traditional narrative styles by doing something a little different. But I ultimately found this incredibly unsatisfying. He builds up interest and suspense in a certain character's story, and then then it's dropped, one way or another. You never find out what really happened in many key story developments. This happens so often that it's clearly purposeful, although I'm not sure what the point is. I almost wasn't sure whether he just couldn't decide what to do with his characters (especially that totally unsatisfying ending). Of course, all of this IS like real life, but this is a novel I'm reading for pleasure. In any case, definitely NOT boring (to me).

Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: After reading all of the other customer reviews on this book, I thought it would be a book I would really enjoy, but after trying to plod through it for three weeks, I couldn't think of any reason to continue. I didn't care about the characters. The story didn't seem to have any point and wasn't very interesting. The sex scenes were not at all erotic. I was so bored by it, I finally gave up, which I rarely do with a book.

Rating:
Summary: I want my money back!
Review: Please, please don't waste your time with this dreadful bore. If you want something Dickensian read John Irving. If you want somthing that's long and barely comprehensible get Infinite Jest-- at least Wallace makes you think. Faber's tome will just put you to sleep.

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Summary: Psssst! Do you want to take a closer look...
Review: Faber has written a near 'perfect' book on Victorian Society and the "private" lives of its special characters. The stories narrator is perfect in opening doors and removing veils to the world we get to know quite well by the time we leave...
Tremendous period detail... highly sensuous writting (some super sex scenes)... true characters with their strengths and warts revealed.
Its all here... a slice of 1875 England unveiled... from prostitute to industrialist... to reformer... to the Victorian child... the servant... the poor... the rich. Everything.
Sugar as the main character is unforgetable... William is interesting...Agnes is a mystery... Sophie a challenge.
The ending, as the narrator relates, is perfect to the story.
Thanks for a great book!

Rating:
Summary: too much spunk
Review: I hunkered down to read this blimp of a book with great expectations {(no)pun intended}. However, so many words and then pages turned out to be gratuitous. Somewhere in the process of putting so much down, the art of the thing was lost. The story and the characters became secondary to the graphics of bodily functions - of spunk, mucous, urine, feces, bile. Victorians went out of their way to create an illusion that such biological processes did not exist. It is like Faber is saying, "Look, here I have a Victorian who ejaculates. Here, is one who takes a pooh. And another who menustrates. This one has phlegm. Can you believe it?" Victorians would have been shocked, scandalized, revolted. The only problem is that his audience is not a Victorian audience. These details are repeated and emphasized far too much. I had to call it quits at page 500 or so.

Rating:
Summary: too much spunk
Review: Entirely too much repetitive spewing of spunk. I am calling it quits at page 500 or so.

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Summary: Wonderful insight into a 'fallen woman'
Review: This book is so interesting that I read it in 2 days! Sugar is a real person who comes alive between the pages of this book. I found myself hoping she lives happy ever after!

Rating:
Summary: A most marvelous journey!
Review: The early pages are written as well as any novel as your lone narrator takes you by his (or her) hand to visit a century past, a culture long gone, and human intolerance revisited. Michel Faber has presented a most fascinating glimpse at the morals and social constants of the late 1800s London. I am sure the level of detail, minuet character study, and the ugly work of the working girl will stay with me for some time. A most marvelous journey that I must remark reminded me of Memoirs of a Geisha. It's a long book, but never boring, and the craftsmanship and weaving of the characters is remarkable. It takes you to place, an era, a class, and a culture, which you feel and touch but have never experienced. Is that not what a good Novel is to do? Enjoy and give your time over to that lone narrator who will guide you so gently into the William Rackham household.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed or under author's intended spell....?
Review: I was intensely intrigued by the prospect of this novel, but now, after finishing it, I'm unsettled. I'm not sure whether I'm angrily disappointed or just experiencing the author's intent.
Indeed I could NOT put this book down and got pulled into its web of characters. The author's prose is superb and level of detail is engaging rather than boring--I especially love the trailing nature of the characters' thoughts, so true to life. I got intensely emotionally involved with this story--laughing, crying, angered. But alas, I felt jerked around by the characters and my allegiances to them. The two characters I found most endearing were not focused on enough, one of which was so refreshingly real and endearing but then cruelly snatched from my welcoming intrigue. The rest of the characters faded back and forth between favor to disdain in my eyes. Perhaps the only true constant was the enthralling heroine, Sugar.
Overall the book's biggest flaw is that it leaves too much to the reader's imagination (despite its detail) just enough to be laborious and disconcerting. The result is a feeling of being unsatisfied and unsettled. Yet, if the author's intent was to make a lasting impression, he succeeded. Despite what may annoy or anger me about the novel, I won't easily forget this story.