In writing ‘Fingersmith’ Sarah Waters has not only written a fantastic historical thriller but she has shown her literary skill and knowledge by mimicking the Victorian mystery melodrama genre with great aplomb.
The story deals with two young girls both just seventeen, one Sue Trinder an ... Read review
Fingersmithis the third slice of engrossing lesbian Victoriana from Sarah Waters. Although ... more
lighter and more melodramatic in tone than its predecessorAffinity, this hypnotic suspense novel is awash with all manner of gloomy Dickensianleitmotifs: pickpoc...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Fingersmith is the third slice of engrossing lesbian Victoriana from Sarah Waters. ... more
Although lighter and more melodramatic in tone than its predecessor Affinity, this hypnotic suspense novel is awash with all manner of gloomy Dickensian leitmotifs: pick...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Fingersmith is the third slice of engrossing lesbian Victoriana from Sarah Waters. ... more
Although lighter and more melodramatic in tone than its predecessor Affinity, this hypnotic suspense novel is awash with all manner of gloomy Dickensian leitmotifs: pick...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Fingersmith is the third slice of engrossing lesbian Victoriana from Sarah Waters. ... more
Although lighter and more melodramatic in tone than its predecessor Affinity, this hypnotic suspense novel is awash with all manner of gloomy Dickensian leitmotifs: pick...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
We could pass anything, anything at all, at speeds which would astonish you. Sue, orphaned ... more
at birth, is born among petty thieves - fingersmiths - in London's Borough. From the moment she draws breath, her fate is linked to another orphan, growing up in a gloomy mansion not too many miles away.
Advantages: Well plotted and written, evocative of the period and the traditional genre Disadvantages: Three part structure caused the sotry to stall slightly
...has grown up as a Fingersmith (thief) and belongs to a street gang led by the imposing Mrs Sucksby and Mr Ibbs an expert locksmith and criminal fence. She has had to learn from a very early age that life is tough and that to survive you have to be prepared to live a life of crime. Despite this Sue is not totally corrupted by this world, she has also been protected from the worst excesses by Mrs Sucksby who it seems favoured her amongst the rest of ... ...her harsh upbringing Sue is still an innocent in many ways just as Maud is.
The story centres around these two girls is split in three parts telling us the story from a changing perspective and surprising the reader with each turn of the page. This way of unravelling the story is both intriguing and frustrating, it is the one aspect of the book that I felt a little unsure about. In essence the story told in part one is repeated through ... more
In writing ‘Fingersmith’ Sarah Waters has not only written a fantastic historical thriller but she has shown her literary skill and knowledge by mimicking the Victorian mystery melodrama genre with great aplomb.
The story deals with two young girls both just seventeen, one Sue Trinder an orphan and street thief brought up in Borough a rough quarter of Victorian London, the other Maud Lilly an only child also orphaned at a young age brought up in a mental asylum but now living with her rich uncle Lilly (based on real life book collector Henry Spenser Ashbee) in the decaying splendour of Briar a country manor house on the banks of the Thames on the outskirts of London. Both girls become embroiled in a cunning and fiendish plan by Richard Rivers a roguish conman also known as ‘Gentleman’ to steal a large fortune but things don’t go to plan and soon both girls find themselves in great danger, their freedom and sanity in peril.
To describe the novel as ‘Dickensian’ would be accurate in that it is set in the lower circles of Victorian criminal society. This is a world thieve dens in run down parts of London. There are gangs of children roaming the streets pick pocketing passers like Fagin’s gang in ‘Oliver Twist’ and indeed Dickens’s novels popular at the time are mentioned in the story. Of course the parallels with Dickens are not accidental neither are the similarities to another contemporary style of the Victorian period the so-called ‘Penny Dreadful’ or ‘Sensational’ novels by authors like Wilkie Collins. Although most of these could be described also as early detective novels their main feature was that their convoluted plot always had a secret to reveal. ‘Fingersmith’ is not a detective novel but it certainly does have plenty of secrets that are revealed in sensational and gripping fashion throughout. These ‘Sensational’ novels were also characterised by the plight of a central female character often facing ‘sexual peril’. The stories exuded an overall creepy atmosphere, bleak setting filled with menace populated by sneering villains and vulnerable heroines. Sarah Waters adopts these characteristics in ‘Fingersmith’, the two central female characters go through very tough times before a dramatic and violent conclusion takes place. As in previous Waters novels the female characters are the best defined and the strongest in the story. Both Maud and Sue are intricate personalities, Maud has been corrupted by her uncle’s virtual imprisonment of her and her abuse at being exposed to sexual deviancy and eroticism that would’ve have been unthinkable to any young woman of her social class. Maud is in many ways a contradiction in that she has lost her innocence by virtue of her treatment and knowledge and yet is naive and childish in her relations with others.
