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The Crimson Petal and the White (Harvest Book)
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Harvest Books
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 920
Publication Date: September 01, 2003
Publisher: Harvest Books
Studio: Harvest Books
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Editorial Review:
Although it's billed as "the first great 19th-century novel of the 21st century," The Crimson Petal and the White is anything but Victorian. The story of a well-read London prostitute named Sugar, who spends her free hours composing a violent, pornographic screed against men, Michel Faber's dazzling second novel dares to go where George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss and the works of Charles Dickens could not. We learn about the positions and orifices that Sugar and her clients favor, about her lingering skin condition, and about the suspect ingredients of her prophylactic douches. Still, Sugar believes she can make a better life for herself. When she is taken up by a wealthy man, the perfumer William Rackham, her wings are clipped, and she must balance financial security against the obvious servitude of her position. The physical risks and hardships of Sugar's life (and the even harder "honest" life she would have led as a factory worker) contrast--yet not entirely--with the medical mistreatment of her benefactor's wife, Agnes, and beautifully underscore Faber's emphasis on class and sexual politics. In theme and treatment, this is a novel that Virginia Woolf might have written, had she been born 70 years later. The language, however, is Faber's own--brisk and elastic--and, after an awkward opening, the plethora of detail he offers (costume, food, manners, cheap stage performances, the London streets) slides effortlessly into his forward-moving sentences. When Agnes goes mad, for instance, "she sings on and on, while the house is discreetly dusted all around her and, in the concealed and subterranean kitchen, a naked duck, limp and faintly steaming, spreads its pimpled legs on a draining board." Despite its 800-plus pages, The Crimson Petal and the White turns out to be a quick read, since it is truly impossible to put down. --Regina Marler
At the heart of this panoramic, multidimensional narrative is the compelling struggle of a young woman to lift her body and soul out of the gutter. Faber leads us back to 1870s London, where Sugar, a nineteen-year-old whore in the brothel of the terrifying Mrs. Castaway, yearns for escape to a better life. Her ascent through the strata of Victorian society offers us intimacy with a host of lovable, maddening, unforgettable characters. They begin with William Rackham, an egotistical perfume magnate whose ambition is fueled by his lust for Sugar, and whose patronage brings her into proximity to his extended family and milieu: his unhinged, childlike wife, Agnes, who manages to overcome her chronic hysteria to make her appearances during “the Season”; his mysteriously hidden-away daughter, Sophie, left to the care of minions; his pious brother, Henry, foiled in his devotional calling by a persistently less-than-chaste love for the Widow Fox, whose efforts on behalf of The Rescue Society lead Henry into ever-more disturbing confrontations with flesh; all this overseen by assorted preening socialites, drunken journalists, untrustworthy servants, vile guttersnipes, and whores of all stripes and persuasions.
Twenty years in its conception, research, and writing, The Crimson Petal and the White is teeming with life, rich in texture and incident, with characters breathtakingly real. In a class by itself, it's a big, juicy, must-read of a novel that will delight, enthrall, provoke, and entertain young and old, male and female.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A waste of 900 pages
This book was absolutely a waste of time. The author was long winded and didn't take the story anywhere. Save your money. Infact, the author needs to pay you to read it.
Rating:  - For the Love of Miss Sugar
The author write in 2nd person, so it's you who begins the book wandering through a late 1800s, Dickens-esque England. You immediately find yourself keeping company with various "women of ill repute" who are immediately humanized as women that the industrial revolution is not looking kindly upon. In order to make ends meet, these women have chosen to work less than their factory laboring counterparts in return for higher pay and shorter lifespans. And among these women is a highly-sought-after lady ... Read More
Rating:  - At over 800 pages, this book still was not long enough
I could not put this book down, by the time Sugar was starting to care for the child Sophie, I was falling in love with Sugar. The ending was a bit vague, but strong enough for a story that shouldn't end. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but this was a very well written engaging story
Rating: - Memorable and lush...
It has been many years since I read this, and I still occasionally think on the characters as if they were people I once knew and wonder what's become of them. Often graphic, often disturbing, always consuming. Highly recommended.
If you find endings which are even remotely ambiguous to be unbearable, then maybe it's not for you. The soft end to this is what has cemented it in my memory. I don't intend to sound melodramatic, but it's more like a parting of ways rather than an ending. After ... Read More
Rating:  - I felt betrayed by the ending...
All that reading, and no payoff...this otherwise-great book suffers by not ending anything! People wander off to unknown fates and the book ends. Bleah. I was also put off by Faber's shtick at the beginning of the writer addressing the reader in person. However, this ended fairly quickly and was only revisited a few times throughout the book. Half a star off for this conceit and 1.5 stars off for the disappointing ending. I ranted for half an hour (to my family's dismay) after finishing the book.
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