A fingersmith from Southwark
9 October 2005 09:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
larryhammerFingersmith by Sarah Waters is a delicious novel -- a heady mixture of Victorian novel, gothic, and thriller, with a touch of caper thrown in for good measure. And the prose -- mmm. Slow-moving in a Victorian way but so smooth it carries you downstream until you're caught up in the slow-motion emotional train-wreck -- and then Waters springs the first plot twist and you go "Aigh!" This happens only one-third in, and it's at this point you realize you're not on a river-boat or a train, but a roller-coaster.
I especially like the reveal of what Maud's life was really like, tearing down everything Sue had built up, and why this made her fall in love with Sue. The next big reveal, of Sue's true mother, was obvious the moment we returned to Lant Street, and I'd been suspecting they'd go there ever since leaving the madhouse. And with that revealed, Maud's true mother was really obvious, so it didn't have the impact Waters wanted. But that point, I didn't care, because I wanted to find out how we'd survive all this -- or even, what happens next.
Which happening is excellent ... except. Um. Mrs. Sucksby's plot doesn't make sense. No matter which way I unpack its loops, it involves at least three double-crosses, and that's before it started falling apart and she had to improvise. And it's not because Waters can't plot. For example: that Sucksby is Maud's mother was crucial to the book's plot, because otherwise Sucksby wouldn't have taken the fall for Maud. And taking the fall only worked because Sucksby had hit John just before, making him finger her. And that only worked because Gentleman had found a new boy to play with (that was a nice reveal, btw). Which only worked ... and so on. Waters' plot stacks up, dovetailing all together. But not Mrs. Sucksby's plan(s).
Very odd. Very good. I want to reread it. Because, after all, love calls us to the things of the world -- but first, I have some advice for a prophet to read.
---L.
I especially like the reveal of what Maud's life was really like, tearing down everything Sue had built up, and why this made her fall in love with Sue. The next big reveal, of Sue's true mother, was obvious the moment we returned to Lant Street, and I'd been suspecting they'd go there ever since leaving the madhouse. And with that revealed, Maud's true mother was really obvious, so it didn't have the impact Waters wanted. But that point, I didn't care, because I wanted to find out how we'd survive all this -- or even, what happens next.
Which happening is excellent ... except. Um. Mrs. Sucksby's plot doesn't make sense. No matter which way I unpack its loops, it involves at least three double-crosses, and that's before it started falling apart and she had to improvise. And it's not because Waters can't plot. For example: that Sucksby is Maud's mother was crucial to the book's plot, because otherwise Sucksby wouldn't have taken the fall for Maud. And taking the fall only worked because Sucksby had hit John just before, making him finger her. And that only worked because Gentleman had found a new boy to play with (that was a nice reveal, btw). Which only worked ... and so on. Waters' plot stacks up, dovetailing all together. But not Mrs. Sucksby's plan(s).
Very odd. Very good. I want to reread it. Because, after all, love calls us to the things of the world -- but first, I have some advice for a prophet to read.
---L.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
spoilers here
Date: 9 October 2005 04:40 pm (UTC)In addition to Gothic, thriller, caper, it is also a romance, no?
I enjoy good Victorian pastiche, and there's quite a lot that's good, which surprises me because it is very hard to get all the language and tone right. I think of Charles Palliser's The Quincunx, and Peter Ackroyd's Chatterton and Hawksmoor (still my favorite of his books), and Ian Pears's An Instance of the Fingerpost (well, 17th c. pastiche, but still). These are different, to my mind, from other historical novels like those of Neal Stephenson or Dorothy Dunnett (or the tedious O'Brian), because they are consciously pastiche, consciously in dialogue with Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins and M.R. James.
Re: spoilers here
Date: 9 October 2005 05:35 pm (UTC)You're right about the difference between a contemporary novel written in a historical time and a novel that attempts to be historical (a pastiche, as you say). But I'm having trouble articulating how the author makes that difference.
---L.
no subject
Date: 9 October 2005 07:43 pm (UTC)(And as if to show that pornography hasn't changed in a century and a half, Maud replies, "If I write swiftly.")
---L.
no subject
Date: 10 October 2005 02:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 10 October 2005 03:27 pm (UTC)---L.
Willbur!
Date: 11 October 2005 06:48 pm (UTC)marymary
http://www.pantoum.org
Re: Wilbur!
Date: 11 October 2005 10:03 pm (UTC)---L.