Sue on the face of it is totally different she has grown up as a Fingersmith (thief) and belongs to a street gang led by the imposing Mrs Sucksby and Mr Ibbs an expert locksmith and criminal fence. She has had to learn from a very early age that life is tough and that to survive you have to be prepared to live a life of crime. Despite this Sue is not totally corrupted by this world, she has also been protected from the worst excesses by Mrs Sucksby who it seems favoured her amongst the rest of the gang becoming like a mother to her. So despite her harsh upbringing Sue is still an innocent in many ways just as Maud is.
The story centres around these two girls is split in three parts telling us the story from a changing perspective and surprising the reader with each turn of the page. This way of unravelling the story is both intriguing and frustrating, it is the one aspect of the book that I felt a little unsure about. In essence the story told in part one is repeated through the eyes of a second character in part two. While this is a clever literary device and allows us to see beyond the surface plot to uncover hidden schemes and subterfuge it also felt like the story had stalled and I was to some extent irritated that I had to wait to reach part three for any real narrative progression. I must state though that this in the end is a minor criticism and in retrospect the story overall benefited by the way it was laid out in three parts using different character perspective.
Sarah Waters is very good at setting up the uncompromising brutal Victorian world where money and status was essential to avoid destitution. She vividly bring to life the ghetto like Borough where Sue and her ‘family’ of thieves live in a crumbling house often full of abandoned babies that Mrs Sucksby takes in order to sell on to others. The cries of the babies being subdues by ‘dosing’ them with gin!
Waters also manages to bring to life the horrors of the Victorian mental asylums that were used more often than not to hide away unwanted relatives or women that had brought dishonour on their families. These where dreadful places manned by overbearing sadistic nurses who tortured the inmates with a variety of inhumane treatments. Medical cures of sorts were administered by quack doctors who believed in the intrinsic instability and fragility of women’s minds if they were exposed to too much freedom of thought and general excitement. The reality of life for many women at this time was bleak. The prospect of marriage was a dangerous one. On one hand it could bring security and social acceptance on the other a woman became totally legally subservient to her husband and thus could be abused by him or with the agreement of malleable doctors could be locked away in a prison like asylum if her presence became an inconvenience.
I don’t know for sure how accurate the descriptions of Victorian life were but they certainly felt believable and I would expect that a great deal of research was done from an author such as Waters who has a Ph.D. in English Literature and has been an associate lecturer with the Open University.
One aspect of ‘Fingersmith’ that you would not have found (at least such an obvious way) in the original Victorian sensational novels is sex and eroticism. Of course Waters is famous for what has been described as ‘Lesbian Victoriana’ best exemplified by her earlier novel ‘Tipping the Velvet’ and ‘Fingersmith’ once again leads us into this forbidden world of Victorian desire.
Another aspect of the story, which differs from the original novels (but maybe is more realistic that the originals) is the language used by the character. There are plenty of expletives and for a while this seemed odd since we all have a certain image of how period speech should be from the novels of the time and the films adaptations and costume dramas we have all seen. Even the most ruthless and despicable characters like Bill Sykes never uttered the F word although we know that it was commonly used in the rougher strata of Victorian societies. This preconditioning to the genre makes it odd for us to see the characters ‘effing and blinding’ at every turn. You quickly get used to this and of course this is far more realistic than any language Dickens would ever have his characters use.
Waters is often seen as a woman’s writer and it is true that her main characters in this book as in her other books mainly strong women but it would be a mistake to exclude a male readership because of this. The story is ultimately high melodrama with an intriguing mystery at its centre but it is also a cracking read and will satisfy anyone who has a liking for the Victorian genre.
Recommended.
‘Fingersmith’ is available in paperback (560 pages) published by Virago Press (ISBN-10: 1860498833 ISBN-13: 978-1860498831) from Amazon for £5.98 (+p&p) at the time this review was written.
Advantages: A wonderful story. Disadvantages: Not suited to those who do not like historical fiction.
