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karen's Reviews > Fingersmith
Fingersmith
by Sarah Waters
by Sarah Waters
karen's review
bookshelves: littry-fiction, dana-gets-three, favorites
Jun 10, 10
bookshelves: littry-fiction, dana-gets-three, favorites
Recommended for:
michelle and dana
lesbian dickens!
now that i have your attention... dana has been bugging me to write a review of this for the longest time, and now that she is on vacation and out of my path for ten minutes (seriously - the girl moved to my town just so she could stand under my window all night calling "hey!! heyyy!! write a review for fingersmith! come on, you know you want to!!")
every night.
so, now that i have a little breathing room, i will do my best.
it's true, i want her to read this. i want everyone to read this. sarah waters has some amazing strengths - she creates well-developed, complicated characters, she is a master at pacing, she can construct very tight, multi-layered narratives where the next move is always surprising, and she recreates the victorian setting better than anyone else that i have read. there is also a kickass "mystery" plot in here. not a detective-y whodunnit mystery, but more traditionally dickens/collins family mystery with elements of mamet's house of games. it is almost 600 pages of puppy-shuddering bliss. but be honest, i had you at lesbian dickens.
sarah waters is an author i always break my "save one book" vow with - her last two books, i had to buy the very day they came in, i slapped a "do not disturb" sign on my head and i just plowed through them in a matter of hours. and then i felt that gutsick christmas midafternoon void where you look around and whimper hopefully - "more??". she is that good. and this is her at her very best.
for me, the best aspect of the victorian is the marginalized, the liminal members of society and what they do to get by. in this case, there is a young woman raised by a band of thieves (a band of thieves!!!) who gets roped into perpetrating a pretty long con only to find herself in a love triangle and perhaps being conned herself.
but i have said too much!
seriously - this book is a genuine crowd pleaser, even though the obnoxious lady from last week dismissed it ... "i don't want to sound fatuous, but i suppose i shall say it anyway.... this looks so.... middlebrow..." (david, i am using your voice here to recreate, i hope you don't mind)
not that there's anything wrong with "middlebrow", especially coming from a lady like this who proved that she had no idea what a 17-year-old reluctant reader would be pleased to get as a gift and instead was imposing her own values on this poor girl.(shame, shame) hey, kid - hope you enjoy the journals of john evelyn!! a real page-turner!
poor thing...
all i know is this is a truly enjoyable and memorable book,and my brows suit me perfectly. hhmph.
it's also like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quqzSt...
now that i have your attention... dana has been bugging me to write a review of this for the longest time, and now that she is on vacation and out of my path for ten minutes (seriously - the girl moved to my town just so she could stand under my window all night calling "hey!! heyyy!! write a review for fingersmith! come on, you know you want to!!")
every night.
so, now that i have a little breathing room, i will do my best.
it's true, i want her to read this. i want everyone to read this. sarah waters has some amazing strengths - she creates well-developed, complicated characters, she is a master at pacing, she can construct very tight, multi-layered narratives where the next move is always surprising, and she recreates the victorian setting better than anyone else that i have read. there is also a kickass "mystery" plot in here. not a detective-y whodunnit mystery, but more traditionally dickens/collins family mystery with elements of mamet's house of games. it is almost 600 pages of puppy-shuddering bliss. but be honest, i had you at lesbian dickens.
sarah waters is an author i always break my "save one book" vow with - her last two books, i had to buy the very day they came in, i slapped a "do not disturb" sign on my head and i just plowed through them in a matter of hours. and then i felt that gutsick christmas midafternoon void where you look around and whimper hopefully - "more??". she is that good. and this is her at her very best.
for me, the best aspect of the victorian is the marginalized, the liminal members of society and what they do to get by. in this case, there is a young woman raised by a band of thieves (a band of thieves!!!) who gets roped into perpetrating a pretty long con only to find herself in a love triangle and perhaps being conned herself.
but i have said too much!
seriously - this book is a genuine crowd pleaser, even though the obnoxious lady from last week dismissed it ... "i don't want to sound fatuous, but i suppose i shall say it anyway.... this looks so.... middlebrow..." (david, i am using your voice here to recreate, i hope you don't mind)
not that there's anything wrong with "middlebrow", especially coming from a lady like this who proved that she had no idea what a 17-year-old reluctant reader would be pleased to get as a gift and instead was imposing her own values on this poor girl.(shame, shame) hey, kid - hope you enjoy the journals of john evelyn!! a real page-turner!
poor thing...
all i know is this is a truly enjoyable and memorable book,and my brows suit me perfectly. hhmph.
it's also like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quqzSt...
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Comments (showing 1-50 of 69) (69 new)
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Jun 09, 2010 07:36pm
this is the only sarah waters book i have read, and i loved it. i've been thinking of checking out the little stranger next.
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Arrgh, I've had this on the ol' haphazard bedroom bookshelfy thing (it's too horizontal to be a bookshelf...I don't really know what it is) for 4-eva. I knew about the lesbian Dickens aspect but I did not know about the House of Games aspect, which excites me even more. To be read this summer, OR ELSE.
You know a movie is great when the suck-vacuum of shitty acting known as Mamet's ex-wife Lindsay Crouse does nothing to derail its greatness.
Bibliomantic wrote: "lesbian dickens, that's almost a double entendre with (almost) a contradiction."oh, no contradiction - i think if you look on the internet, you will find many instances of lesbian dickin's.
it's just for them, they are detachable.
karen wrote: "i know, i'm dying for another book over here.did you see the bbc movie of this?"
