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Summary: Thoroughly Impressive.
Review: After reading some notable reviews in varying magazines and newspapers I decided to try The Crimson Petal and the White on for myself. I was not disappointed. As the book jacket laudes, "Twenty-years in its conception ..." I can see why. Faber turns the minutia of 19th C. London into tactile and clearly visible details. This technique, while entering into tedium in other novels of a smiliar ilk only serves to make Faber's novel that much more realistic and enthralling. The 834 pages that he presents to the reader (the ever-present 'you' that is constantly addressed by the omniscient narrator - writing in the 2nd person is no easy feat) might as well be 134, so fascinating and dynamic are the characters and the world in which they reside. It's worth the money, it's worth the time ... buy it.
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Summary: just a correction
Review: agree wholeheartedly with all the reviewers but perhaps American readers should know: Michel Faber is a woman!
gives an added dimension to her novels, huh?
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Summary: I am in awe over this story...
Review: Like other reviewers of this story I was grabbed by the first page! The characters are marvelous! They evoked such emotion from me, hate, contempt, love, sorrow, wishful thinking (?). Sugar for all her hard core life and attitudes in the beginning of the novel is a hero for the working girl, no matter what field she is in. The glimpses into Agnes's madness were remarkable, making you want to shout at her one minute, and hold her in your arms the next. William...I just wanted to...never mind, suffice it to say, I was prepared to like him, but his arrogance, selfishness, and "stupidity" got in the way :) Even the minor characters were so three dimentional. Emmaline Fox, her father Doctor Curlew, the other prostitutes and madame's, the pages just kept turning and turning to see what was going to happen to who next. The descriptions of the Victorian times, places, thinking, and events was so great I felt that I was transported back to that time, and it took a second to come back to the 21'st century when I reluctantly had to put the book down! We've come a long way from then ladies, and Thank-God for that! I can't reccomend this book enough...
Read and Enjoy!
Debbi
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Summary: This is the most detailed novel I've read
Review: One thing none of the other reviewers here has stated is the amount of research Michel Faber had to seriously work at to put this masterpiece together. I have studied London history and there are facts in here only a true collegiate would know and with considerable information scrubbing. No wonder its in excess of 800 pages, Michel really did his homework. This is an incredible capturing story written so well that nomination is certain to come. I'd say this book will in fact become a longtime seller and probably go down as a great book of our era. I cannot say enough good things about this book other than get a copy. If you liked it, read another close work, Mad Light by Maddox
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Summary: I second that emotion!
Review: No need to repeat the technical and emotive capacity of Michel Faber's work. I 1st read UNDER THE SKIN -- then, his short stories and other works -- and was fortunate enough to acquire an autographed pre-production copy of CRIMSON PETAL AND THE WHITE. UNDER THE SKIN led me to his work and, eventually, to his publisher, Canongate, in the UK. I recommend the publisher as well as the author. But, as for Michel Faber, I'm confident he'll surpass his peers -- and his predecessors. Addition - 11/18/2002 - you know, reading this work of Faber's, I parcelled out into a few chapers at a time. I recently realized what this particular reading experience reminded me of -- for I've had this touch of nostalgia throughout the process. When I was a kid - and my sister and I stayed at our grandparents' farm for the summer -- we would take a box of books from the local Carnegie library with us [with permission]. One of my best summers was with the collected works of Alexander Dumas -- read at the same pace -- and a bit earlier era. Yes, a different look at a slightly different class and land; but, just as outre in it's own day. A delightful parallel - for me.
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Summary: A ripping good read!
Review: Thanks and more thanks to Michel Faber for this very excellent book. Like others, I finished it in record time only wishing it had been longer. From the first page's invitation to come along with the narrator, you are totally transported to 19th century London, people, smells, sounds, culture, everything is complete and enthralling. Hopefully, Faber will write "The Further Adventures of Sugar", since there is still lots more story to tell and Faber is a seamless story teller. Can you imagine reading 800 plus pages, finishing at 1 am , then starting over at the beginning? You likely will with this one, I did!
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Summary: A BOOK THAT STANDS APART
Review: I should not like this book. I hate 19th century literature and have never been interested in the life of that period. I bought it because I was intrigued with some of the reviews. I was hooked not by the first page, but by the first paragraph. Why? The language--I find myself reading sentences and paragraphs over and over (and I am a person who enjoys plot over language any day). The characters and their world--the reader is instantly transported, as if jumping into a time warp. The research--the amount of detail is so incredible that I suspect the author has a time machine. It is the most remarkable book in years.
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Summary: The first great 19th-century novel of the 21st century
Review: I couldn't agree more... The Crimson Petal and the White will go down in history as one of the greatest books of this century. Once you enter the world of this book you'll wish you didn't have to leave (even after 800 or so pages). But don't let the length of this book put you off! You'll wish it were another 800 pages in length. Finally - a book on the order of Jonathan Franzen's 'The Corrections' has arrived!