Tempted by my first experience of the written work of Sarah Waters, and her book "Affinity", I bought this book with high expectations. The story is set in London, the year 1862. We are introduced to the characters that are to form the foundation of the book fairly early on, and the reader is taken from the lowly "Borough" area of London where Susan Trinder's formative years are spent in the care of a Mrs. Sucksby who takes in infants, and Mr. Ibbett, ... ...build up the texture of the story are colourful and very believeable, and the visit of "The Gentleman" is about to change the fortunes of the young Susan for ever. The writing of the story can only be described as "delicious". Many writers make the mistake of using many words to say nothing. Sarah Waters uses exquisite detail and in doing so, makes the sense and sensibility of her characters work. Taking the story from the perspectives of the characters ...
thingywhatsit 05.07.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
Advantages: Compelling, shocking plot and unforgettable characters. Disadvantages: Brutal imagery will give you nightmares.
...with this one though – Fingersmith is relentlessly dark and emotionally gruelling, virtually from the first page. The book is a whopping 550 pages long, and is made up of three very distinct ‘parts’. In this op, I’m mainly going to talk about Part One, simply because after the end of that part, the plot then flies off on a wild roller-coaster ride with twists and turns making you gasp as each development unfolds. I can’t bear to ruin any of those ... ...weeks after I finished this, and couldn’t put their story out of my mind. I immediately embarked on a lighthearted crime caper novel, as I needed the respite. But the thing about Fingersmith is simply that once you have read it, you’ll never be able to forget it.
*Unmissable*. ...
ShoppingGirl 12.03.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
Advantages: Stunning story, great characters...brilliant book! Disadvantages: None really
There's something magical about Victorian London. Some of my favourite books (The Ruby in the Smoke) have been written about it, some brilliant films set in it (From Hell was forgettable, but anything with Johnny Depp in it is worth a mention). I'm not talking about the posh, affluent areas of London. I'm talking about the rough underbelly, the 'Borough', 'Wapping', the smoky dense soup of thieves - 'Fingersmiths' - and orphans and prostitutes. Here, ... ...at birth. Sue lives with Mrs Sucksby - now there's a gorgeous name! Say it aloud; it just rolls off your tongue - who, if anyone is, is her mother. Mrs Sucksby farms babies on Lant Street, including Sue, but, having been fond of her mother, a hanged murderess, treats Sue differently, more like a daughter. Sue is 'going to make all our fortunes' one day, she says.
Sue's father figure is Mr Ibbs, a man who runs a shop to which thieves gather and ply ...
franproc 06.11.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
Advantages: Brilliant descriptions, realistic characters and an interesting romance with plot twists. Disadvantages: Some might find this slow-paced and overly descriptive.
...most of Sarah Waters' books, Fingersmith involves Lesbian romance which is depicted tastefully although in some parts has graphic content. The feelings developing between Sue and Maud were realistic and fun to read. I found the plot twists that appeared in the novel surprising and brilliant.
Fingersmith was an enjoyable read, I raced through the pages just to find out what would happen next and spent most of my nights staying up just so I could ...
Mistybrook 07.08.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
Advantages: Good Plot with exciting twists Disadvantages: Slow at the start but picks up rapidly
I absolutely love Sarah Waters. Some how she seems to strike a balance between Lesbian interest and a damn good story.
Sarah Waters is an author who works lesbian love into a natural story line, without the filthy sex and scandal. It's nice to buy a book which doesnt sit under the 'gay interest' sections, because others regard her to simply be a great story teller. This means that although Water's main readers are interested in the Lesbian plot ... ...to people interested in historically set fiction.
The story is set in Victorian London, and tells the story of two orphan girls, living apart, but who's pasts and futures are linked by a mother and her gentleman thief. 'Sue Trinder' grows up with her 'mother' Mrs Sucksby, and 'Maud Lilly' grows up alone taken from the madhouse she grew up in from by her Uncle. The women are bought together, seemingly by a Gentleman who seeks to make money from 'Maud' ...
Dana_Leigh 25.07.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
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Advantages: Well written though others are better. Disadvantages: Too graphic.
women, and what SarahWaters achieved was a wonderful balance of reality based on the trust placed between two people, whose lives cross by complete chance and that detailed the way in which women can become close, trusting friends. I loved Affinity. It was the best book I have read for a long time, and the cleverness of the writer sparkled. In her book, Fingersmith, SarahWaters also dealt with lesbianism in a way that is acceptable to any reader, girls thrown together by circumstance, and the scenarios both believeable and enchanting, with a very strong storyline that made the book feel like you were taking the choice chocolates from a good quality box. It was subtle and had substance. It was clever in that the story was so well founded.
In "The Night Watch", which was my third read of SarahWaters, she began to lose appeal, since ...