NO, altho some friends of mine love it to bits and pieces. //Netflixes
the film version of tipping the velvet i wasn't wild about, but this one i thought was good.look at it.
karen wrote: "the film version of tipping the velvet i wasn't wild about, but this one i thought was good.look at it."
Oh yeah, they loved the TtV adaptation, too. I was awfully partial to the gorgeous adaptation of 'Gormenghast,' myself.
(why do I not live in England waaaaaaah)
I've seen the film. I wasn't wow'ed, but then I also couldn't get through more than ten pages of this book (sorry, Karen).
aw, shucks.that's all right. as long as you don't say it is "middlebrow" in a terribly affected voice...
This country is steeped in middlebrow. We love it. We elevated and lowered Shakespeare to it. We rock at middlebrow. No one should be affecting anything without also acknowledging we own it.Actually read a great book on it once: Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America.
Elizabeth wrote: "Actually read a great book on it once: Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America. "DAMN I don't have that one! I read Nobrow, which sucked.
Your review was in my updates (friend of a "friend" sort of thing), and so I read it...pulled in by "lesbian dickens" ;-) as you called it. Anyway, I wondered, which do you prefer Fingersmith or Tipping the Velvet? I read Tipping and the story was beautiful, but it didn't make me want to rush out and get any more books by Sarah Waters. Your review made me question that reaction though. I am leaving my future (or lack of) with Sarah Waters in your hands.
i liked tipping the velvet, but it wasn't until i read it the second time that i appreciated it - it grew on me, but it took some time. initially, i was just like "blah, lesbian coming-of-age novel with a prostitution/sex slave twist for fun". and it is fine, but it is very surface-level fine. fingersmith is much meatier. i would peep into it before you give up on her entirely!
maybe this will change elizabeth's mind - coming out in october, this audio cd. i am at work so you will have to type it in yourself, but isbn 9781598598179
I have one of Sarah Waters books at home waiting to be read. For the life of me, I can't remember right now if it's The Little Stranger or The Night Watch. Wait, it's The Night Watch. I think. I'll move it up on my list.
karen wrote: "maybe this will change elizabeth's mind - coming out in october, this audio cd. i am at work so you will have to type it in yourself, but isbn 9781598598179"
Dancing with Mr Darcy: Stories Inspired by Jane Austen? You really just want to watch me lose it completely, don't you? :-)
karen wrote: ""lose it" with glee and excitement??"Or with pain and ridicule for the cheesy-wish-fulfillment-fan-fic that this might be.
aw, you don't think it's a little sweet?? if there was a thomas hardy story contest, i would be amped to read the winners.
little sweet?
It is, a little, but I've been disappointed before. I'm a little wary that it will be another Mr. Collins when I was promised Mr. Darcy.
karen wrote: "if there was a thomas hardy story contest, i would be amped to read the winners."'Dancing with Mr Oak'?
yeah, or mr. clare, even though it is my least favorite hardy - it would probably be the easiest to parody. angel fucking clare, god it's too cheesy....
karen wrote: "yeah, or mr. clare, even though it is my least favorite hardy - it would probably be the easiest to parody. angel fucking clare, god it's too cheesy...."SLEEPDANCING with Mr Clare!
exactly!! i love hardy like nobody's business, but that book is an embarrassment. i have not written a review for it because i would not be able to not discuss THE WORST ENDING OF ALL TIME, and i think it should be discovered for oneself, without being spoiled on a book website.
karen wrote: "exactly!! i love hardy like nobody's business, but that book is an embarrassment. i have not written a review for it because i would not be able to not discuss THE WORST ENDING OF ALL TIME"What, when he like turns her into a Druidic sacrifice? AHAHAHAH Hardy you were a crazy neurotic bastard but I still love you.
The thing about Hardy is he's like Shakespeare, you start describing his plots to someone ('so then he's eaten by a bear, and there's this statue that comes to life....but it turns out upstage the guy has just killed his father without knowing it, and downstage the other guy has killed his son without knowing it....') only Hardy's in prose so it's even worse.
especially mayor of casterbridge - that thing starts out wacky and gets more complicated from there...
I found a copy of this in a bookstore in Union City of all places. Yay! I am going to start it as soon as I finish Little Stranger.
I noticed♥. I would have read and voted for your review but I want to be totally surprised by the book.
yeah, like all my reviews, i just mumble about other things, but i included that lady i was telling you about with her snooty attitude. hated.but don't read the review - you have to read books - go!!
The book Snooty Lady picked out for her niece looks hella boring. Her niece will probably 'forget' to pack it when she goes to England.
i hate people that buy shitty presents for people, especially when i was right there to help - it could have been magical. now that kid will probably never learn to like reading.
Did you hear the interview with Ricky Jan on Fresh Air? It's great. He's explaining different kinds of cons and how so many of them depend on the mark being greedy and thinking that they could never be fooled. Terry Gross says "Could I be a mark?" and he very gently, but kind of condescendingly says, "Terry, anyone can be a mark." Since then the Mister and I are always saying "Could I be a mark??" to each other.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWvRor... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1ZGIN...
the second one has a misleading title. drat.
"oh, no contradiction - i think if you look on the internet, you will find many instances of lesbian dickin's. it's just for them, they are detachable."Which reminds me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byDiIL...
yay! my review-on-demand! if it can be considered that months after the fact...people are going to think i'm a crazy stalker from this review. i've only yelled to your window once.
so now that you've reviewed this for me does that mean i have to read it? i do like thieves, maybe even better than pirates.
thanks for the festive pirate decoration, by the way!
