The Crimson Petal and the White

This book has one of the best beginnings I've ever read. It's instantly engaging, as the narrator, speaking directly to the reader, draws you in to the seedy, grimy underbelly of Victorian London. It follows ambitious, embittered prostitute Sugar as she claws her way out of a second-rate whorehouse by means of a rather bumbling (married) heir to a small fortune. The details are extensive (the books weighs a ton), gritty and salacious. Faber displays as much interest in Victorian religious debates as in primitive contraceptive techniques, and he's clearly done his research (over a decade of it, he says). I absolutely devoured the first 300 pages and then--then I slogged through the rest. What began as an exceptionally promising twist on a Victorian novel simply wallowed on too long. The characters either did not evolve at all, or changed in implausible ways. The ending is more of a sudden, unresolved stop than a satisfying conclusion--not what you want after sticking with a book for that long. In short, it feels like a very good idea that the author hadn't thought through and eventually tired of working with. Read the first 300 pages. Don't bother with the rest.

Having watched the mini-series on Acorn TV, I was all ready to read the novel. It met my expectations and then some. If you are interested in life in England during this time in history, you will love the book. It's very well written and never lags. It is also beautifully descriptive of the prostitutes' life and living standards of that time. It is particularly interesting to see how a marriage was accepted and continued when it was only for show. The book went into detail about how sheltered some women were before marriage. The wife in this novel remained sheltered and never grasped what life was all about. In contrast, Sugar, the prostitute was taught about survival and reality at a young age by her own mother, the madam. The book is never sleezy or crude. It is realistic and well written. If you feel daunted by the number of pages, give it a try. You may find yourself finished with this book and wishing it would go on. I recommend this book and consider it a masterpiece.

I had read, and loved, Faber's Under the Skin and The Book of Strange New Things, so I decided Crimson Petal and the White would be my first Kindle purchase. I read nearly 200 pages before admitting I was bored. Reading it became more and more of a chore, and by the end I detested all of the characters and the endless, go-nowhere plot. All of the characters are wretched in various ways, and while Faber does a masterful job of writing "in the period," I got the feeling that what primarily interested him was literary texture. I find it hard to reconcile this with his other two books, which were so imaginative and profound I couldn't put either one down (both resonate with me to this day). I would have given this one star except I have such respect for the author. If following the lives of a mass of unhappy people living in the seedy underbelly of England during the industrial revolution doesn't put you off, your reward is Faber's thorough knowledge of the period. I'm sure he has captured those wretched lives precisely.

First, I have to say that the book is very well written. Faber is a great writer. That being said, the story and the plot are not great and this book has been somewhat overhyped. The following may contain some spoilers.My first example is that, for a book billed about the escapades of a prostitute in late Victorian England, the scenes of intimacy are dry and quick if they happen at all, most of them seemingly completely omitted other than the awkward lead up to and then right to the end, skipping the act. Some instances are simply alluded to much later on. A lot of these are written in such a way as to make them cold and repugnant, even after Sugar enters a life of luxury. If you're going to write a story about a prostitute that becomes a wealthy mans kept mistress (which goes along swimmingly until pretty much the end) why would you not enhance this with vivid romance and passion? Sugar is implied to be an absolute master of the sensual arts, yet none of this is ever really amplified on besides some small trifling anecdotes.Sugar is famous from the beginning of the novel for being a prostitute who is very willing to perform a particular sort of intercourse that won't result in pregnancy. In fact, the other lead character, the man who becomes rich and keeps her as his mistress, initially seeks Sugar out just for this act. And yet, after making such a big deal about her doing this particular act, no such scene ever takes place.Far too much time in this book is spent on certain characters that simply aren't appealing or even all that interesting. An excessive amount of time is spent on the rich man's overly pious brother, a boring and mundane character who is immediately killed off after finally doing something somewhat redeeming.An even more excessive amount of time is spent with the rich man's demented and incredibly annoying wife, until she's finally killed off in mysterious circumstances...or is she? Confusingly it's made to seem like it's a small possibility that the body wasn't hers and she's still alive.William, the rich man, for the longest time holds no apparent sway or authority within his own household, over his wife, his servants. Even after acquiring wealth and status, he's still defied and maligned by his wife and some of his servants. This simply does not make sense in the context of English/British society, especially in the time period of this book, where men held absolute power in their homes, over their wives and servants. A crazy wife who wouldn't even acknowledge her own child and treated her husband as Agnes does William wouldn't be tolerated for long in any era, no matter her looks.Also, for lack of a better word, the ending is terrible. Incredibly abrupt, which the author himself notes at the end of a series of fourth wall breaking statements (where an author addresses the reader directly, completely eroding the telling of the story) and which has no satisfaction whatsoever, it's almost as if he gave up, deciding 900 pages and change should be sufficient. We are simply left with a sad image of the rich man, broken physically and mentally, waiting for a cab after fruitlessly searching for his daughter, abducted by the prostitute mistress after the man decides to get rid of her.These are just some of the glaring issues with this book.Don't let the critics woo you into believing this book is some sort of masterpiece. While it is well written, it is ultimately rather disappointing.Also (and this goes for his book under the skin, which also has an abrupt and bad ending) there is some sort of discussion guide for students or book groups or something at the back. This is incredibly annoying and I would have rather purchased the book without that.