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Summary: More, please!
Review: If you are one of those people who thinks most of the books worth reading were written in the 19th century, by people like Dickens and Trollope and Hardy, you are in for a rare treat. Faber's sprawling, gritty, lush Victorian novel, reminiscent of the best of all three, brings to life the world of 1875 London, from the grimiest, rat-infested alleys to the overladen dining tables and "servant-infested passageways" of the rich. In the course of his 834 pages Faber takes the reader to factories and taverns, music halls and fashionable Season parties, grubby brothels and formal calls. Faber (whose first novel, "Under the Skin," is totally different) takes advantage of his 21st century perspective to discreetly drop the Victorian circomlocution and ornate flourishes when the action calls for brevity. Not that you'll notice as his eloquence and skill as stylist and storyteller fuse so perfectly. The modern perspective also allows for graphic detail. There's a lot of sex, though not much eroticism. His protagonist, Sugar, started life as a prostitute at age 13, and sex is a living to her, not a pleasure. There's a lot of dirt and degradation and the politics of class and sex are ugly and entrenched. Yet it's a story full of life and hope and real people. An omniscient narrator begins by inviting the reader into the lowest slums to begin making the connections without which meeting the story's loftier characters would be impossible: "their servants wouldn't have let you in the door." It's a cold, sleety November night. "The cobblestones beneath your feet are wet and mucky, the air is frigid and smells of sour spirits and slowly dissolving dung." Caroline, an unlettered country girl, finding in prostitution a refuge from the numbing, slow starvation of factory work, meets a former colleague who has gone up a rung in the world, Sugar. Tha narrator fades away (although returning to tell us, for instance, that Agnes Rackham has a brain tumor, which will never be found) after introducing William Rackham, reluctant perfumery heir and tormented would-be artist, and the story gathers steam.William's allowance has been drastically curtailed by his father, impatient to hand over the reins. Forced to buy a ready-made hat, to make do with one less maid, William is miserable, and hearing of a prostitute who will do "anything," he resolves to be distracted. But Sugar, as well-read as she is willing, captivates him. So obsessed does William become that he masters his father's hated business in order to restore his allowance and monopolise her. William discovers an interest in the arcana of perfume and soap and his fortunes ascend. As do Sugar's. She now has more time to read and to work on her novel - a pornagraphic opus of the violent death of heartless men. She also has less freedom of movement. As point of view shifts between Sugar and the Rackham household, Faber contrasts Sugar's situation with Agnes Rackham's, William's sheltered, delicate and deranged wife. A virtual prisoner, alternately pampered and medically abused, Agnes' struggles to fit into the social world she was groomed for - her beautiful wardrobe, her total lack of biological knowledge, her constraints of behavior and speech - grow increasingly grotesque and heart-wrenching. Sugar, transferred into a home of her own, given more money than she can spend, fights boredom with an obsession to learn everything about the Rackhams so as to secure her position. Distanced from her old life, she grows fastidious. The ugly violence of her novel repels, even embarrasses her. Agnes' delicacy attracts her. As Sugar's fortunes entwine more closely with the Rackhams,' Faber introduces a "Jane Eyre" element, underscoring the gulf between that novel and this. There are a myriad of lesser characters who play crucial parts in breadth and development - William's older brother, Henry, a gentle religious zealot tormented by his own sexuality; Emmeline Fox, a consumptive, tart-tongued widow and the object of Henry's affection, who evangelizes among prostitutes; William's old school chums, a pair of repulsive but amusing dandies; the Rackham servants, Sugar's horrible mother, various prostitutes. Faber shifts point-of-view at will, giving human voice to various levels of society and Victorian thought. His characters are masterful. Even the worst of them arouse empathy (well, maybe not Sugar's mother), and the best - Sugar and Agnes - practically step off the page. And in the end, it's William, despite his worldly freedom and privilege (or because of it) who is the most constrained, his soul the most confined. In an interview with his publisher, Faber comments on character: "One of the most absurd tragedies about us as a species is that each of us is convinced we're misunderstood, alone, a misfit. There doesn't seem to be anybody in the world who feels they're what a standard-issue human being ought to be. Literature reminds us of this paradox-our specialness and our commonality." Faber's book is another paradox - a novel with perfect Victorian sensibilities, which could only have been written in our time. I could go on and on, but I've run out of space. Suffice to say if this book was another 800 pages I'd be happy.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing book...the best book i have ever read!
Review: The Crimson Petal and the White is gripping from the very first page...... a real page turner. After reading this you'll be hooked with the work of Michel Faber. I bought his earlier book 'Under the Skin' after reading this... its just as amazing! I recomend this book to any one who likes literary fiction. Even though its some 800 pages long it feels like 200 and im gonna read it again! - once isn't enough!
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