“The Crimson Petal and the White”, by Michel Faber

 

 

838 pages, Canongate Books, ISBN-13: 978-1841953236

I miss Borders and their overstock aisles; I mean, Barnes & Noble has their own overstocks, as well, and the old location in Rochester, Michigan, once had a whole mess of used books – but, I dunno, Borders seemed to have more variety or something; maybe I’m remembering through rose-tinted glasses, but it was from Borders that I picked up The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber, one of the few novels I read in my earlier days, seeing as I was all about history and biography for so long. In a nutshell: The Crimson Petal and the White is set in Victorian London and revolves around Sugar, a peculiar prostitute (and wannabe novelist whose work is “a tale that throws back the sheets from acts never shown and voices never heard”); Agnes Rackham, the ideal Victorian wife who is of naïve and delicate femininity; and the man they share, William Rackham, the unwilling and bumbling owner of a perfumer who is married to Agnes and cavorts with Sugar.

To say that this is the novel that Dickens wanted to write had he been unrestrained by Victorian propriety (and the need to make a quid) may be stretching things. But as much as ole’ Chuck stretched what he could in his writings, he couldn’t go as far as Faber and his freedom in our culture of shock and awe (and utter lack of any standards). London life during Victoria’s reign is shown in all of its glory and gore as high and low collide and interact in ways neither party could have expected. And all told in the manner of one of those omniscient, self-righteous Victorian narrators who tells the reader exactly what they should be thinking and/or feeling as he (it’s probably a “he”) spells out the depravity of the situation. Indeed, if not for all of the sex and shit one could very well imagine it was Dickens himself describing the scenes within, such is Faber’s skill at recreating the cant of respectable Victorian boilerplate.

There are other characters to be found as well, Dear Reader: there’s Henry Rackham, William’s brother and the middle-class answer to Gladstone in his quest to reform prostitutes while suffering “nightmares of erotic disgrace”; Emmeline Fox, Henry’s compadre in the Rescue Society (those trying to reform prostitutes) whose unrequited love for Henry is both obvious and touching; the madam Mrs. Castaway and the loathsome Colonel Leek; William’s companions Bodley and Ashwell, the kinds of friends you know will get you into trouble…which is why they’re your friends. In short, the characters are fleshed out and not just representatives in some morality play as their decisions have real world consequences they didn’t necessarily see coming – just like us. Likewise, the setting of Victorian London is familiar and yet shown in a new, darker light, and made all the more dramatic for being so.

The Crimson Petal and the White is one of those honest books that will stay with you long after you have put it down for the last time – perhaps Sugar says it best, when describing her own magnum opus: “You fancy this book will amuse you, thrill you, rescue you from the horror of boredom, and that having consumed it, you will be left at liberty to resume your life as before. But this book is different. This book is a knife”. And brother, does it ever cut.