I really didn't like this book. It's beautifully written but keeps tipping you into really ugly and coarse images, with constant use of the 'c' word and the 'n' word and totally unnecessary sexual allusions. I didn't warm to any of the characters and when I finally reached the totally unsatisfying ending I regretted all the time I'd spent reading the 800-plus pages. Sorry I bought it.

I bought the book after watching the TV series on ‘AcornTV’.As I expected, the book far surpassed the TV series (although it was a fair attempt at covering such a lengthy and complex book).I enjoyed the style of writing which really took one into the world of Victorian England with all its contradictions and complexities.There are a lot of full descriptions of sexual acts -I found them realistic rather than offensive, but some readers may find them too graphic. This is definitely not some cosy - ‘prostitute meets rich man and lives happy ever after, saccharine tale ’- and all the better for that.Its a lengthy book but easy to read,I found it hard to put down and I didn’t want it to end- I would love to know what happens to Sugar in her future life but I found it to be a fitting ending to her story.

This was a second read for me, and in a way I wish it had been a first so that I didn't know what happened. It's a tome, there's no doubt about it, but every word was a joy to read, and I was very sorry to reach the end - the inexplicable, much criticised but IMHO perfect end.I don't know how to classify this story. When I first started reading it again, I kept thinking how very different it was from Faber's other book, Under the Skin. But the more I read, the more the similarities struck me. Both of the main female protagonists are repressed, abused by men, forced to represent themselves to the world in a way that distorted their 'real' selves. They survived in a man's world only on men's terms, giving the impression that they were happy to do so, but inside - my goodness, inside the bile and the bitterness and the resentment that seethed. Not that either of these women were perfect. Far, very far from it. Sugar is a product of her horrible upbringing. She's grasping and she's cold. She has no idea how to express or feel affection. She is out to get what she can get. At first. It's not love for her protector that saves her though (thankfully) but 'love' of the two women who come into her life - Agnes and Sophie. Sugar 'saves' them in her own unique way. We assume. Of course we'll never know, because of that controversial ending. And by the end of the book, Sugar has also - not quite saved, but started to become herself. To cast off the disguise she's been forced to wear as a prostitute in various forms, and to define herself.Not sure if this makes any sense. I don't want to give anything of the book away - lucky you, if you haven't read it. It's also funny, and it's sad, and it makes you so angry, and it is a bit disgusting. It's compelling, beautifully written, and it's most importantly, a very, very satisfying story. Did I say I loved it? Fab!

I first read this novel some years ago but as I couldn’t find my copy it was great to see there was a kindle version available. Although I did see the TV dramatisation of this I wasn’t that impressed, mainly because something like this book is hard to render properly on screen. The big appeal for me is that this is a modern take on the 19th Century novel with its themes as a social novel, and as a domestic novel, along with feminism and prostitution as well as religion.Like its Victorian counterparts this is a long and in many places a bit of a rambling novel, which may put some off, and also it does have quite a few characters. The narrative does have authorial interjections which were once quite common in novels but fell by the wayside before the 19th Century was over. Taking place mainly through 1874-1876 there are places where characters reminisce further back in time when they were younger, but the main body is set in this particular time frame. The 1870s was a decade of change and modernity in many ways, which results could definitely be felt right up into the latter half of the 20th Century, and you do get an impression of changing times in this story.We start off in the world of prostitution where we are eventually introduced to Sugar, a prostitute that it must be admitted isn’t the most beautiful of women, but is intelligent, eager to do most things, and is quite intelligent compared to her contemporaries. As William Rackham takes a very large interest in this prostitute he suddenly finds that his life is on the up, as well as Sugar’s. In his determination to have Sugar for himself William knows that he needs money and thus pushes himself to take over the reins of the family business, much to the surprise and pleasure of his father. We thus get to know the Rackham family, not only William and his family, but his elder brother as well, and their servants, acquaintances and so on.As we see Sugar change from being more than just a prostitute, into a friend, and even a governess we also see how changes come about in William’s household, especially with his mentally ill wife, who alas has a brain tumour that has been undiscovered. What follows is quite an absorbing read, but I will admit that this is a relatively large novel and the narrative pace is quite slow. If like me you are used to reading large 19th Century novels then you will probably lap this up, but if such books, and as here a modern interpretation of such is not something that you normally read, then you may find yourself being bored. Personally though I love this and it is worth reading.

I regard myself as very fortunate, because when I arrived at the airport on my way to Barcelona I realised that I'd failed to pack any books. At the bookshop I picked up Faber's The Book Of Strange New Things and my reading horizons changed overnight. Having finished that book I immediately bought all his other published books, and I have just finished The Crimson Petal And The White.Faber is a writer of prodigious gifts; a master stylist and a natural storyteller, for sure, but he has that extra that is much rarer; a writer of luminous humanity. His apprehension of the human condition, and his expression of it through the many vivid characters in this book, is plainly evident. Reading Faber is a delicious and delirious joy-ride - here the dark underbelly of Victorian London is exposed in a manner of which, I am sure, Dickens himself would have approved. It would be tempting, on the basis of this book, to regard Faber as a natural successor to Dickens, except that his other books show that he has other enormous guns in his arsenal. I would say that he was "one to watch", were it not for his announcement that he would write no more novels.