Jasmine (glamourmaven) reviewed on
The Crimson Petal and the White whisks readers on a journey through the filthiest parts of urban Victorian London and on to the cleanest suburbs. Farber uses a refreshing style, regularly reminding the reader that she is, in fact, reading a novel, and that her views of the story are necessarily constrained--by who is doing the telling.
The story follows Sugar, a 19-year-old prostitute, and her involvement with William Rackham, the heir to a cosmetics company. Their relationship evolves throughout the narrative, complicated by William's wife Agnes and her adamant grip on Catholicism. A parallel story is that of Henry Rackham, William's older brother, who grapples with the decision to enter the clergy. Henry is faithful, devout and rarely doubtful--only when it comes to his all-too-human love for Mrs. Fox, a young, vibrant, active widow.
The story lines swirl and mix with each other. Every wonderfully multidimensional character changes, grows, questions him- or herself. Many of them bump into each other, sometimes without knowing just how importantly they figure in each other's lives.
The Crimson Petal and the White, as its title suggests, is a study in thematic opposites: masculine and feminine roles, love and lust, madness and sanity, victims and survivors, earthly death and immortality, cleanliness and filth, right choices and wrong. At heart, it is a novel of how love (real or manufactured, familial or romantic) shapes the choices we make, and ultimately, our lives. How love may become the key to our immortality. How love can build us up and break us down. How true love for others begins with a sincere love of the self. How love can sustain us or drain us dry.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves excellent literary fiction, who is willing to read something a unconventional (and lengthy--but really, I wanted to keep reading!) and who enjoys good literature as art. I am so thoroughly taken by this book that I can't wait to get my hands on others by Michael Farber.
The story follows Sugar, a 19-year-old prostitute, and her involvement with William Rackham, the heir to a cosmetics company. Their relationship evolves throughout the narrative, complicated by William's wife Agnes and her adamant grip on Catholicism. A parallel story is that of Henry Rackham, William's older brother, who grapples with the decision to enter the clergy. Henry is faithful, devout and rarely doubtful--only when it comes to his all-too-human love for Mrs. Fox, a young, vibrant, active widow.
The story lines swirl and mix with each other. Every wonderfully multidimensional character changes, grows, questions him- or herself. Many of them bump into each other, sometimes without knowing just how importantly they figure in each other's lives.
The Crimson Petal and the White, as its title suggests, is a study in thematic opposites: masculine and feminine roles, love and lust, madness and sanity, victims and survivors, earthly death and immortality, cleanliness and filth, right choices and wrong. At heart, it is a novel of how love (real or manufactured, familial or romantic) shapes the choices we make, and ultimately, our lives. How love may become the key to our immortality. How love can build us up and break us down. How true love for others begins with a sincere love of the self. How love can sustain us or drain us dry.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves excellent literary fiction, who is willing to read something a unconventional (and lengthy--but really, I wanted to keep reading!) and who enjoys good literature as art. I am so thoroughly taken by this book that I can't wait to get my hands on others by Michael Farber.
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