The Crimson Petal and the White

Posted on 02 December 2017 by Michel Faber

Sugar, 19, prostitute in Victorian London, yearns for a better life From brutal brothel keeper Mrs Castaway, she ascends in society Affections of self involved perfume magnate William Rackham soon smells like love Her social rise attracts preening socialites, drunken journalists, untrustworthy servants, vile guttersnipes, and whores of all kinds. New Read [ The Crimson Petal and the White ] By [ Michel Faber ] For Kindle ePUB or eBook – kino-fada.fr A word of warning, my friends I ll be giving this the hard sell To begin, please create in your mind s eye and ear the most interesting tour guide imaginable He knows all about Victorian England its people, its paradoxes and what s , he knows what you don t know but would find fascinating Transitions back and forth between our modern perspectives and their older,circumscribed ones are virtually seamless He s wise about people, too, their quirks and motivations, independent o A word of warning, my friends I ll be giving this the hard sell To begin, please create in your mind s eye and ear the most interesting tour guide imaginable He knows all about Victorian England its people, its paradoxes and what s , he knows what you don t know but would find fascinating Transitions back and forth between our modern perspectives and their older,circumscribed ones are virtually seaml...You know in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind they ve invented this brilliant device for erasing specific memories and the whole plot revolves around people who meet each other after they ve had their memories of each other already erased, so they re meet and re love and it s all poignant and kind of whoah and oops I kind of gave the plot away well, you should have seen it by now, come on, it s years old Anyway, I d love that particular invention to be true true true so that I could hustl You know in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind they ve invented this brilliant device for erasing specific memories and the whole plot revolves around people who meet each other after they ve had their memories of each other already erased, so they re meet...I ve been of the mind recently that there is something slightly worse than bad And that is almost Bad, one can deal with It s easily classifiable, and can be to paraphrase Susan Orlean in The Orchid Thief whittled down to amanageable size Almost is harder Almost teases you with what could have been, only to disappoint you with what is Almost is wasted potential Almost lingers inside you like a dust bunny under a bed in a clean room The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Fab I ve been of the mind recently that there is something slightly worse than bad And that is almost Bad, one can deal with It s easily classifiable, and can be to paraphrase Susan Orlean in The Orchid Thief whittled down to amanageable size Almost is harder Almost teases you with what could have been, only to disappoint you with what is Almost is wasted potential Almost lingers inside you like a dust bunny under a bed in a clean room The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber almost lives up to its promise.I was drawn into the novel by seductive narrative voice leading me down the streets of Victorian London It was a little bit cinematic and a little bit Dickensian, and I was immediately enthralled Crimson Petal tells the story of Sugar, a 19 year old prostitute who is renowned in London for doing everything There is no depravity too extreme, as long as she s getting paid for it Yet, that s not what makes Sugar truly interesting She s intere...If you don t like reading about sex, don t read this book And when I say sex, I don t necessarily mean the pleasant kind of reading about sex, or the titillating kind of reading about sex I mean, there are plenty of gory details in here about the everyday lives of Victorian women and prostitutes And many of them aren t pretty.The thing that fascinates and attracts me to this book is that it could only take place in Victorian London, and yet it could only have been written in the modern era D If you don t like reading about sex, don t read this book And when I say sex, I don t necessarily mean the pleasant kind of reading about sex, or the titillating kind of reading about sex I mean, there are plenty of gory details in here about the everyday lives of Victorian women and prostitutes And many of them aren t pretty.The thing that fascinates and attracts me to this book is that it could only take place in Victorian London, and yet it could only have been written in the modern era Dickens would never have been able to describe these things in such detail things that range from contraceptive me...Adult historical fiction Very adult After enjoying Faber s most recent novel, The Book of Strange New Things, I decided to try this his earlier novel set in 1870s England I have to admire someone who can evoke science fiction worlds and Victorian London with equal aplomb The surety with which Faber resurrects the world of the 1870s is astounding You will feel like you are there gritty streets, coal blackened slums, high society balls and all This is basically the story of a... Watch your step Keep your wits about you you will need them This city I am bringing you to is vast and intricate, and you have not been here before You may imagine, from other stories you ve read, that you know it well, but those stories flattered you, welcoming you as a friend, treating you as if you belonged The truth is that you are an alien from another time and place altogether Thus does Faber begin his beguiling spell of a novel, the Crimson Petal and the White He sets the bar rat Watch your step Keep your wits about you you will need them This city I am bringing you to is vast and intricate, and you have not been here before You may imagine, from other stories you ve read, that you know it well, but ...Ain t nuffink Sugar won t do, sir Nuffink It s common knowledge, sir, that special tastes as can t be satisfied by the ordinary girl, Sugar will satisfy The seamy and the salubrious live cheek by jowl in Victorian LondonThe opulence of Bedford Square and the British Museum may be only a few hundred yards away, but New Oxford Street runs between there and here like a river too wide to swim, and you are on the wrong sideOnce on the wrong side , the alleys are narrow, filthy, povert Ain t nuffink Sugar won t do, sir Nuffink It s common knowledge, sir, that special tastes as can t be satisfied by the ordinary girl, Sugar will satisfy The seamy and the salubrious live cheek by jowl in Victorian LondonThe opulence of Bedford Square and the British Museum may be only a few hundred yards away, but New Oxford Street runs between there and here like a river too wide to swim, and you are on the wrong sideOnce on the wrong side , the alleys are narrow, filthy, poverty stricken and rife with crimeWithin minutes, all pretence of decency is gone the solidity and straight lines of Oxford Street are invisible and already half forgotten, erased from the mind by a nightmare vision of subsidence subsidence of the roadway itself, of the ramshackle houses shored on either side, of the flesh and moral character of the squalid...Watch your step Keep your wits about you you will need them From that captivating opening echoed several times later on , you are a voyeur, on an extraordinarily vivid journey I was enthralled from the start, raced through the 800 pages at every opportunity, and remain in awe of the way the story is told Regularly addressing the reader in conspiratorial tones, lends an air of intimacy that suits the subject.CHARACTERSThe central ... The Crimson Petal and the White is the 2002 novel by Michel Faber, a resplendent eight hundred fifty page saga that chronicles the rise of an exceptionally clever London prostitute known as Sugar in 1874, her fall from grace the following year and how she impacts a multitude of characters along the way That story isn t at all complex and given the political machinations that existed in high and low society of Victorian England, the secrets between powerful men and their cunning mistresses, as The Crimson Petal and the White is the 2002 novel by Michel Faber, a resplendent eight hundred fifty page saga that chronicles the rise of an exceptionally clever London prostitute known as Sugar i...I was totally captivated by this novel about class differences and sexual s of late Victorian London its rich and lively writing, its cast of engaging characters, and a plot that wavers among entertaining romp, serious social commentary, and tragedy A key device is an omniscient narrator who speaks directly to the modern reader,in the beginning but also at turning points in the long story Rather than pulling you out of participation in the story, the approach works well to stoke com I was totally captivated by this novel about class differences and sexual s of late Victorian London its rich and lively writing, its cast of engaging characters, and a plot that wavers among entertaining romp, serious social commentary, and tragedy A key device is an omniscient narrator who speaks directly to the modern reader,in the beginning but also at turning points in the long story Rather than pulling you out of participation in the story, the approach works well to stoke compassion for the characters and interest in what they will do next.William Rackham is a spoiled scion of a perfume magnate who fancies himself a classics scholar and essayist Since his older brother Henry has ambitions with the church, his father tasks him with taking over the family business and uses constrictions on his allowance to motivate him He is finding it harder to maintain his aristocratic household with servants ...

English
02 December 2017

Michel Faber