The Crimson Petal and the White

Rating:
Summary: The Crimson Petal and the White
Review: If you like Victoriana, read this book. I read all the reviews and didn't think I would like it. Then one review sent me to the computer and Amazon.com. I read the first page and I was hooked; it's been a long, long time since a book did that for me. It is a book for long, cold winter evenings, but I couldn't wait. Over 800 pages and I finished it in less than a week. (I love retirement.) I won't say the ending disappointed me, but I'm not a very imaginative person. That's why I read novels. But again, READ THIS BOOK! And if anyone can recommend good Victorian novels for me, please do so. Thanks.

Rating:
Summary: The Crimson Petal and the White Sheets Need Washing
Review: At first I was a bit torn by "The Crimson Petal and the White:" I thought is this a pot boiler of the best sort or a novel of the middling sort? Certainly there is a no want of squalid and graphic Victorian detail, especially of the bodily kind. Not a paragraph goes by without a gleeful description of sweat, blood, urine, menstrual blood, sodden gutters, hawked spit, spilled tears, pools of feces (human or animal), bad smells, nasty teeth, biliousness, queasy stomaches (sometimes the reader's) all of which makes you bless the makers of flush toilets, Ban roll-on and, Kleenex and Listerine. Smells, odors, aromas, scents, and all kinds of olfactory stimulants nice and noisome abound and rebound; the book stinks of smells. Likewise, the precise mannerings and dress of various classes of characters encountered is faithfully recounted along with the hypocracy we have come to accept as being endemic to the Victorians, high and low. Sugar, "The Crimson Petal's" heroine, is that stock creature, the Whore with a Heart of Gold, a neo-feminist, who puts the devil (lascious man) behind her (along with a cruel mother) and saves herself, a misunderstood wife and an unloved child in the process. A lot of bodily fluids get spilled in the process, and a lot of sheets get dirtied. It is a fascinating story, however, and it does pull you in for all of its 800 or so pages, no mean feat, that. There a fair amount of sex, much of explicit, none of it erotic. Mr. Faber has written a big book and filled with lots of interesting odds and ends and tosses in characters who do not seem particularly real nor do they act in particularly realistic way. They lack depth and their actions only make sense in context of moving along the rather turgid plot. It is as if being surrounded by so much gritty, harsh authenticity, the characters need not hew to the laws of natural behavior themselves. I ambilvalent about this book, but I am not fooled by it and its fancy shop windows: it very good work of fiction, but by no means is it a great piece of literature. If you want a Victorian novel written to perfection by a modern author, read Charles Palliser's "The Quincunx."

Rating:
Summary: Michel Faber is a man!
Review: This is not a review (even if my five stars can easily be attributed to the excellent faber's first book, "Under the Skin"); i want only to say that, despite what writes the reader from san diego, faber is not at all a woman, but a man; where did the reviewer got that notion???

Rating:
Summary: French Lt.'s Whore of Mensa
Review: This is a great comedy and great fun, buoyed by wonderful language, period detaill, and irony all the way through. Like Dickens (and Trollope), you read a story of a waif making her way through the middle-upper-class-stultifying world of late 19th-C London. But the narration and sensibility, so fresh, are all early 21st C, which should make it awkward and anachronistic, end up funny and right. A novel of language and entertaining chatracters.

Rating:
Summary: Not what I expected
Review: Under the Skin was one of the most gripping and unusual books I have ever read. I was looking forward in great anticipation to the latest from Michel Faber. I have to say that although it was well written in parts, I found The Crimson Petal and the White to be cliche and almost ordinary compared to Under the Skin. The characters were interesting and the time period was well researched, but the ending was a big disappointment after investing 800 pages.

Rating:
Summary: FOR THE REVIEWER 'A READER'
Review: Ummm ... did you happen to look at the book jacket? Michel Faber is a man, and if he's not well, then that's a VERY masculine looking woman! Michel is the French spelling/pronunciation of Michael.

Rating:
Summary: Definately not a women!
Review: Haven't read the book yet but can't wait as I have read all his other works and think he is one of the most interesting new - ish writers around. In response to last review, don't know if I am missing something but Michel is definetely not a women! I used to work in a book shop and met him (and his wife). Nice chap, still with quite an Aussie accent. Am looking forward to the book (published in Scotland next week) even more after all those great reviews.

Rating:
Summary: agreement/sorry to reader from san diego
Review: I agree with everything that has been said above; however:
sorry to 'a reader' from san diego, Michel Faber is most definately a man - I should know, as I come from Scotland and have met HIM twice!!

Rating:
Summary: Further correction
Review: Contrary to a previous reviewer's suggestion, Michel is a man. Born in Holland, lives in Scotland. Try "Under the Skin" - very odd, very good.

Rating:
Summary: Terrific book!
Review: Despite its most un-memorable title, "The Crimson Petal and the White" is that rare thing, a really good novel. Interesting characters, good story, absorbing period setting. And the narrative style is most unusual--the narrator addresses you as if you were watching the scene with him. This is probably the best novel I've read all year. Give yourself a treat this weekend and buy this book--you've earned it!