Summary and Reviews of The Crimson Petal and The White by Michel Faber

Media Reviews

Entertainment Weekly Here's a tale of a true city. London, 1874. Whores, high society, smut-soaked streets, the polished ceilings of Royal Albert Hall. The Crimson Petal and the White, Michel Faber's bulging, bawdy Victorian epic, is a gloves-off kind of novel, one not to be passed along lightly to your grandmother. Cocky and brilliant, amused and angry, the author is rightfully earning comparisons to observer extraordinaire Charles Dickens.

New York Newsday If you start reading this suspenseful, beautifully written novel, with its compelling characters, subtle psychology, wit and heart, you won't be able to stop.

New York Times - Janet Maslin The late-19th-century London setting and mores of the book suggest Victoriana ... the author has revived the spirit of the era's broad, socially conscious narrative tableaus. But this is also a story told in the present tense, alert and teasingly satirical about its characters even as it evokes real compassion for their peculiarly Victorian plights. There is as much Bonfire of the Vanities as Dickens here, not to mention a graphic sexual realism that is Mr. Faber's own.

New York Times Book Review Michel Faber's previous work ... was certainly ambitious and accomplished, but nothing could have prepared his readers for the sweep and subtlety of The Crimson Petal and the White.... Slowly we find ourselves inside the heroine's head, led there by a rhetoric so skilled and daring, that we hardly know it is operating.

Time Magazine ...don't wait for the movie. Read The Crimson Petal and the White now, while it's still a living, laughing, sweating, coruscating mass of gorgeous words.... Ever since last fall readers have been watching for another knockdown, breakout book on the order of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. It's here.... The result is so fresh it makes contemporary novels, however packed with up-to-the-minute pop-culture references, feel dated. And although it's almost 300 pages longer than The Corrections, miraculously it feels shorter.

Washington Post Book World It's Fowlesian nouveau-roman trickery, pasted onto 19th-century melodrama. The combination works surprisingly well. When he's not rubbing the reader's nose in Victorian sewage and soiled underwear, Faber has the Victorian virtue of telling a good story grippingly and colorfully. The Crimson Petal and the White is an old-fashioned page-turner with pleasingly newfangled twists.

Booklist - Ilene Cooper Starred Review..... Faber's breathtaking novel is more intimate with its characters and less hopeful in its resolutions. This is part saga, part morality play, and utterly engrossing..... This massive work is startling and absorbing. Readers will not soon forget the richly drawn world into which they have been enticed.

Kirkus Reviews ... a brilliantly plotted chronicle of the collision between high and low..... It's hard to imagine that any contemporary novelist could have appropriated with such skill and force the irresistible narrative drive of the Victorian three-decker, or that readers who hunger for story won't devour this like grateful wolves. Riveting, and absolutely unforgettable.

Library Journal - Joseph M. Eagan Faber's mastery of character, evocative descriptions of Victorian England, and rich dialog, together with his weaving of enduring themes throughout a complex plot, creates a remarkable novel.

Publishers Weekly Faber's bawdy, brilliant third novel tells an intricate tale of love and ambition and paints a new portrait of Victorian England and its citizens in prose crackling with insight and bravado....A marvelous story of erotic love, sin, familial conflicts and class prejudice, this is a deeply entertaining masterwork that will hold readers captive until the final page.

Reader Reviews

maggie
a matter of deduction
I enjoyed every word of the book but I too was taken aback at the abrupt ending. But now I think that if the author is as good as he seems to be, then the ending was foreshadowed throughout the book and we should have enough clues to figure out what ...   Read More chris lyle
the crmson petal the white
Excellent, compelling, loved the historical aspect and the characters. The ending was frustrating - I wanted to find out more, but it was the right ending for the book MONI80
DEDICATED READERS ONLY!
I recently finished this book and must say I really enjoyed it form the descriptive and vulgar portrayal of victorian London streets and smells to the vivid and crude glimpse of seventeenth century 'fallen women' (my favorite character was Caroline) ...   Read More southernladybug
I enjoyed this book immensely! Not only was it stunningly written and beautifully detailed, it managed to be erotic, saddening, and horrifying all at once. Erotic is self-explanatory, as you can easily tell if you have read it. It captured the ...   Read More

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Books with similar themes

• Historical Fiction
  
• UK (Britain) & Ireland
  
• 19th Century